Is this worth thinking about? How does a 2012 Democratic challenger to Republican Senator Scott Brown do in Massachusetts if that state’s former governor is the presidential candidate? Could the ‘favorite son’ gene bring the Republican ticket there all the way home?
We need Elizabeth Warren in the Senate. We haven’t had a real consumer advocate around since Ralph Nader (who lost me when he gave the Presidency to George W. Bush in 2000).
Give her money.
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
She has a tough camapaign in front of her…
Even if she IS the Democrat in the true state of Massachusetts…….
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I agree.
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wouldn’t she be a breath of fresh air? I just adore her and think she is so straight and to the point. Wish there were a hundred of her.
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Yeah, she’s a great argument for cloning! I adore her too – her last appearance in front of a congressional committee was a study in grace. The committee were mostly rude and ignorant. She was patient, polite, knowledgable and never ever ever lost an inch of her cool. Great lady.
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I was on a extended visit to Mass during the Brown campaign and subsequent win. There were hundreds of Brown “supporters”, mostly Tea Party activists, imported from all over the country. There were call banks operating on Brown’s behalf calling from all over the country. It was a circus. Of course, the O’Donnell campaign was providing comic relief, but it wasn’t enough. I have never seen a state campaign more influenced by non-residents. I expect just that in this race. I hope the DNC writes a sufficient check this time.
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David – we’re seeing more of that all over the country in any race for national office. The money interests will have what they want. And you can bet they don’t want Elizabeth Warren anywhere near the Senate.
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Moe, you know better than to cite old myths. Every time Gore went up in the polls, so did Nader. Neither was taking votes from the other. And when Gore gained, it was done by mouthing more Nader-like positions. Without Nader there, Gore simply would have been more Republican, in which case people vote for the real Republican rather than the imitator. The panic that Nader would “steal” votes from Gore was an old ploy to get the Dem base excited enough to show up and vote, because turnout is what it’s all about for the big parties.
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Mudge, I was (actually still am but for the one thing) a huge Nader fan. And I followed his 2000 campaign and cheered the message he brought to it. The message that needed to be heard and wasn’t even being menitoned by either Dems or Repub. So I supported him. UNTIL Florida happened.
I think he should have pulled out and thrown his support to Gore a few weeks before the actual election. The polls were clear that it was going to be close. And Nader knew full well that staying in the race could mean a Bush presidency. An oil presidency. The very thing that Nader hates most.
Had he done what I think was the wise thing, the history of this country for the last decade+ would have been very very different. Gore would have done Afghanistan, but Iraq wouldn’t have happened. He would have applied the bully pulpit to promote alternate energy. And I don’t think the national security state would have grown so mammoth as it has since 9/11.
I think Nader did us a disservice. Nevertheless, I’ll always honor his body of work. He’s been very important, but in this instance, I think he stumbled.
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Also Mudge, on the ‘steal votes’ thing, he absolutely did. I think the better term though, is ‘split the vote’. And that happened. Absolutely. The Nader votes in Florida would have given Gore the election. (Clinton got elected the first time with only 40%+ of the vote because Ross Perot ‘split’ the GOP vote.)
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You’re relying on some fallatious assumptions.
That in an alternate universe in which Nader had pulled out:
(1) All the same people who voted in this universe would have voted.
(2) None of the people who did not vote in this universe would vote.
(3) More of the Nader voters in this universe would have voted for Gore than Bush, by a big enough margin to make the difference.
(4) The Bushie shenannigans could not have made up for (3) just as easily as they made up for other marginal factors in Gore’s favor.
In other words, you’re changing one thing to make an alternate universe and assuming that everything else would have stayed the same, as if your change would have had no effect on other factors.
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No, I’m not assuming everything would have stayed the same. If he’d tossed his support to Gore in October say, I’m sure there would be some diehards who wouldn’ve stayed home. But in Florida, Gore lost by 900 votes. Nader got 35,000. Gore would still have won that state by a huge margin. Remember, all Nader’s support over almost 50 years has come from Dems.
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What kind of “support” are you talking about? I know that registered Greens are often former Dems, but almost as often former Reps, and more often former decline-to-states. They also need a real kick in the pants to show up to vote at all.
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I’m not sure what your point is, but I think you’re questioning whether it was Dems who supported Nadar throughout his career as a consumer activist.
I’m 70 and a lifelong political junkie. Watch it all way too closely :). Nader’s support came almost entirely from the left. The ‘green’ movement actually was well underway by 1970, again supported almost entirely by the left.
You’re right that voters need a kick in the pants. The right has done a much better job of keeping thier people motivated. The Obama election was an exception and turnout was terrific. But the enthusiasm has faded; I don’t think we’ll see anything like that passion in ’12.
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You’re speculating about voter behavior if Nader had bowed out, right?
Not elected Dems, just voters who would have voted for Nader.
They are a mixed lot, many of whom say “A plague on both their houses!”, myself included. We know that the public part of campaigns and debates is no more real than WWE wrestling. Those who are registered Green are the portion I know best, and they’re very difficult to get interested in elections. Only a big name like Nader, with an all-out campaign, got them to show up at all. They are recruited mostly from the uninvolved, not any affiliation like “left” or “right”. And please don’t confuse “green” with “Green”. The first is a general eco feel-good word. The second is the name of a party with a platform as comprehensive as any’s.
If your hypotesis is true that Nader voters would mostly vote Dem as a second choice, the additional turnout Nader generated should be thanked for the Dems not doing worse in congressional elections in 2000, since there weren’t many down-ticket Green candidates.
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Oops, I also forgot that you’re assuming that Gore would have behaved much differently from Bush in office. Impossible to say, but the burden of proof is on you.
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Seriously, can you imagine Gore invading Iraq? Do I need to prove a negative? I can’t..No one can. But I’ll give you this – here’s Gore in 2002 when the war on Iraq talk was heating up – six months before we invaded..
“SAN FRANCISCO — Former vice president Al Gore on Monday outlined a sweeping indictment of President Bush’s threatened attack on Iraq, calling it a distraction from the war on terrorism that has “squandered” international support for the United States.”
Story here:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-09-23-gore_x.htm
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It’s easy to criticize when you’re not in office. In office, subject to the pressures from the permanent government of wealthy patrons and lobbyists, who knows what he might have done? Maybe he would have continued Clinton’s policy of killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis with unilateral no-fly zones, continuing to talk about WMD’s that didn’t exist & such. Maybe 9/11 would have brought more pressure on him to seek a more active military solution. No way to know.
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Gore’s comments were a criticism in advance of an action, and so were also a warning. Let’s not forget that Gore wasn’t coming from outside and unaware of the real situitaion. He was only 60 days out of the white house.
That said, he would have continued the no-fly zone disgrace. He was no peacenik, but we would never have seen Shock & Awe.
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Correction. I had that wrong. Of course he was 10 months out of the white house, not two!
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