NDP/Layton "serves as Harper's guardian angel"

[Hux]

Layton, Nader seem to revel in spoiler role

The StarPhoenix

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Considering that if his polling numbers were reflected on a heart monitor, medical authorities would be inquiring about organ donations, NDP Leader Jack Layton sure seems determined for a fight to the death.

Layton has led New Democrats through two elections since taking over the party's helm in 2003, simultaneously more than doubling the party's number of MPs in the House over that period while reducing their impact almost to zero.

Although the NDP was able to claim some success in pushing Paul Martin's weak minority Liberal government to adopt some programs -- most notably getting money for housing and transit -- Layton's strategy to go after the Grits with equal or greater vigour than he used against the Tories helped to defeat his allies and put in power the party that most opposes his agenda.

One would think that would force a change in strategy. However, Layton continues to attack the Liberals at least as much as he does the Conservatives and, in doing so, serves as Stephen Harper's guardian angel.

Americans, particularly the Democrats, are now facing a similar concern. As he has done in every presidential election since 1992, consumer advocate Ralph Nader has announced he's again ready to take on the two major parties.

Given the powerful position of the two major parties in America, Nader's campaigning has had little impact, except once. In 2000, by arguing there was too little difference between the Democrats' Al Gore and the Republican nominee George Bush, Nader secured about 2.7 per cent of the ballots, including 96,837 votes in Florida.

Those votes, which Democrats argued were siphoned away from their party, were just enough to make the outcome in that crucial state too close to call. The call was put in the hands of the Supreme Court, whose Republican majority decided Bush should be president. Few Americans since then would agree that there is little difference between the current president and Gore.

Ironically, Nader ran as a member of America's Green party, convinced too little was being done by the U.S. to combat global warming. Gore, meanwhile, has won a Nobel Peace prize for the work he has done outside of politics to bring awareness to the global warming issue.

But if Nader was feeling any regret for helping to bring to power the president who pulled America out of the Kyoto agreement, he wasn't showing it over the weekend. "If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form," Nader told the TV program, Meet the Press, in announcing his candidacy.

That is to say, Nader has no illusions that he'll be elected president. However, he sees the presidential campaign merely as an opportunity to raise the issues he believes are of vital national interest. It seems to matter little to the former consumer advocate that he's had virtually no success in taking his information campaign on the election trail or that he's racked up an incredible list of failures.

This record is in stark contrast to the success he's had as an advocate. His dogged pursuit of corporations he believes took too casual an attitude to consumer protection resulted in legislation over the decades that has made us all safer.

It was clear from the reaction this week about whose campaign the Nader announcement will help the most. Republican candidate Mike Huckabee told CNN that Nader will pull votes from the Democratic nominee. "So naturally, Republicans would welcome his entry into the race."

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, found Nader's decision unfortunate. "I remember when he did this before. It's not good for anybody, especially our country."

But it seems for Nader, the best interests of America come secondary to boosting his own ego by drawing away thousands of votes from those who should be his allies.

Similarly, Layton seems little concerned that his party's poll numbers have flat-lined. Rather than try to push for a co-ordinated effort to re-establish the national priorities he seems to share with the Liberals, on a week that will see the government pushed to the brink, Layton's claim to success was the announcement Monday that former Liberal MP Françoise Boivin is the NDP's new candidate in the Gatineau region.

Stephane Dion at the helm of the Liberals might be the weakest leader of any major Canadian political party in a century, but it is Layton's apparent determination to keep the Tories in power that must have Harper counting his blessings.

[Birdy]

Nice strategic post Hux.

[Basher]

Where are the subforum police on this one?

[d_rawk]

Where are the subforum police on this one?

Right here.

We are dying in the politics forum. Bring it there. Then we duel.

[Rob Not Bob]

Would somebody please kick Ralph Nader in the testicles multiple times?

Edited February 26, 2008 by Guest

[boiler]

Nader is right. All the political parties in the US and Canada are exactly the same. Everybody is so packed into the centre it's sickening. Our system(s) are a joke.

[The Chameleon]

Anyone but the harper gov't will do at this point.

but I agree the parties are all corrupt basically and far too perverted by the political machine.

[boiler]

I'm going to try to shoot down the "spoiler" argument against Nader.(BTW: I still hate politics, I don't stay on top of any of it, I'm jaded and sick of all of them. I just want to take my tax dollars and bury it in my back yard instead of giving it to ANY of the wankers that "lead" us)

Let's see, We have Party A who is going to get about 40%of the vote, we have party B, also going to get 40% of the vote. Now we have 20% that want to vote for Party C. The people that want to vote C are pretty sure their guy is not going to win but they believe in C's platform. So let's say 5% jump ship from C and go to either A or B so they can vote for the winners (as so often happens in North American politics.).

So now what ends up happening is 5% of the people who vote get to decided who the winner of the election is, and still NONE of the parties are able to garner 50% of the vote.

What Nader ends up doing is allowing his issues to become the important issues of the election. What will end up happening is the other two parties will essentially "steal" an issue or two from Nader's camp in order to convince the 5% or so of the voters that will jump ship from him to vote for the other clown parties.

So if you think Nader comes up with far fetched off the wall issues, that's only because he's fishing.

On the other hand, let's say Nader keeps his 20% of the his voters and is able to steal 5% of the vote from the clowns. Then we have a 3 way tie. Now wouldn't that be interesting?

The hardest pill to swallow in all of this is that even with all those fancy numbers and what not, voter turnout (or lack there of)completely flies in the face of democracy because you still have abot 50% of the population who apparently just don't want any of the clowns to win and/or who no longer have faith in the system. So what does that say?

[Hux]

Doesn't a true democracy allow people to not vote?

Also, your example above doesn't jive with the Nader situation, he didn't even get 3% of the vote in 2000, yet those 90,000 votes he got in Florida delivered the presidency to Bush, which I think is the point.

[d_rawk]

Doesn't a true democracy allow people to not vote?

Absolutely! Although I imagine a healthy system in which the people feel properly represented incites them to do so to a greater degree than 50%.

But shit. What am I saying .. I'm here in Ontario, where we voted against being adequately represented. Ah well. So it goes.

[d_rawk]

yet those 90,000 votes he got in Florida delivered the presidency to Bush, which I think is the point.

Q: I'm not a lawyer and I don't understand the recent US Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore. Can you explain it to me?

A: Sure. I'm a lawyer. I read it. It says Bush wins, even if Gore got the most votes.

Q: But wait a second. The US Supreme Court has to give a reason, right?

A: Right.

Q: So Bush wins because hand-counts are illegal?

A: Oh no. Six of the justices (two-thirds majority) believed the hand-counts were legal and should be done.

Q: Oh. So the justices did not believe that the hand-counts would find any legal ballots?

A: Nope. The five conservative justices clearly held (and all nine justices agreed) "that punch card balloting machines can produce an unfortunate number of ballots which are not punched in a clean, complete way by the voter." So there are legal votes that should be counted but can't be.

Q: Oh. Does this have something to do with states' rights? Don't conservatives love that?

A: Yes. These five justices have held that the federal government has no business telling a sovereign state university it can't steal trade secrets just because such stealing is prohibited by law. Nor does the federal government have any business telling a state that it should bar guns in schools. Nor can the federal government use the equal protection clause to force states to take measures to stop violence against women.

Q: Is there an exception in this case?

A: Yes, the "Gore Exception." States have no rights to control their own state elections when it can result in Gore being elected President. This decision is limited to only this situation.

Q: C'mon. The Supremes didn't really say that. You're exaggerating!

A: Nope. They held, "Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, as the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities."

Q: What complexities?

A: They didn't say.

Q: I'll bet I know the reason. I heard Jim Baker say this. The votes can't be counted because the Florida Supreme Court, "changed the rules of the election after it was held." Right?

A: Wrong. The US Supreme Court made clear that the Florida Supreme Court did not change the rules of the election. But the US Supreme Court found the failure of the Florida Court to change the rules was wrong.

Q: Huh?

A: The Legislature declared that the only legal standard for counting vote is "clear intent of the voter." The Florida Court was condemned for not adopting a clearer standard.

Q: I thought the Florida Court was not allowed to change the Legislature's law after the election.

A: Right.

Q: So what's the problem?

A: They should have. The US Supreme Court said the Florida Supreme Court should have "adopt[ed] adequate statewide standards for determining what is a legal vote"

Q: I thought only the Legislature could "adopt" new law.

A: Right.

Q: So if the Court had adopted new standards, I thought it would have been overturned.

A: Right. You're catching on.

Q: If the Court had adopted new standards, it would have been overturned for changing the rules. And since it didn't, it's overturned for not changing the rules? That means that no matter what the Florida Supreme Court did, legal votes could never be counted if they would end up with a possible Gore victory.

A: Right. Next question.

Q: Wait, wait. I thought the problem was "equal protection," that some counties counted votes differently from others. Isn't that a problem?

A: It sure is. Across the nation, we vote in a hodgepodge of systems. Some, like the optical-scanners in largely Republican-leaning counties record 99.7% of the votes. Some, like the punchcard systems in largely Democratic-leaning counties record only 98% of the votes. So approximately 2% of Democratic-leaning votes (several thousand) are thrown in the trash can.

Q: Aha! That's a severe equal-protection problem!!!

A: No it's not. The Supreme Court wasn't worried about the 2% of Democratic-leaning ballots thrown in the trashcan in Florida. That "complexity" was not a problem.

Q: Was it the butterfly ballots that violated Florida law and tricked more than 10,000 Democrats to vote for Buchanan or both Gore and Buchanan?

A: Nope. The courts have no problem believing that Buchanan got his highest, best support in a precinct consisting of a Jewish old age home with Holocaust survivors, who apparently have changed their mind about Hitler.

Q: Yikes. So what was the serious equal protection problem?

A: The problem was neither the butterfly ballot nor the 2% of Democrat-leaning voters (largely African-American) disenfranchised. The problem is that somewhat less than .005% of the ballots (100 to 300 votes) may have been determined under slightly different standards, because judges and county officials -- doing what Americans have done for more than 200 years -- will look at the ballots under strict public scrutiny and record voters' votes. At the end of the day, they may have a slightly different opinion about a few hundred votes, but a single judge was overseeing the entire process to resolve any disputes under a single standard.

Etc., etc.

Nader isn't a spoiler. And even if he foiled the Dems, hey, he doesn't approve of either party. What, he should step aside and not let his views be represented? If the system is so fragile that it begins to break apart as soon as people - gasp! - start to participate in an ostensibly participatory democracy, they need to change the fucking system to something that can accommodate actual participation.

[Hux]

What, he should step aside and not let his views be represented?

Yes.

The system is what it is, you either play ball and take some water with your wine (ie. vote for the party that represents 90% of what you believe anyways) or become some idiot martyr like Nader who's actions only screwed his own principles.

What an egomaniac.

[d_rawk]

Maybe you're right. I mean, I do still think that in general it is probably good for the flaws (and baked-in hypocrisy) of the process to be highlighted lest they never get resolved. But that's easier to say in times when the two big parties are running closer together in ideology (the apathy inducing 'there's no difference' perception).

I concede that this election probably isn't the right time for Nader theatrics.