If one man can decide the presidency just by running as an independent I would suggest the answer is to encourage independent running to be more common so as to balance it out rather than just praying no one ever dares do it.
2016 US Presidential Elections | Trump Wins
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Just saw this 
Do you think Hillary Clinton would be a better president than Trump/Cruz or even Bush?
Of course. She'd appoint fair SCOTUS justices and that's all that matters for domestic issues.
A half eaten packet of crisps would be a better president that Trump/Cruz.
That is the bare minimum tbf
What does that have to do with Nader ? Reality isn't discriminatory - it is what it is. When you run as a prominent third party candidate in a two party system, you will give the advantage to the opposition party. There is no way around that. It's been tried and look at the shit show that ensued.
think the entire debate is about continuing down this path or trying the best to change it so a far greater proportion of the population is represented fairly in Congress.
Of course those who have power (the two parties) are not going to relinquish their power easily. To continue to choose the lesser of two evils is self defeating.
Yes. The result of the Nader run was we got Bush. But fault if there is to be fault is 100% that of both parties in one form or another.
The best way to do that is endogenously within the Democratic Party by doing what Bernie is doing. He's doing it the right way, Nader did it the wrong way.
Just saw this
Bernie, Cruz, Kasich, Trump, and no such list would be complete without......Bill Clinton.
Bernie is a bit of a dark horse and may be worth a bet at long odds, but my money's on Cruz - he's been showing good form recently. Twenty years ago Bill would've been unbackable. Time slows even the fleetest.
If she plays her cards right, Trump will claim paternity not to be outdone.
It could also be parthenogenesis in the lizardy cnut.
If everyone knew how popular Nader would be, then surely Gore could have prepared his campaign accordingly. It's not Nader's fault that both Gore and his campaign were a damp squib.
On the other hand, Nader barely dented Obama's campaign in 2008, which retrospectively shows how poor a candidate Gore was.
Gore ran a decent campaign, not the best but decent. He would've easily won the race had it been a two horse race. 2008 is completely irrelevant since Nader was completely discredited as pointless by then, which was reflected in the vote totals. He was however relevant in 00 where he did all the necessary damage.
And if my aunt had balls...
It wasn't a two horse race because the country wasn't entirely split between two candidates, at least one other was considered a more attractive option than the other two by a substantial portion of the population. Blame your awful electoral system (and SCOTUS), not Nader or the folks who had the audacity to vote for him over Gore.
Gore ran the typical Dem campaign. Ohio...Ohio and the remaining safe blue states. Heck he lost his own home state.
very poor campaign all in.
He couldn't even slip his wife the tongue properly.
That's the way it works my friend. Its a two party system that is easily disrupted when a third candidate with as little as 1 or 2 % of support joins the race. Nader's well thought out attempt at affecting positive change on the US political system, didn't yield any positive change on the duopoly and brought us a construct replete with your favorite war and a global recession. All of these events are interconnected.
Very poor campaigns don't win the popular vote. He lost Tennessee, but he was decoupled from his home state for a while by 2000. Gore lost Ohio BTW.
He was one of the few "incumbents" to lose with favourable economic conditions IIRC.
I know. I mean he concentrated so much on Ohio and still lost it. Sure he won the popular vote. That is why SCOTUS was relevant.
Yeah he could've done better. He and Bill seemed a bit estranged around the election period which probably played into the problems he ran into. Bush ran a good campaign and managed to market himself as a folksy, straight talking traditionalist which sort of left Gore looking like a robotic mannequin (lock box anyone?). During the 2nd debate, Gore tried to physically impose himself on Bush by walking near him. Bush just gave him a dismissive nod and continued talking.
I'd been looking forward to Seth Abramson's take on the result, it doesn't disappoint - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/establishment-candidate-wins-home-state_b_9734242.html
The question is not who will be better, it is who will do the least damage.
It's why I loved Bernie so much.
Edit: It's also the reason I don't want any party in India to get a simple majority in parliament/legislatures. They're all terrible, and them getting power with no constraints is the worst thing possible. If they have to worry about coalitions, that's less time spent governing, but it's also less time spent screwing the public.
Hillarious handbags between Sean Hannity and Lyin' Ted on Hannity's radio show yesterday.
Still not entirely sure it isn't a parody.Judging by his previous blog history, he seems a tad bitter.
Some other favourites from recently:
"Lack of Early Voting Could Spell Doom for Clinton in New York Primary"
"John Kasich Will Be the Republican Nominee for President"
"Hillary Clinton’s Support Among Nonwhite Voters Has Collapsed"
Makes some good points but who cares? System's broken? feck it, just keep playing by the rules and it'll all be okay.
Makes some good points but who cares? System's broken? feck it, just keep playing by the rules and it'll all be okay.
no worries. we'll get it right eventually
no worries. we'll get it right eventually
You're probably right, I hope so.
I was sarcastic mate
Someone from within the party...hmmm very difficult. Bernie is not beholden to anyone.
People have to demand better leaders and better candidates for Presidential elections. Elizabeth Warren would have been a fantastic candidate, looking back. She deserves to be the first female president, not this pandering clown Pandering Hillary.
Trump v Hill-Bill is a disgrace of an election. Worst presidential election ever, that can be agreed upon. Both should be nowhere near the White House.
Trump v Hill-Bill is a disgrace of an election. Worst presidential election ever, that can be agreed upon. Both should be nowhere near the White House.
That's cute.
But still doesn't change the fact that US would have had Gore, not Bush as president if he didn't run for office.
It is a very simple equation. If a popular right/left candidate runs then the left/right main party wins the election.
If Sanders runs as independent then Trump/Cruz becomes president. If Trump runs as independent then Hillary becomes president. If both run as independent then Paul Ryan will likely become president.
So for Sanders to do so it is not idealist. It is cutting the nose to spit on face. Give me Hillary a thousand times before Trump, Cruz or Ryan.
Like I said, blame the broken system.
You would have had a point if Nader and Gore were similar candidates but they're not. Simply bundling them both in the 'left' camp would be forcing square pegs into round holes.
Likewise with Sanders and Shillary. The latter is pretty much a right-wing populist whereas Sanders is a genuine left-wing anti-establishment candidate. In fact I'd argue that Hillary has more in common with Ted Cruz than she does with Sanders. And hence Sanders should have every reason to run as an independent.
That's wrong. Leaving the idealism aside, the only thing Sanders would achieve by running as independent is a Republican presidency for the next 4 years (likely 8 considering that incumbent presidents usually win the reelection). That would pretty much ensure 5-6 right wing SCOTUS for the next 10 years, and we aren't talking for Kennedy-like nwe SCOTUS but Scalia-like new SCOTUS. Then of course, the mandatory wars that Republican presidents have to make, drilling even more oil than ever (global warming is of course a hoax) etc etc.
That's what a Sanders run as indie will mean. Because sure as hell, he is not going to win as an indie candidate.
And no, Hillary doesn't have more common with Cruz than with Sanders. That is complete nonsense.
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If Nader wasn't a selfish cnut, world wouldn't have Dumbya for 8 years as president of the most powerful state in the world. That means, no Iraq war (and as consequence no ISIS), no economical recession (or at least not in the scale it was), and very likely US starting doing something for the global warming. But no, apparently he liked to be on TV for a few months.
100% spot on.
Is it? Let's objectively look at their respective stances and compare/contrast with Sanders.
BOTH Hillary and Cruz are in the pockets of Wall Street and have received the majority of their funding from super PACs and large corporations. Sanders on the other hand has almost been entirely funded by humble individual donations.
BOTH Hillary and Cruz are foreign policy hawks. Both voted in support of the Iraq war, both are in the pockets of AIPAC as evident by their pathetic arse-kissing performances at the AIPAC conference a few weeks ago. In addition Hillary had also pushed for the disastrous Libya campaign in her time as SoS and involved in helping facilitate a far-right coup in Honduras. Bernie on the other hand had opposed the Iraq war, and was the only presidential candidate to not bother turning up to the AIPAC arse-kissing festival.
BOTH Hillary and Cruz are notorious flip-floppers, changing their stances by the hour to garner votes or megacorp funding. Hillary for example had only recently come round to embracing gay marriage, putting her historically in line with her republican counterparts. Bernie on the other hand has been very consistent with his principles and stances in his 30 years or so in office.
I could list a dozen more examples of their discrepancies but instead I'll quote an article which elaborately lists the differences:
Sauce: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russ-belville/the-problem-with-hillary-clinton_b_9349590.html
I am not Amerocan and don't live in US but those are sound reasons not to vote for Republican
Running as independent after using the democratic platform would be a huge dick-move. Sanders would be justifiably criticized for it. It is a different thing, when you run as independent from the get go; that is legit. Blaming Nader for the election of Bush is just crazy. This kind of consequentialism is never used in politics for good reasons. With that logic you can blame pretty much anyone for everything.
What you deserve is what you get. Nobody can save us, when people continue to vote for candidates likes Trump, Cruz or Clinton despite the monumental amount of evidence that they would be terrible presidents. Most of the information is out in the open. People just don´t care.
In a democracy a fairly basic ideal would be, that voters chose their candidate according to their ideals/values/beliefs (whatever that means in detail): Democracy as contest of different ideas. Sadly many voters do it the other way around: They pick a candidate and adjust their ideals/values/beliefs accordingly. It is fairly well documented in social science. Humans are just very tribal animals after all.
What you deserve is what you get. Nobody can save us, when people continue to vote for candidates likes Trump, Cruz or Clinton despite the monumental amount of evidence that they would be terrible presidents. Most of the information is out in the open. People just don´t care.
In a democracy a fairly basic ideal would be, that voters chose their candidate according to their ideals/values/beliefs (whatever that means in detail): Democracy as contest of different ideas. Sadly many voters do it the other way around: They pick a candidate and adjust their ideals/values/beliefs accordingly. It is fairly well documented in social science. Humans are just very tribal animals after all.
The trouble is Hillary is pretty much a Rockefeller Republican since those listed stances actually belong to her.
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