The court ruling was handed down today. Apparently it's illegal to run as an independent in PA while running in other states with a party affiliation. He's running as a Reform party candidate in Michigan. His campaign says they'll appeal as they interpret it as meaning you can't run under multiple party designations for the same office in PA.

Of course, even if that weren't so his nominating petition likely would've been thrown out anyway since the "signatures" were "gathered" by homeless people the campaign hired, many of whom later complained that they weren't paid.

Nader was concerned that, if they had been paid, they'd just go out, buy some drugs, and hurt themselves. He was worried that they'd be Unsafe With Any Speed.

Bwahahahahahaha.

Nader is back off the PA ballot. He appealed the previous ruling discussed above and got it overturned, so they then reviewed all of his petitions. The judge said they were "rife with forgeries" and added: "I am compelled to emphasize that this signature-gathering process was the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever perpetrated upon this court." Nice going, Ralphie boy!

And now he's off for good. Nader appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and lost.

But perhaps some good came of this: it seems like his paying the homeless to scribble their names on petitions may have helped the PA economy in some small way.

NOOOOOO WAY!!!!! You mean to tell me the US Conservative Supreme Court-the one who gave the 2000 election to George Bush--did not rule to get Nader on the PA ballot. THey did NOT rule to get Nader on one of the big 8 swing states, thereby helping to give that state to GB. I smell a conservative Repub plot here. Maybe they overturned it for some diabolical reason. hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmm. OH LAWDIE, the repubs are up to something bad!!!!!!!!!!

So let me get this straight...

Democrats and their fellow Leninists on this board whine like stuck pigs about every vote counts, about making sure there are no barriers to ballot access and the voting process, etc., but when someone like Nader comes along, it's damn the torpedoes and get rid of him because...well, because in this case, his exercising the rights the Left purports to hold so precious would hurt their anti-Bush candidate Kerry.

What a bunch of two-faced cowards.

two-faced cowards? but you've got it all wrong. we are flatterers of the highest order. we got burned, and we learned.

formerly, the democrats were all about fairness, democracy, sweetness, and light. but after the last election, when the republicans were all about politics and winning -- and came away with the presidency for their efforts, we ditched sweetness and light, and saw the light.

we learned politics and elections aren't about leadership or garnering the most votes. they're about working the system. he with the most supporters doesn't win; he with the best lawyers wins. in 2000, the republicans worked the system perfectly, fought hard, and won.

and now the dems are doing as the repubs did (and are still doing this time around) -- throwing lawyers at the election where voters are absent.

so don't you see, you won. we concede, by our imitation, that your methods are more effective! okay, so we might have to stoop to conquer a bit, but as the republicans have shown, it's not about democracy, leadership, or fairness. it's about WINNING, WINNING, WINNING!

of course, to some, fighting fire with fire is patently unfair. get your petard ready....

Nader's fundamental problem is that he was a pox on both their houses. Neither republicans nor democrats want a third party potentially diluting their base.

This is an iherent problem in the two-party system and will probably only be addressed if the Republicans win and the Democrats lose the current presidential election.

The Democrats would be forced to advocate reform.

[ October 24, 2004, 09:27 AM: Message edited by: sportinlife ]

I am all for the two-party system. You either win or you loose-there are no 3, 4 or 10 party coalitions in government. Any new movement that comes around is usually absorbed to some degree by one party or the other-I don't view that as necessarily bad. You will never have the perfect party, you will always have to make compromises for whom you vote.

Additionally, I am unsure if our present political system can handle coalitions. In Europe, they can have a no confidence vote and dissolve parliament at most anytime. In America, you cannot do that.

PLEASE don't protray the Dems as saints and victims in the 2000 elections.

I believe they were the ones that filed the challenge to the vote in Florida. Did you expect the Repubs to sit back and do nothing? Some say the Dems bought off the FLorida supreme court and the Repubs bought off the US Supreme Court. If that is truly the case, I think the Repubs made the better investment.

Yes, it is all about winning. From the time the Constitution was being developed it has always been about winning. I hope no one is so naive to think that BOTH parties don't do everything possible to win-it has always been that way and always will be. When you can control over $2 trillion dollars every year, people will spend and do alot to get control of that much money and power.

No, I am not cynical-I view it as being realistic.

"It's all about winning." [Vomit.]

Whatever. If Nader was getting on these ballots through his own volition, rather than through Republican assistance and chicanery, I'd support him. On the ballot on which I cast a vote, he and Peter Camejo were on there, as Independents rather than as fake Greens, as well as representatives from the Socialist Worker's Party, the Democratic Socialists, the Libertarians, the real Greens, and about two or three other parties including the Lyndon LaRouche wackos. I wish we had a viable third or fourth party, like a real Green Party AND a real Conservative or Tory Party, both of which would allow people more options.

The Green Party = semi-socialistic, pacifist far left
The Democratic Party = moderate left
The Conservative Party = moderate right
The Republican Party = Christian-fanatical far right

This much better approximates the American population, I think.

We have a two party system, but modified by a triumvirate of bureacracies: legislative, judicial and executive. Our threeway has faired better than most democracies because one of the three has been able to balance the other two in most cases. The real danger is that two will unite to over-rule the third and the two that are united will be controlled by interests that do not have to answer to the voting public. For now only one, officially at least, does not have to answer to voters. That is a good balance IMO.

I think one of the reasons that this country has such poor voter turnout compared to most other democracies is the two-party system. It effectively excludes a number of fairly mainstream political views from being considered. For example, if you happen to be opposed to free trade (a not uncommon opinion on the left and even among some conservatives like Buchann), you're unlikely to be able to vote for a candidate who supports your view. Nor are you likely to have a federal democrat or republican candidate who will back decriminilization of marijuana posession, abolition of capital punishment, gay marriage, or a single-payer national health care system. I've used mostly left-leaning examples (though some libertarians would certainly back drug decriminilization), but I'm sure you could find a number of opinions that are reasonably mainstream in conservative circles that are not represented by the Republican party.

Really? Non-voters are essentially content(or, depending on your pov, lazy), and just couldn't be bothered. And they try to justify it by saying they don't think their one vote will make a difference. If the polling place could somehow come to them, I figure most of them would probably vote.

I doubt it's for a lack of alternatives.

I don't think generalizations of political parties is accurate at all. For instance, to characterize the DEMS as moderate left and the GOP as far right is untrue-it illustrates your own perspective (and is some what amusing). Most GOPers consider themselves moderately conservative and DEMS as the loony left socialist fringe.

American history is full of times when one party seemingly controlled all aspects of government (Roosevelt in the 30s and his attempt to pack the Supreme Court). Clinton in his first two years precided over the presidency and two houses of Congress-(using your analogy he should have been able to get whatever he wanted). Hillary tried to get Health Care Reform passed. From y'all's point of view, you would think that would have been a piece of cake. However, Health care reform was not passed. Similary, Bush won't be able to get a lot done if he turns DEM Senators off too much.

I don't think the 2-party system is to blame for low voter turnout in America. I think a lot of it is cultural. I look at other countries with multiparty coalitions and there are not too many I would say are an improvement over America. IMHO

The GOPers may consider themselves \"moderately conservative,\" but I'm talking ABOUT THE NATIONAL PARTIES. The convention plank of the GOP this year was one of the most CONSERVATIVE in the history of the United States, and more conservative that most other \"conservative\" parties in our peer nations (Canada, Britain, France, Germany, etc.). What deluded, zombified , easily gulled people think isn't my concern; the party's POSITIONS, and the policies and politics of the current CONSERVATIVE PRESIDENT are quite clear. They are ultraconservative, Christian fanatics. They used to be merely conservatives, under Ronald Raygun. (Bush I was more of a moderate Republican on many issues, including abortion.) That's not MY position or most \"Democrats\" view, but visible to anyone who opens their eyes.

The Democratic Party has drifted steadily rightward since the late 1970s. Bill Clinton governed probably on par with John Major, Helmut Kohl, Brian Mulroney, and Jacques Chirac, all four of whom represented CONSERVATIVE parties. The national platform of the Democratic Party at its August convention was actually quite moderate, and a long away either from the liberalism of Lyndon Johnson or even of more recent candidates like Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale.

So truthfully, looking at what the parties themselves say and how they have governed, as opposed to just someone who laps up the pablum from the Washington Times or Fox, the Republicans are now governing from the far right--an extremely nationalist far right, with socialistic overtones for big business and the very rich, while the Democrats are more of a centrist party, with liberal supporters, but little in the way of real progressive stands. There are numerous real-world examples across the globe of liberal (Britain, Canada), social democratic (Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, etc.), socialist (Spain, Germany), and communist (China, Vietnam, Cuba, etc.) parties and governments--the Democrats are to the RIGHT of ALL of these. Yes, even the Labour Party, which has drifted rightwards under Blair.

Kerry is hardly Trotsky, Mao, or even Mitterand!

Nope, I never said that. What are you talking about? You're conjuring statements out of the bandwidth. Kennedy, Johnson, Carter also PRESIDED over governments, I believe, that were controlled by the Democrats. They didn't get everything they wanted; in fact, Carter battled with Congress, as Clinton did, more than once.

But Congress, no matter what the party, is SUPPOSED to be separate from the White House--they are not elected to serve as rubber stamps, particularly for an extremist like W.

Well, Hillary Clinton wasn't an elected official when she ran her husband's health care initiative, so that's a different issue altogether. The House has repeated rubberstamped whatever Herr W has put forward. They operate like a well-oiled and lobbied machine, not a deliberative body. The Senate, by its very structure, is always the slower body to pass bills--it was set up this way for a reason. However, the President can always use or create crises to ram through his agenda, as he has done repeatedly during the last four years. Seriously, if he hadn't claimed the "imminent threat" of actionable WMDs, and demonized the Democrats who dared to challenge him, do you think he could have gotten his war resolution passed?

[ October 24, 2004, 10:22 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]