[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> Energy, Elections, and the Internet

[Jeffrey Fisher <jfisher@igc.org>]

i'm afraid we're beginning to have a private conversation that isn't going to get much
further, so this will be my final post, unless someone else jumps in and makes this a
conversation. my last point is this:

another strategy for gore might have been to attempt to court the nader
vote, rather than threatening it with a bush presidency and attempting
to browbeat it into submission. the strategy may have actually worked in
minnesota and washington. whether it paid off in the long run remains to
be seen.

beyond that, i think you focus too much on what was negative about the nader vote. most of
us who voted for him were not trying to beat up al gore (although there might have been
some satisfaction taken in that), but were rather trying to get matching funds and ballot
lines for the greens. on the first count, we failed. on the second, there was some
considerable success in a number of states (including texas, of all places).

the nader vote was not a negative vote, but a positive vote. that's important when you
start talking about "misuse" of voting power by, er, voters.

regards,

j

Law wrote:

> Some number of people voted for Nader as a protest, who would have
> voted for Gore. So, Gore lost some votes to Nader. I think this is
> confirmed by interviews and polls. Would you like to continue to argue
> this is not true?
>
> Arguing that Gore *should* have done better against Bush is specious.
> It amounts to saying that Gore should have saved Nader voters from the
> consequences of their vote.
>
> Open your eyes to the fact that the US is so evenly divided between
> Gore and Bush. This gives Nader supporters unprecedented sway. And,
> they misused it. I agreed with much of Nader's platform, but I am
> bitterly disappointed that he is not interested in progress, only
> contention. Perhaps that was his attraction.
>
> Maybe I'm getting concerned about nothing, the election is not over.
>
> Jim
>
> On Thu, 9 Nov 2000, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>
> > my argument is not that without a landslide gore is a failure. the argument is that
> > gore lost a lot of constituencies he quite arguably should have won, and he lost
> > them to bush. your only response to this is that the "significantly worse" prospect
> > of a bush administration somehow leads to the conclusion that "nader supporters need
> > to face" the fact that they did damage to gore.

--
jeff fisher
dilettant
jfisher@igc.org
O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O
"I am the brand name. When all things began, the brand name already
was. The brand name dwelt with God, and what God was, the brand
name was. The brand name, then, was with God at the beginning, and
through him all things came to be; no single thing was created without
him." - Philip K. Dick
O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O



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