Brad, that 3 percent of the vote was enough to sink the Gore campaign is a
sad commentary on what the Democrats had to offer. With regard to voting for
Nader at no cost to Gore, Nader voters in California certainly had no effect
and knew it before hand.
With regard to the dimes worth of difference, a lot of posts have already
mentioned the dreary instances in which Clinton and Gore governed like
Republicans. I am appalled by what Bush is doing, but probably I would be
equally angered by the way the Democrats governed, because I would think that
I had the right to expect more from them.
Really, Brad, this thread is going nowhere. Everybody knows what you think.
You are not convincing anyone and none of us are going to convince you.
I wrote:
> The rationale
> >for supporting Nader seemed to be an effort to stop the rightward drift.
Brad responded
> No. There were four rationales for Nader:
>
> --(1) that the Nader campaign would gain extraordinary support and
> provide a breakthrough into a new, more fluid politics of possibility
> by destroying two-party gridlock...
>
> --(2) that the Nader campaign would demonstrate the strength of the
> left, and convince the DLC types that there were more votes to be
> gained by going hunting on the left than by making additional
> accomodations in the center...
>
> --(3) that this could be accomplished without running any significant
> risk of throwing the election to Bush...
>
> --(4) that worrying about throwing the election to Bush--"lesser
> evilism"--was contemptible, because there was not a dime's worth of
> difference between Bush and Gore.
>
> I don't know about you, but I heard (and read) a lot of these four
> reasons for much of last fall. Now I don't hear much of (1), (2), and
> (3). As far as (1) and (2) are concerned, Nader's 3% of the vote was
> not impressive by the scale of other insurgent efforts like Perot,
> Anderson, and Wallace. Thus there has been no breakthrough via the
> destruction of two-party gridlock, and the DLC remains enormously
> unimpressed. It is only here that I read *anyone* making claim (3).
>
> And so I think that is important to point out that (4) is not
> correct. That there are significant and important differences in
> workplace policy, labor policy, judicial appointments, environmental
> policy, tax policy, foreign policy, and so forth between Bush and
> Gore. I want the people who claimed that there was not a dime's worth
> of difference between Bush and Gore to count up their change, and not
> to go into total denial as far as the stakes we lost last fall are
> concerned.
>
> If it were just a question of their going into denial, and by
> forgetting history being condemned to repeat it, I would not care so
> much. But I fear that they are going to try to make me repeat it with
> them.
>
> Brad DeLong
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
