Democrats still don't get it either: in a democracy nobody owns you votes. That the Greens appealed to enough people to get the Democrats in trouble is tough luck for the Democrats. Y'all should have done better in 2000.

Yes, Gore would have been better than Bush --but how much better?

No, nobody could've forseen this outcome in 2000 and it's only thanks to the September 11 attacks, as well as the collapse of the Democratic spine that Bush can do what he's doing now. The filibuster of Estrada is nice, a good beginning but only a beginning.

There is an obvious way for Democrats to get Green voters back in the fold, and it isn't to keep bashing them and wondering why they won't own up to why they were wrong. It is to get the Democratic party to co-opt enough of the Green agenda to get those voters (or at least most of them) to support the party. You blogged below about the pernicious influence of the DLC on the party. They are the ones who should be blamed for losing people who should be part of the party's core of support.

P.S. Not to reopen old wounds, but the bogus majority in Florida was so small that any number of third parties could be "blamed" for allowing the margin to be close enough for Bush to steal the election in the courts. Gore did win, Nader notwithstanding.

Nader obviously hurt Gore. Gore did win anyway only to have Florida stolen by the repugs. Yhe dems and Gore did not fight hard enough in my opinion during the Florida debacle. Saying that, I still feel that the Greens are not only hurting the dems but our country. Yes, the dems have moved to the right thinking this is the only way to be elected. The Greens should stay within the democratic party and help us change it from within. I am a very liberal democrat who wants to see the party chart a course back to the left of center. We should offer solutions for our social problems and be a sane leader on international events. In 2004, let's work together to bring sanity and morality back to our country.

Norm, your strategy is sound enough, but I have my doubts that anyone at the top of the Party is really listening. It seems to me that people like you have been trying to halt the Party's rightward march to little effect at all, because people like Clinton and McAuliffe don't have your back. Oh, they can use you all right, sometimes. But they neither like you nor respect you. I'm all in favor of local actions, but without the man/woman at the top articulating it without the perpetual air of apology that Gore brought us, it's not going to stir the millions who don't even consider it worthwhile to vote. Somebody needs to talk to them, or more of us will join them. Lord knows, if Lieberman or Miller gets the nod, I'll be able to do so without a second thought.

The Dems should make their leaders tend to their self-inflicted wounds and leave off pointing their fingers at Greens. Luis' tactic would be a good start. It's what the Dems did with Socialist values in the '30s, and if we aren't in a situation now where someone desperately needs to drag class issues into the spotlight AGAIN and KEEP them there, damnit... I guess we never will be.

Martin,
I can't get with the "nobody owns your votes" argument, or is it "nobody owes you votes"? Obviously it's true--you can vote Green if you like, or Republican, or Libertarian, or even Democratic.

But it's your civic obligation to cast your vote in the way that you think will do the most good for the country. There are circumstances in which I can imagine that the way to do that would be to vote for a more leftist Green candidate, with no chance of winning, even at the cost of electing a more conservative Republican. The current situation is not one of those.

Leaving aside how bad the Republicans are--and that's leaving aside way too much--the only practical reason to vote Green is to encourage Democrats to move left. And when the Greens run a candidate against fucking Paul Wellstone, they send the message that there's no point in moving to the left.

Answering your question: "Yes, Gore would have been better than Bush --but how much better?"
I'm not sure. Maybe, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots better. Or maybe, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, LOTS, LOTS, LOTS better. We probably wouldn't have realized it--we would probably be grumbling at some of the things he'd be doing--but we wouldn't know how good we had it.

Not to open old wounds, but Naderites are living in a fantasy world. Politics is a game for grown-ups, and the object is to win. Anyone who votes Green in a Presidential election is completely out-of-touch. The fact that the Green Party navel-gazers refuse to aknowledge their role in electing George Bush is just further proof that they lack basic cognitive skills.

Sorry, I know it's a nasty post. It's not meant to start a flame war, at all. But my spleen will never be fully vented on the Green Party-- a party for which I cast my first-ever vote, back in 1990. There is a massive difference between the Democratic and Republican parties, and to pretend that there isn't... it's just friggin stupidity.

To Greens --

The Rep. party constituency is the wealthy, many corps. and the religious right. The Dem. party constituency is corporate, but also unions, women's groups, environmental groups, civil rights groups and pro-choice groups. How can you possibly say there's no difference?

In 2004 - run Nader or someone else in the Primaries for god's sake, then either hold your nose or sit out if they don't win. Do you really want another four years of Estrada's, Suttons, and Ashcrofts? Please!!

I guess Nader's refusal to campaign in safe states to get that 5% (which he had registered to come to himself rather than the Greens) was a sign of his commitment to a third party?

Hooey. It was a frustrated old man's attempt to destroy people who wouldn't treat him with the respect he felt he deserved. He has acknowledged repeatedly that he hopes to destroy Democrats from the left in hopes that something rises from the ashes of everything he enables the right to burn down. Well, hell. He'll be dead then. What does he care.

The only reason I can see for not acknowledging what Nader has been straightforwardly admitting since well before the election is that is that some Nader voters have more in common with Bush voters than their goal of putting a Republican in the White House.

For crying out loud, if you must spoil, be honest. You're not doing yourself a bit of good by denying the effects of your actions while preening yourself over how righteous you are to have caused them.

look, i can't stand this myoptic view of the political arena today. sure, gore would have become president, but would that have changed the real problem?

would fox news have gone off the air?

would the christian coalition have suddenly stopped proslytizing?

would the nra have stopped ranting about only one-half (the second half) of the second ammendment?

would the media have become fair?

the problem is bigger than bush, my friends. the problem (at least one of the problems) is that money has made a huge disconnect between the people and the government.

do you seriously think everything would be hunky dory with gore in office? (granted, fewer people would have died in 9/11, but would he have been able to prevent it altogether)?

daily kos is proposing a grass-roots effort to get bloggers to convince readers to give moeny to the dnc. my first reaction is; what the f*ck have the dems done for me in the last two years?

kept quiet when it was absolutely proven that the bush brothers conspired to disenfranchise thousands of black voters in florida?

given bush unilateral power to wage war?

sold us out on the tax breaks?

kept quiet when the patriot act and patriot act ii are passed?

i have to agree with luis; the dems ain't gonna shame the green-voters back into the fold. either start fighting for the common man or put up with the rift it creates when you don't.

and just blow me. or at least stop your whining.

Well, since we're boiling things down here, here is a clear fact, to be filed in the "but-for" category along with Nathan's argument: But for Gore running a shitty campaign he would have won.
And this one: But for Gore losing his HOME STATE TN he would have won.
Gore lost the election, Nader didn't lose it for him.

Moreover, because it ain't that simple, Gore lost because he debated horribly, because of a multitude of problems in FL etc.

I mean people get it together! Nader was just one of the many forces working against Gore, but nothing beat Gore like Gore himself. Even he knows that.

Skippy--

What you call "this myoptic [sic] view of the political arena" I call winning the next election. Look, I'm what most people would call a radical environmentalist, in terms of my ecological views. But I won't cut off my nose to spite my face, which is something the Green Party doesn't seem to understand. I admire your vision. Bring it to the Democratic Party. That's how politics works-- you get involved and change things. What I've heard here from Naderites is a cry-baby jeremiad that the Dems don't seek them out. Well, why should they?

Man, it is so easy to be a wise man on a mountain, as Maugham said. Come down here with the rest of us and do some good. Move the ball, instead of bitching about the rules of the game.

Eric, you're just wrong, and it's embarrassing that people who think they've seen through the spin seem so happy to swallow it. The RNC told you that Gore debated terribly, so you believe it. But focus groups on the night, including Republicans, thought Gore won the debates - as did most people who actually watched them. I watched them, and it was manifestly clear that Gore wiped the floor with Bush. If you don't believe me, go back and read the text (WashPost has the transcripts) and see for yourself: Gore won the debates in a wash.

As to Tennessee, people are still trying to sort out how much fraud the Republicans pulled there - Gore always ran close races, so it wouldn't take much to upset the balance. But Tennessee is a conservative southern state, so harping on this "he lost his own state" thing is just eating more Republican spin. He lost a conservative southern state - so what?

As to the rest - there is no way on earth that Gore couldn't have been MUCH better than what we have now. I'm not saying I would have loved him, but Bush showed early that he would be an unprecedented disaster, and he has done even worse than expected.

But Gore has clearly had his bath of fire and come out seeing through the smoke; his statements in the last six months of 2002 made clear that he now understands where the problems are coming from. Shame you people didn't figure that out and support him when you had the chance instead of letting the DLC ace him out of the race.

The problem with third party candidates in the US political system is that they are simply not a viable option. In the winner-take-all method that we have, the 3rd party can only act as a spoiler, which is exactly what happened. In other voting systems, such as instant run-off voting (IRV) or proportional representation (PR) third parties are extremely viable and robust. IRV allows you to pick the order of the candidates (i.e. Nader first, Gore second, Bush third (or not at all)). In the situation that we had in 2000, since no one received the majority of the votes, the third party candidate, in this case Nader, would be eliminated from contention and all of the Nader votes would be examined for their second choice. Perhaps that would have been Gore, perhaps not. However, what IRV keeps from happening, is that you don't end up electing the person that you like the least by voting for the person you like the most. IRV allows you true freedom of choice. And you can send the message that the third party you chose is viable, growing, and strong. PR is where parties receive votes instead of candidates, and they get to place a number of representatives based on their percentage of the vote. So, for example, let's say in our theoretical election the D's got 46%, the R's got 46%, and the G's got 8%. These results would give the R/D's 200 members of Congress each and the G's would get 35. If the D's could manage to form a coalition with either 18 R's or 18 G's they could govern from the center. In New York, we have a system that allows third parties to endorse major party candidates so that a voter can vote for one person as a representative of several different parties. Public funding is based on the party receiving votes. Public office is based on the person receiving the votes.

As they say, "don't hate the player, hate the game." The winner-take-all system is the game we have right now. Anyone that doesn't understand the rules of the game is simply being naive. If you run a third party candidate in a national election, you have the potential for being a spoiler for the candidate that you are most similar to in views. It's just simple logistics. This has nothing to do with philosophy or emotion or civic responsibility or "vote ownership." If we want to increase the viability of third parties, we need to change the game.

BTW, anyone that thinks Gore ran a bad campaign or lost the debates, please go to The Daily Howler and read up.

skippy and siliconretina are right that all our problems cannot be solved by electing Democrats--no way, no how. But in races where the Democrat is significantly better than the Republican (and, given impacts on Congressional control, that's every federal election), voting Green IMO should be a last resort.

I think it's like deterrence. We want the Democrats to move to the left. Our leverage, apparently, is our vote; if the Democrats go to far to the right, we can vote Green, which won't yield the results we want (the Green won't win, the least preferable Republican might). So voting Green is an admission of failure; we couldn't get the Democrat as far to the left as we want to, so we're following through on our threat even if it produces our least favorite result.

I don't think that's irrational. But it should be rare. And if you really want to have an effect, you should organize to present candidates with a list of demands and say "If you do X and Y," we'll endorse you--there isn't any incentive to try to please someone with ill-defined goals, if you suspect they won't accept anything you do. (Wellstone, Wellstone, Wellstone.)

And please--help us out in the primaries. We need the best Democratic candidates we can get, and that means we need the best Democratic voters.

"But it's your civic obligation to cast your vote in the way that you think will do the most good for the country. There are circumstances in which I can imagine that the way to do that would be to vote for a more leftist Green candidate, with no chance of winning, even at the cost of electing a more conservative Republican. The current situation is not one of those."

That's what I mean; if you think like this, you'll never achieve change. Vote for the party or person you think is the best, not for somebody you loathe the least, because they have a chance to win.

Not that I necessarily think Nader's 2000 presidential campaign was good strategy for the Greens, but I loathe the principle of "tactical voting".

I'm not sure what's subsumed in "tactical voting"

I vote against people who support policies I can't live with, and I vote for whoever is likely to defend the things I care about. This past election cycle, since no-one whose positions and past record I completely agreed with or approved of was running, I held my nose when I did that.

People who were familiar with the details of Nader's positions, history and finances held their noses and voted for him if they felt it would accomplish what they wanted to accomplish. Those votes, insofar as they were intended to help the candidates who opposed the Greens on their most important issues and hurt the candidates whose goals were closest to those of the Greens, were tactical. Fighting to keep Senator Wellstone out of the Senate was a tactical move. Picking off the most progressive Democrats (again, not my interpretation, Nader's announced plan) is a tactical move, certainly not one that was designed to move the Democratic party to the left. It was designed to push the party to the right and force more progressives out of it.

We all voted to serve our personal agendas. My agenda lost. I think my country did too.

I think anyone who is satisfied with what they accomplished by their vote in the '02 election cycle should vote exactly the same way next time.

Avedon - the only thing you should be embarrassed about is that you missed my point. Scapegoating Nader is just stupid. It was more complicated than that.

I watched the debates - all three - and I thought Gore lost in the aggregate based on his inconsistency. I don't need you, the Post or anyone else to tell me who won or lost. Bush had lower expectations based on the media's biased coverage, I'll grant that. But I thought Gore should have mopped the floor with him, but didn't.

As for TN, if you don't understand why it was that losing one conservative southern state was so important, then you need things explained to you that I don't have tome for now.

As for RNC spin, so what. All you are doing there is slaying the messenger because you don't like the message. I'll judge what I hear on the content, not the source. And I know when I'm being spun, thanks. You can save your remedial media critique for someone who can benefit from it. Besides, many said these things, including Dems.

Having said all of that, I do not think we should ever forget what happened in 2000. The people who voted for Nader, and would have otherwise voted for Gore, and were in close states, screwed up. Add it to the list. The real thing to always remember is what FL and the Supreme Court did. Of course that is tougher than just scapegoating Nader.

Rather than rehashing 2000 and Nader's role, let's focus on 2004. There is a very good possibility that Bush will become extremely unpopular and vulnerable in 2004. (The number of interested Dem. candidates is some measure of this.) If this is the case, almost any Democrat might win -- even a very progressive one, resulting in a sea change in Presidential leadership, even compared to Clinton. Thus, the Greens have a choice: (1) Participate in the Dem. primaries, try to nominate the most progressive Democrat and have a role in restoring progressive leadership; or (2) sit out the primaries and run Nader or someone else again, resulting in probably a more conservative Dem. nominee, and a greater possibility of a Republican win. In either event they will be further marginalized. I think the choice is a no-brainer.

I note that you fail to mention the Senate in your "let me repeat" -- that's because the vote was 29-21 among the Democrats.

I couldn't vote for Gore/Lieberman in the election for two reasons. One, I don't vote for candidates that support the death penalty. Bush may be worse on that subject, but Gore (and Clinton) are pretty bad too. The second was that I will not vote for candidates that says he wants to bring religion into government or that people that aren't religious are not as moral. This is Lieberman during the campaign:

"as a people we need to reaffirm our faith and renew the dedication of our nation and ourselves to God and God's purpose."

No true democracy can accept such people as leaders.

I think it's stupid to be whining about Greens and Nader two years after the election. The Democrats didn't have to confirm Ashcroft, or vote for the Patriot Act (all but Feingold), or vote for the Iraq resolution and the Bush tax cuts. They are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

In brief tangential response to one of siliconretina's points: voting system reform would indeed be a very good thing. But people should realize that IRV is actually a rather poor system that still encourages strategic voting, and in Australia (which actually uses it) there is still a very strong 2-party dominance. Approval voting, Condorcet, etc. would all be better replacements than IRV.

( ElectionMethods.org has good discussion of these issues; see especially http://www.electionmethods.org/IRVproblems.htm .)

Eric, what I think you don't understand is just how conservative Tennessee politics are. Gore had no chance of carrying TN in 2000, at all. Both TN senators are, and will remain for the forseeable future, Republicans. True, there is a Democratic governor, but he was obscenely popular in middle TN (being an extremely succesful mayor of Nashville) which usually leans WAY right. East TN leans even further to the right. That is to say, 2/3rds of the state would NEVER have voted for Gore

Claudius -- you suggested that Greens "sit out" if they don't like the Dem candidate. Think that one through. If the Greens had quietly sat out the 2000 Presidential election, the result would have been EXACTLY THE SAME. Voting for Nader was NOT the same as voting for Bush; it was the same as not voting.

Many Greens were trying to send a message, and as of right now it is clear that the attempt failed.

zizka--
You know I love you, but what Claudius was saying was that, if the Greens sit out the primaries, then they won't like the Dem candidate. Claudius, and I, would rather that the Greens took part in Democratic primaries, so they could help us keep Lieberman from being the candidate.

I think the Greens are right that Green-bashing is counterproductive. Mostly because I think the the result of the 2000 election, and the Bush administration's behavior since, is going to drive away Green voters if not Green activists.

What I think is important is for progressives to work to try to change the Democratic party from inside. So please, Greens, come back. The lefty Democrats need your help.

True that TN is a very conservative state. But Gore won it in the past as a conservative Dem, and maybe based also on name recognition. And although it does happen that presidential candidates lose their home state, it is infrequent. Last time was 1972 - McGovern lost his home state of SD, but that was during the VN war and McGovern was coming out as quite liberal. Gore did not strike me as coming out all that liberal during his campaign. I think they could have done with some better "strategery" (I'm not sure that is exactly how to spell that Bushism) in TN and WV, especially. But I suppose reasonable peole can disagree about these things.

Matt: I was responding to Cla udius's first post and skipped over his second: He said:
"In 2004 - run Nader or someone else in the Primaries for god's sake, then either hold your nose or sit out if they don't win."

I personally hope the Greens disappear, but I hope they do so because the Dems improve a bit. Bad as Bush is, the Dems won't really have to improve much. But if Lieberman is nominated I'll reall be in hell.

Zizka -- you were right about my first post - Greens should not sit out even if they run and lose in the primaries. After two years of the most reactionary administration since Coolidge, which threatens to undermine democracy itself, it should be obvious that any Democrat will be infinitely preferable -- yes, even Holy Joe -- Not my choice, but would he nominate Estrada? Pickering? Would he request changing the rent contribution ceiling of $50 to a floor? Would he challenge California's attempt to regulate emissions? In 2000, I actually heard Nader on "The Connection" saying that Breyer was not all that different from the majority. Did anyone even ask him about the Courts of Appeals?

Green bashing is so bush league. Dems rail on W for his take it or leave it- but its not negotiable-position with europe but fail to see the parallel to the coalition-building opportunity that Gore pissed away.
Gore either underestimated green vote strength or his need for support. Either way, its his mistake for playing the middle, its not the fault of voters who supported a candidate whose platform served their vision.
This dem version of "you're either with us or against us" is the political equivalent of someone pissing on your leg and telling you its raining.
Time for the dems to reassess the payoff of playing for the middle and stop the green invective. Politics is for grown-ups, M-dude, and grown-ups know how to cut deals that leave those who sign on better off. Its the small-minded that expect others to give them support for reasons such as fear, or better yet, "you're not big enough to look over the counter so give me your money and i'll get you what is best for you".

Look, I support the Greens ideologically, but I believe that you need to crawl before you can walk. The Greens get all my support in local elections and state elections. Get a significant number of Green mayors, Senators, Congressmen, city council members, school superintendants, city commisioners, judges, and other public officials, and THEN go for the big one. What the Greens are doing, however, is strategically unsound posturing, not to mention actively alienating their would-be allies. A lot of us far left liberals vote Democrat because we see NO HOPE of a Green President within the next several elections. It's just not going to happen until we have a lot of Greens at all other levels of government and people can see what they're capable of.

As a Green-leaning person, I can not justify voting for or even running a Green Presidential Candidate when George W. Bush is in office and up for re-election. We're teetering on the edge of madness, here- Making an ideological stand with no hope of victory and a good chance of handing victory to the enemy is just bad strategy.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The Democrats in the 2004 are the Greens' friends. I'd rather see the Greens add their voice to the liberal Democratic movement than stand alone on their laurals and weaken both groups, Green AND Democrat, in the process.

Geez, even the USA joined the Communists to defeat Hitler when it was clear he was the biggest danger of the moment.