Comments on: Democratic prospects in 2004

By: cjc

cjc — Tue, 08 Jul 2003 12:57:10 +0000

The Greens in 2000 wielded more power than their popular vote results would have indicated: with both major parties more or less evenly balanced, in a winner-take-all election third parties have a great deal of influence. Take a look at this page for an analysis of how the Greens 3% or so gave Bush the electoral college victory. Granted, the difference in Florida between the Dems and GOP can be considered statistical noise, but we don't have a reasonable legal framework to account for statistical noise in close elections.

I think there's additional grumpiness by the Dems over the Greens because the Greens played spoiler rather than using their small but important margin to influence major party policy (third parties have the most influence when they get the major parties to adopt parts of their platform). Their glee at playing spoiler is probably the source of Democratic complaints about the Greens prefering ideological purity and pursing a heightening-the-contraditions strategy, and the reason the Democrats are unwilling to work with the Greens.

By: rone

rone — Mon, 07 Jul 2003 21:39:10 +0000

If the Greens couldn't manage 5% of the popular vote behind Nader in 2000, the idea that they'll manage that this time around seems pretty far-fetched.

The election was so close that i wonder whether, had Gore edged Bush, we'd have Republicans blaming Buchanan for stealing away needed Republican voters with his "ideological whims".

Anyway, i find the notion that Bush won because of Nader's pittance of votes laughable and specious.

[jake pointed me this way]

By: Jacob Haller

Jacob Haller — Tue, 24 Jun 2003 12:58:01 +0000

As far as the Green Party being a middle & upper-middle-class phenomina: How was this determined? Doesn’t everyone in America identify themselves as middle class anyway? To what extent can the other political parties also be identified as middle class movements?