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A lot of people who want to vote for Ralph Nader or another third-party political candidate but don't give the "spoiler argument" as a reason. The believe that a vote for Ralph Nader (or whomever) contibutes to the "other" party's victory - that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush, in other words. We believe the time has come to put an end to this mentality - it's self-perpetuating and stifles the possibilities of democratic government. Here's a collection of articles that address the "spoiler argument." We're getting (as I suspect others are) so many comments here about how a vote for Nader helps elect Bush that we're thinking about coming up with a concrete piece of communication that addresses this point specifically. Any ideas? We think this is the key issue for us as a campaign right now, and perhaps for the entire election (except possibly for our primitive state of organization). I think it must be addressed head-on, and done effectively as a product, not just content. On both points, how to? I know this list has already had some discussion on this, and I've already written about it locally myself. But I'd be interested in any BRIEF points anyone here can make -- not another lengthy discussion, but talking points, or approaches, or the appropriate medium for making the point. So as not to repeat the obvious, let me start off my own inquiry with these thoughts and hope others go beyond: 1. As Ralph says, you can't spoil an already spoiled system. Any others? Any phrasing adjustments to those? Any thought on what form such a piece could take? If 10 really good ones like that are devised, maybe the "content" form could be the Top 10 Reasons to Vote for Nader over Gore. Also on form: I'm thinking of a separate piece inserted into our general informational brochure, but would like to hear other ideas beyond that. For instance, the Gore folks were out in force at yesterday's local Million Mom March (we were leafletting, too). They were handing out a one-page comparison of Gore and Bush on gun control, showing their differences. We could do a similar sheet showing their similarities on key issues. Do you think that would be effective? Any favorite nominations? Any research at the ready? Reply to me individually if you like, but I'd think others might be interested in this, too. - Gary Wolf, Tennessee Below is an article I drafted to use with folks who expressed the spoiler concern in their email correspondence with us. I shared it with a few, asking for feedback, but have so far not used it as intended. Mostly because I got distracted by other priorities (like building a petition drive). But this piece certainly seems germane to this discussion. Here it is: Can the Georgia Greens Spoil the Democrat's hopes for the White House? The short answer to this question is: "No, of course they can't" As Nader has put it, "You can't spoil an already spoilt system." The Democrats don't need the Greens to spoil their chances for election. They are doing a fine job of that without any outside help. They have been doing that for years by ignoring their traditional base constituencies, chasing the Republicans to the Right and playing themselves as middle-of-the-road. As Jim Hightower has put it, "There ain't nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos. Georgia uses a system of plurality-take-all to decide the Presidential race. Which ever slate receives more votes in the General Election is awarded ALL of the seats in the state's delegation to the Electoral College. So lets take a quick look at the history. Until Kennedy's win in 1960, Georgia awarded all of its electoral college votes to the Democrats for as long as there have been democrats. But since then, the nature of the Georgia vote has taken a dramatic shift. Here is a quick summary of the results: 1964 Barry Goldwater (Republican Party) So, since 1960, the only time a Democrat -- who was not a native son of Georgia -- has won Georgia's Presidential Electoral College Votes was in the 1992 race when Clinton took the race by a 0.6% margin with Ross Perot and the Reform Party movement hitting the Republicans hard from the Right. You may remember that Georgia's Governor, Zell Miller, spoke that year at the DNC Convention in New York and mobilized his personal base for his DLC buddy from Arkansas. The spoiler argument is based on two premises: 1) Any vote for a Green would have gone to a Democrat had the Green
not been in the race. As to the first premise: Exit polls from New Mexico indicate that Greens draw 3 votes from the Democrats for every 2 votes we pull from the Republicans. Those polls have also shown that 40% of the folks who vote Green would not have gone to the polls if the Greens had not been on the ballot. As to the second premise: Some say it is unlikely that an independent political movement would develop as it is IF there were meaningful differences between the two dominant parties. The two corporate parties are united on the corporate global free trade agenda. The are united on slashing the general welfare and in their silence on corporate welfare. They have both resisted taking seriously any of the meaningful proposals advanced as campaign finance reform. While they will do their partisan bickering about the minimum wage, neither has taken a stand for a livable wage. They have been united on building prisons and implementing mandatory minimums instead of building a restorative justice system. They have been united in their War on Drugs strategies which have militarized our communities, suspended our bill of rights, filled half or more of all prison and jail beds and justified the next Vietnam developing right now in Columbia. Neither has acknowledged the end of the Cold War with a re-ordering of federal budget priorities or most importantly by submitting to Congress a budget providing for a peace dividend. Both have been willing to use war, the military and genocidal economic sanctions as instruments of foreign policy while ignoring opportunities to lead the world into a future without war. Both parties are in bed with the corporations on product liability, corporate immunity, permitting unbridled poisoning of our common resources, permitting the corporations to buy and sell our elections and public policy, paying Americans wages that won't support a family, etc. When you compare the platforms and agendas of the two corporate parties what you find is that the distinction is largely about 1) how fast they're running us over the cliff to oblivion and 2) between the corporate pro-choice party and the corporate anti-choice party. While access to abortion is important, our future depends on so much more than a woman's right to control her own body. A woman who can choose the number and timing of her children but has no access to livable wage employment or to an economy that offers her children water they can drink and air they can breathe and a future in which to raise their children can not truly be considered free. Its important to understand that our political activism and participation can not spoil an election. It is the undemocratic winner-take-all rules of our process which will drive the result. Those rules were written by the D's and the R's to dissuade our participation. The Republican Party is not the enemy. The enemy of meaningful political participation is the evil of two lessers, not the greater of two evils. We're building a political party to transform the multi-dimensional and multi-issue crisis we face into an opportunity to create a future worthy of our love for our children. Such an institution does not spring forth fully mature in one election cycle. It must be built day-in and day-out, year after year. Our goal is to take democratic control of deliberative policy making bodies from our communities up through the national and global forums. That doesn't happen overnight. It requires that we build this party for the long term. That we recognize that the risks of doing things different are far less than those of failing to challenge the status-quo in a meaningful way. When the Democrats start telling you that your votes will spoil their chances of winning the white house, that is a sign that we are doing something right, not something wrong. We've wasted our votes imagining that their is some meaningful distinction between the Democrats and Republicans. Its time we voted our hopes and not our fears. Hugh Esco We in Oregon are finding this to be very persuasive to most people. You can see if the electoral college argument applies to your state by checking out the electoral college box scores at www.FEC.Gov. A Vote That Counts You may be asking yourself, "should I vote for Nader and vote my conscience, or should I hold my nose and vote for the Democrat so I don't throw my vote away?" The truth is you don't have to make that gut-wrenching choice. A vote for Nader is not a throwaway vote, it is the most meaningful vote you or any other Oregonian in history has ever had the opportunity to cast. Here's why: Only once in the history of the state of Oregon have the few Electoral College votes we are allotted been enough to sway the outcome of a Presidential election. That one time was in 1876 when Ruthorford B. Hayes won what nine out of ten historians agree was the most fraudulent presidential election in the nation's history. In other words, every vote an Oregonian has ever cast for a Democratic or Republican presidential candidate has been totally meaningless, thrown away. A vote for a Republicrat might have symbolic value, but symbolic of what? Abandonment of the hope that government can serve the people's interests? On the other hand, if you vote for Nader, your vote will count, not only symbolically but practically. First of all, a vote for Ralph sends a clear message to the Democrats that they can't take the progressive vote for granted. Second, and more importantly, Nader does not have to win the elections to bring a revolution to Oregon and the entire United States. If Ralph can win just 15% of the vote in Oregon, the Pacific Green Party will clear the first and the biggest hurdle to achieving major party status. The press will have to cover the PGP and our pro-environment, pro-worker, pro-social justice, pro-citizen, anti-corporate control agenda. If Oregonians also pass the OPAC ballot measure to provide public funding of campaigns, the PGP will be able to run against the Democrats and Republicans on a nearly level playing field. Progressives will have the loudest and clearest voice Oregonians have heard in most of our lifetimes. Oregon's political landscape will be changed forever. On the national level, if Ralph can win just 5% of the vote he will earn the next Green presidential candidate in 2004 nearly $20 million in FEC funds. The prospect of an unapologetically progressive candidate running a well-funded campaign will loom on America's political horizon for four years. Greens will take over the spotlight that the Reform Party now enjoys, and lead the third party movement, but with a clear message under a progressive banner. The political center in America will get its biggest jolt to the left we have seen in a generation. Even if Ralph polls this well or better, he is not likely to throw the election to Dubya "Shrub" Bush. Ralph's integrity and incredible history of fighting for good government will pull almost as many votes from disgruntled Republicans as Democrats. His fight for political reform and against corporate special interests is quite similar to Perot's message in '92 and '96 and to McCain's message this year. The difference is that Ralph's credibility is unassailable, his analysis is deeper, his message clearer, and his solutions more radical - and effective. And even in the unlikely event that Nader does end up helping to throw the election to a Republican, the establishment of a Green Party presence in America would still produce, on net, a more progressive government than we would get if we all voted for Al Gore. Republicratic presidents are windsocks. Remember Nixon? That right-wing bigot was to the left of Clinton on just about every issue, simply because the political wind blew him there. Don't just change the windsock. Change the wind. Vote Ralph, vote Pacific Green, vote your conscience and change the world! And may all your votes come true! Taking votes from Gore will be the way that the media will portray the Nader campaign. So this probably will be important right through to November. I ask people to think about how our political decision makers are currently chosen and point out three steps to the process.
I then point out that this is NOT a democratic selection process. Instead, it is proces by which those who own and manage our society control our political leadership, our system of government, and its policies. Finally, to vote for one of the candidates that is put forward by this process is to legitmate the process and to foreclose any chance for democracy that we might otherwise have. Alan Mattlage David Brower, in an op-ed piece he wrote in 1996 supporting Nader, noted that Clinton-Gore had done more to harm the environment in four years than Bush-Reagan managed to inflict in 12 years. (Brower is with the Earth Island Institute, Founder of Friends of Earth and former head of Sierra Club.) Also remind people that they don't get to vote for President - they vote for Presidential electors who vote for President. In the vast majority of states, their vote for President won't count on election day since either Bush or Gore will have already "won" that date. The only way to make their vote count in most states is if they vote for Nader, since every vote will count towards the 5% threshold. A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil. I'm tired of voting for what I don't want and getting it. I would rather vote for what I want in the hope that someday we will get it. Of course, one could talk about issues, like NAFTA, GATT, repeal of the federal welfare system for children, failure to cut the military budget, housing, gays in the military, various military excursions, killing a thirty year movement for universal health care... Greenly yours, Here is an approach which builds on what Mark Dunlea was raising. Because
we are talking about electoral college votes, we are monitoring polling
data very carefully. Some handicappers feel they can call many of the
states already. This gives us the opportunity to turn the so-called
spoiler and wasted vote arguments on their head. Here are a couple of
examples. In Texas, where Bush will win the state, Democrats will waste
their vote if they vote for Gore. A vote for Nader is a chance for Texas
Democrats to be part of the referendum on changing the electoral system
in a fundamental way. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, it is likely
that Gore will win. We need to outreach to Republicans - yes Republicans
- with the argument that their vote for Bush is a wasted vote. Parts
of our platform which speak to issues important to lower income R's
and Independents, for example NAFTA/GATT/WTO, the corrosive influence
of the corporate media on children, charter schools, support for more
local control of government, creation a sound agricultural policy which
includes protection of family farmers, etc. We find that many R's have
not been benefited by the policies of the R Congress. That is why the
parties so strongly play up miniscule social policy differences between
the two parties. This strategy hides the fact that there is only one
economic policy, one defense policy, etc - where the duopoly rules.
This rationale also works with Independents and the many discouraged
non-voters. The only places this Carol Miller |
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