I have been looking at other blogs, like FireDogLake and HuffPo and one thing gets me a bit scared. Some of them seem to be encouraging the Nader effect.
As a reminder for those who might not have voted in the 2000 election, the 2000 Presidential Election should have taught all voters in this country that every vote counts.
The results were as follows:
George W. Bush 50,456,002 votes
Al Gore, Jr. 50,999,897 votes
Ralph Nader 2,882,955 votes
The winner of the election was George W. Bush. However, look at the numbers. Vice-President Al Gore actually had more votes. The reason why George Bush became President was because of two states: Florida and New Hampshire.
Most everyone knows about Florida.
From Wikipedia:
At approximately 7:50 p.m. EST on election day, 10 minutes before the polls closed in the largely Republican Florida panhandle, which is in the Central time zone, some television news networks declared that Gore had carried Florida's 25 electoral votes. They based this prediction substantially on exit polls. However, in the actual vote tally Bush began to take a wide lead early in Florida, and by 10 p.m. EST those networks had retracted that prediction and placed Florida back into the "undecided" column. At approximately 2:30 a.m., with some 85% of the votes counted in Florida and Bush leading Gore by more than 100,000 votes, the networks declared that Bush had carried Florida and therefore had been elected President. However, most of the remaining votes to be counted in Florida were located in three heavily Democratic counties - Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach - and as their votes were reported Gore began to gain on Bush. By 4:30 a.m., after all votes were counted, Gore had narrowed Bush's margin to just over 2,000 votes, and the networks retracted their predictions that Bush had won Florida and the presidency. Gore, who had privately conceded the election to Bush, withdrew his concession. The final result in Florida was slim enough to require a mandatory recount (by machine) under state law; Bush's lead had dwindled to about 300 votes by the time it was completed later that week. A count of overseas military ballots later boosted his margin to about 900 votes.
From "United States presidential election, 2000" Wikipedia.org
I won't go into detail the fight that went on between the two parties. What resulted from this was Bush v. Gore.
To put it bluntly, the counting was stopped with George Bush ahead and the Supreme Court punted and said, "That's good enough." Bush won Florida.
In New Hampshire, the ballots were counted more reliably. George Bush won there, but again only slightly.
However, you don't win a Presidential election through the popular vote, you win it in the Electoral College. Because Bush had more electoral votes that Gore, Bush won the Presidency. Eight years of hell followed.
Now, the Electoral College is not involved in this election, but some third party groups (both political and interest groups) are, and they may make all the difference, again.
We have all seen the vitriol about how the Obama administration didn't do enough for DADT and other social issues. Considering how much the far left didn't support President Obama over the last 18 months, it's a wonder he even approached the subject.
During the health care debate, people like Jane Hamsher and Ed Schultz begged the Congress to "Kill the Bill" because they didn't get everything they wanted. I know the far left wants a public option. The problem is the numbers weren't there. I am not talking about poll numbers. I am talking about the actual votes in the Senate. People think that the President can browbeat and bribe Senators into submission. President Clinton tried to do that in 1993. The Congress got clocked in 1994 because of that failure to get anything done.
I know a lot people hate TARP, but, as Rachel Maddow stated eloquently last night, it worked. Was it perfect? No. Did it save millions of jobs? Yes.
Are you going to vote for a third party or sit out because some people lined their pockets with the TARP money? I hated it to, but I liked the fact that we didn't see more people out on the streets.
Russ Feingold is now campaigning ON Health Care reform. Why? Because it's beginning to poll well. It also is doing some good. Ask Gail O'Brien.
Do you want to vote for a third-party because we didn't get a public option? I'll be honest here. I didn't want a public option. It would take a lot more money and take a enormous amount of time to build it. We have neither. Expanding Medicare? Sure. This can always be put into any budget bill in the future. The only way this doesn't happen is if liberals stay away. At some point, this becomes the cheapest, best option.
I agree that DADT should be repealed. However, if your biggest problem with this administration is everything didn't get done and you are going to stay away or vote for a third party because of this, then I just have to remind you of a poll taken in 2000.
based on who voted for him four years ago, his analysis looks shaky. Voters leaving polling places in 2000 were asked by Voter News Service, a consortium of television networks and The Associated Press, how they would have voted if George W. Bush and Al Gore had been the only candidates on the ballot.
Among Nader voters, 45 percent said they would have voted for Mr. Gore, 27 percent said they would have voted for Mr. Bush, and the rest said they would not have voted.
In California, where Mr. Nader received 4 percent of the vote, 46 percent said they would have voted for Mr. Gore and only 14 percent said they would have gone for Mr. Bush.
Because there is no reason to believe the breakdown was not similarly lopsided in other states, it is safe to assume that Mr. Nader cost Mr. Gore states that Mr. Bush narrowly won.
N.Y. Times "THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: THE INDEPENDENT; Relax, Nader Advises Alarmed Democrats, but the 2000 Math Counsels Otherwise" by David Rosenbaum, February 24, 2004
Vice-President Al Gore was supposedly the corporatist. The man who would help corporations get more free reign and hurt the middle class terribly.
You might have learned that he has recently been championing the cause of global warming. He is often thought of a Corporate Enemy Number 1 because of this.
But you decided to stand your ground. Good for you.
What did it get you?
From what I can tell, you're still pissed off.
Folks, now more than ever we need to band together. As Ben Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or we will all hang separately."
http://my.barackobama.com/...