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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

This argument might make you feel better, and it sure sounds sympathetic, but it doesn't change the fact that Nader's hopeless campaign gave the election to Bush. It's not as if the concept of spoiler candidates is new to US politics; it's how we got Clinton, the President in office at when Nader ran!

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I feel fine with my decision and would do the same thing again. In fact, I voted third party in 2k4 as well.

The thing is, I don't really care that Bush II won. In fact I miss those days when most of my peers were anti-government since their team hadn't won.

I am not particularly interested in what flavor of shit I will be forced to eat, and I won't legitimize the process by asking for the one that seems less foul.

I don't blame you. There was no reason for you to know any better. I blame Nader.

I could say the exact same thing about my younger self with respect to having voted at all.

That's a rather intriguing causal chain of responsibility, though. You didn't say that Nader was a potential chain reaction for the election of Bush leading up to Iraq. No. You quite clearly said he was the reason for Iraq, and that is nothing but frothing lunacy. What kind of perverse ethics could lead to anyone but the actor who affirmed invasion (Bush) bearing responsibility for it? Or, to paraphrase from a scene in Kieslowski's film Przypadek, is someone who bumps into a person causing them to miss a train, leading them to encounter an old acquaintance, reuniting, becoming a doctor and taking the place of a colleague to deliver a lecture in another country, only to die in a plane crash - is the one who bumped him responsible for the doctor then dying in the crash? Preposterous.

I'm going to assume, I think safely, that a response that characterizes my comment as "frothing lunacy" is not one asking for further discussion with me.

Not necessarily, it's just a dramatic expression of bewilderment. Besides the whole issue of whether Nader being a spoiler and costing Gore the election as a result is even factual [1][2] (or just another intriguing but ill-supported legend like that of the disparate perceptions of Nixon/JFK on TV and on radio), there is the problem of whether blaming the person subject to an inefficiency in FPTP is overly disproportionate relatively to blaming the FPTP inefficiency itself, or the person actually responsible for the military intervention. Blaming the spoiler strikes me as a compositional fallacy at best, ethically repugnant at worse. Hell, we could even make the case that the spoiler is a victim.

[1] http://prorev.com/green2000.htm

[2] http://politizine.blogspot.com/2004/02/debunking-myth-ralph-...

This is another example of an exculpatory analysis for Nader trying to convince readers that many of his voters would have broken for Bush instead of Gore if he had dropped out. Like Wikipedia, it points out that Floridian Democrats voted in anomalous numbers for Bush, implying that Floridian Naderites were the same --- which of course they were not.

You do realize that if Nader dropped out, "his" voters could have voted for another third party, a write-in, or even simply not voted, right?

Sure they could have. But statistically, we know that they wouldn't. They'd have handed the election to Gore. Nader's core supporters are liberal, and Bush was decidedly not that.

Since you really insist on analyzing things in a two party framework -

It seems then that the democrats simply overplayed their hand from 1992-2000. They were too brazenly incongruent with their grassroots support, causing their constituents to cry uncle and look elsewhere. Getting the people to line up for what their sponsors have bought is the fundamental game, and they failed.

So in effect, Bush's invasion of Iraq was actually set in motion by Clinton. I mean, in addition to that actual bombing he authorized.

I do not understand this argument at all. Clinton would not have invaded Iraq. Neither would Gore. To get an invasion of Iraq, you need to put Bush in the White House.

You misunderstand my above comment. I'm saying that by your reasoning with Nader, we can also say that Clinton caused Bush's actual invasion.

The Democratic Party and the Republican Party each must maintain two different facets - the values they preach to their grassroots support (for votes), and the policies that their sponsors purchase (for money to run campaigns).

Clinton failed to sell his actions to traditionally democratic voters, causing them to look elsewhere instead of falling into line and voting for Gore.

The argument that a vote for nader is a vote for bush is flawed. The basic premise of voting is that you vote to support a candidate and or a set of ideas you align with. Its a step better than voting "none of the above" as it provides an idea of what you would prefer.

The concept of voting for the "lesser of two evils" just further perpetuates the mess that we find ourselves in today.

Ideologically, from a single voter's perspective, you're right. But practically, and looking at the entire population, it's not. The first past the post voting system we use will always result in two prominent parties, and the spoiler effect certainly exists.

I've always found this video a good explanation of the problems of our voting system https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

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