Nader, don't you realize that you've won? (IRV) (from an ex-supporter)
Sun Feb 24, 2008 at 08:59:26 AM PDT
I have been a Nader defender on DKos. I hate it when people lump Nader supporters in with Bush supporters, and when they forget what Gore/Leiberman 2000 was really like, or forget what "safe state" means. I tried to vote for Nader twice ('96 and '00, in '96 my voter registration was purged on some technicality so I couldn't vote). I do not regret those choices.
Yet this is just pitiful. No, not because he's "only hurting Democrats". If that's what he wants to do then that is his right, though I won't support him. But because he's only hurting his OWN stated principles, the principles which got him my vote twice.
I have a very specific reason for saying this.
The two-party system is broken. Every single election, millions vote for the "lesser evil" in their view, and millions more don't vote. The only range of opinions that counts is the space between the two frontrunners for whatever race it is. (You feeling me yet, Edwards supporters?) If you do get mad enough to vote for a third option, your vote essentially goes uncounted. I happen to like one of my options this time around, but that doesn't mean I forget what it feels like when I don't.
There is an easy fix. Voting reform. IRV - a great system - is getting real traction, and even better systems like Range Voting (with ballots which encourage approval-style range voting), or Condorcet voting, are the topic of books which people are reading more and more. The basic idea behind all of these systems is that I can vote for my true favorite candidate, and still vote for the lesser evil as a backup option. (The systems have minor differences as to when and how the backup option would count, but all conform to "one person, one vote" and they would give the same results in almost all cases.) Ralph Nader made IRV a major plank in his platform in 1996 and 2000, and it got him my vote.
And guess what? Both Obama and McCain have taken vocal positions supporting IRV. McCain recorded an ad in Alaska (where the third party is Libertarian, and the local League of Women Voters shamefully went against the national League in opposing the measure for tawdry Democratic gains). And in 2002, Obama, as an Illionois State Senator, was the primary sponsor on a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have enacted Instant Runoff Voting for
primary elections. (How's that for the wonkish substance that we know and love?)
Ralph Nader, I will still defend what you were. But there is no defending what you have become.
(Some geekish details: For the presidential election, the electoral college would actually HELP make this reform easier, because the battle can be fought one state at a time. As with the National Popular Vote movement, each state could pledge its electors to the voters true expressed preference (as determined by some preferential voting scheme - Range Voting, Condorcet, or IRV would all work) IF states representing 50%+1 of the electors have made the same pledge. This is an interstate compact and enforcable under the constitution.)
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