[EM] Kerry and Nader

[James Green-Armytage]

Mike,

you wrote:
>Considering the big meeting places that are always filled up when Nader 
>comes to town, and considering the overflow crowds at the Michael Moore 
>movie, Fahrenheit 911, there's no way that the boring and sleazy Kerry
>could 
>be as popular as Nader.

	This question isn't specifically about voting methods, but anyway I think
it's more or less relevant, by way of discussing the real-life impact of
current election systems:
	What exactly is it about Kerry that you find to be so sleazy? 
	I have learned quite a bit about Kerry in the last few months, and he
strikes me not as a sleaze, but rather as a well-intentioned and
intelligent person who is under an inhuman amount of pressure, since at
this point, there is so very much riding on him... the weight of the
world, in a very scary, literal sense. 
	If you have any specific criticisms of him, I'd like you to bring them
forward. In your post, you seem to treat the notion 'Kerry is sleazy' as
if it were axiomatic. But to me, it is not axiomatic, so I would prefer
that you support it.

you wrote:
>These lesser-of-2-evils giveaway voters call that strategic voting. But
>strategic voting requires information. We have no information to inform
>or justify strategic voting! And progressives, and all nonrepublicans
>obediently follow the tv commentators, like a herd, and talk about how
>we've got to vote pragmatically.

	This is disingenuous. People will vote for Kerry rather than some other
left-of-center candidate simply because Kerry won the vote for the
Democratic primaries. In fact, if you take the primaries into account, our
presidential system is closer to an idiosyncratic version of the two round
runoff, rather than being pure plurality. Which is of course still not the
best, but it's at least marginally better than pure plurality.
	My question for Nader is that if he's really so much better than Kerry,
and he really wants to be president, why didn't he run in the Democratic
primary? Is he somehow too pure for that? I think that's BS. I think that
the same criticism goes for all people who have left of center politics
but don't like the direction that the Democratic party takes. If you
really don't like it, then why don't you actually join the party and try
to change it? There is nothing inherently wrong and evil about the
Democratic party. Its membership isn't limited to cynical and powerful
politicians who lurk in back rooms; rather it is open to any American
citizen. If more progressives got involved in voting in the primaries,
than more progressive candidates would be nominated. And if you join and
you don't get the candidate you wanted, it's not because of some shady
super-politicos, it's because thousands of ordinary people preferred a
different nominee.

best,
James

P.S. I don't see much connection between Michael Moore and Nader.
Actually, Nader has essentially been begging Moore to support him, in two
separate open letters, and has been met with only a stony silence. I think
that "Fahrenheit" is intended as an implicit endorsement of whichever
Democratic candidate gets the nomination.