I feel like a bowl of petunias plummeting towards the earth.

Surely, this time around, everyone will recognize that there are differences that matter between the Democrats and the Republicans? (i.e., maybe Nader's message won't play this time around.)

I'm reminded of an extremely intelligent friend of mine. He's progressive. Unfortunately, he also votes as if Condorcet's method (which he supports) were in effect. This means, in close elections, given current election rules, he's more likely to help his last place choice than someone he can live with. *sigh*

(For the record, I want us conduct elections as if they were the Hugo Awards, but without "No Award." However, since those aren't the rules in play, I'm not going to vote as if they were.)

Yep, the Rethuglicans think it's going to be close again, and they need a "liberal" spoiler. Nader is a right-wing mole. I hope he trips on his shoelace, falls down a manhole, and is eaten by rats.

Robo-Rats!

So, if Nader had not run in 2000, would we be in a war with Iraq? Anyone? Anyone?

No.

Surely, this time around, everyone will recognize that there are differences that matter between the Democrats and the Republicans?

Yes, they disagree about the best way to screw us over. The fact that one party might possibly maybe screw us over less than the other isn't a compelling reason to vote for them.

Now the fact that the Republicans look to be nominating someone who isn't a complete wingnut could tempt me to vote for McCain, but if it's Romney vs Clinton or Obama, I'll choose a raving loon like Nader.

Wow, they must really be getting desperate and perhaps a bit delusional if they think anything they do at this point will distract from the mess they've put the country in already.

So, there's no difference between:

Roe V Wade being upheld, and Roe V Wade being overturned

Invading Iraq, and not invading Iraq

National health care of some sort and no national health care of any sort

Support for civil at least unions and an amendment to the constitution banning same sex marriage nation wide.

and so on.

A lot of the more far left blogs I read have a large number of Nader supporters. I have no problem with wanting Nader as a candidate because his goals align closely with yours. But it's a lie to say that there's no difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Steve@4: I'd like to think no.

I'd prefer to think we'd spent some sensible time locking down Bin laden and turning Afghanistan into a real country.

I'm weird that way though.

#2 Xopher - I was going to say something about cruelty to rats, but really, the guy's some kind of vegetarian, he's probably as aware as anybody of the various toxic whoosits... yes, Nader would make fine and nutritious rat chow.

As for whoever is still saying "there's no difference between the parties:" You're hopeless. If you haven't noticed the last seven years of warfare, torture, civil rights violations, and wholesale looting of the treasury, I can't think of anything that you *would* notice.

Any other time, I might be swayed by a Nader run, But not now. If that ...Man is too dim or egotistical to see what's at stake here than... by golly I 'm trying to watch my language. Diddly.

AHHH!

# 6 Sean O'Hara-

Now the fact that the Republicans look to be nominating someone who isn't a complete wingnut could tempt me to vote for McCain

"Bomb bomb Iran" McCain? Wingnut.

What is scaring the Republicans is that they are drawing fewer primary voters than the Democrats. If this holds up, and the Democrats do not commit seppuku, then the next president of the United States will either be a member of the Luo ethnic group, or a woman. There will be a larger Democratic majority in the House, and a larger Democratic majority in the Senate. To cap it all, the Republican party will find itself engaged in a bout of self-blame and self-mutilation which will make the Democrats' past brannigans look amateurish (I am beginning to think of bidding for the popcorn franchise).

That's their fear, and they will do anything to prevent it and have the Democrats be the ones looking on from the sidelines on the Wednesday after the first Monday in November.

mjfgates@#10: As for whoever is still saying "there's no difference between the parties:" You're hopeless. If you haven't noticed the last seven years of warfare, torture, civil rights violations, and wholesale looting of the treasury, I can't think of anything that you *would* notice.

The first time around, I thought that those people were clueless, or that they had allowed their political enthusiasms to blind them to the consequences of their actions.

But to do the same thing all over again, after everything that has happened since . . . this time, I can only believe that they are actively acquiescing to evil.

I have coworkers who say that they're willing to consider McCain because he's not a wingnut.

They tend to be the coworkers who don't follow politics, and I've had to send a few to Google because they're sure I'm making [McCain's record] up, because a reasonable guy like McCain wouldn't [...]

I just read somebody's blog (ah, Shakespeare's Sister's) making the point that if Nader worked for his goals between elections rather than just popping up every four years to make trouble he'd get a lot more respect.

Ralph, you killed the Corvair and did a lot of other good things, but your ego is about to destroy you and your legacy if it hasn't already. Go home.

"Bomb bomb Iran" McCain? Wingnut.

I don't see that as significantly different from Reagan joking, "The bombing starts in five minutes." Now, if you want to tell me Reagan was a wingnut, go ahead, but don't expect me to take you seriously.

# 15 Julia

Yeah, we have one in my office. He sees McCain as "strong on defense".

I've explained to him that McCain is likely to invade Iran, to which he responds "Well, we can't let them have nuclear weapons". To which I respond "Nor can any sane nation let us create a worldwide economic crisis that stands a good chance of precipitating WWIII, and sill indubitably end in more terrorist attacks on the US. Iraq had no allies and an incompetent military. Iran is not the same place. If we attack Iran, we loose Iraq, and stand a good chance of starting a world war"

Perhaps I'm being too complicated for him.

Sean, #6: I was going to say that there aren't words to describe how wrong you are, but it occurs to me that there is indeed such a word: "privileged". You don't seem to have the misfortune to belong to any of the unprivileged groups who see the difference very clearly; none of those things affect YOU, so of course there's no difference. Furthermore, you're willing to sell the birthrights of your fellow citizens for a mess of ideology. Ptui.

Julia, #15: Good for you. You're a hero, and an example of what we all need to be doing -- getting genuine information out to the people who think they're getting the whole story from the evening news.

Ack. I hope Nader doesn't run.

You know, that he's even willing to consider running again proves to me that he doesn't have the political savvy necessary to be the President of the United States. If he can't recognize that his presidential bid would do harm than good he could never be a truly effective President.

Does anyone else remember Michael Moore and Bill Maher on their knees begging him not to run again?

I don't see the Democrats as anything more than slightly less completely awful than the alternative, but at this juncture that's enough to make me really pissed at what Nader's doing.

Sean : "McCain began his answer by changing the words to a popular Beach Boys song," the Georgetown Times reports.

"'Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,' he sang to the tune of Barbara Ann," the paper notes.

McCain then added, "Iran is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. That alone should concern us but now they are trying for nuclear capabilities. I totally support the President when he says we will not allow Iran to destroy Israel."

The paper notes that McCain stopped short of answering the actual question and did not say if he supports an invasion of Iran."

Later, McCain campaign spokesman Kevin McLaughlin told ABC News that the senator "was just trying to add a little humor to the event."

ABC's report adds, "On a more serious note, however, McCain has long been an advocate of dealing with rogue states aggressively. Back in 2000 when then-Gov. George W. Bush was wary of nation building and talking about a foreign policy based on humility and restraint, McCain was advocating a policy of 'rogue-state rollback,' which he described in a 1999 speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies as a '21st century interpretation of the Reagan doctrine.'"

Warmongering wingnut. Same as Bush.

Ethan -

I don't see the Democrats as anything more than slightly less completely awful than the alternative

We're one supreme court judge away from Roe V Wade begin overturned. Do you have a uterus? Does anyone you care about have one?

Sean O'Hara #17: Now, if you want to tell me Reagan was a wingnut, go ahead, but don't expect me to take you seriously.

Feel free to never, ever take anything I say seriously ever again.

John Chu at #1 writes:

> Unfortunately, he also votes as if Condorcet's method (which he supports) were in effect.

Would this be Australian style proportional voting? It's something I'm very grateful for - I get to vote Green and end up helping Labour (second preference) instead of the Liberals (just-before-the-crazy-people preference).

> (For the record, I want us conduct elections as if they were the Hugo Awards, but without "No Award."

I know "no award" wouldn't be practical, but it has a certain emotional appeal.

Josh Jasper #23: That's one of the slightlies. And please, no one suspect that I don't care extremely deeply about abortion rights, because I fracking do. I just also care about, you know, mass murder, for instance. Which both "sides" commit gleefully.

This is a joke, right?

*checks calendar. Still January. Not April. Not a joke.*

Aaaaargh!!!!

John Chu @ 1... conduct elections as if they were the Hugo Awards

Let's see. Neil Gaiman emceed the Hugos in 2004. I wonder if he'd be available.

All the good that Nader did in the public sphere is far outweighed by his decision to throw the 2000 election Bush's way.

And if you harbored some doubt on whether that decision was deliberate:

Later I was introduced to Nader's closest adviser, his handsome, piercingly intelligent 30-year-old nephew, Tarek Milleron. Although Milleron argued that environmentalists and other activists would find fundraising easier under Bush, he acknowledged that a Bush presidency would be worse for poor and working-class people, for blacks, for most Americans. As Moore had, he claimed that Nader's campaign would encourage Web-based vote-swapping between progressives in safe and contested states. But when I suggested that Nader could gain substantial influence in a Democratic administration by focusing his campaign on the 40 safe states and encouraging his supporters elsewhere to vote Gore, Milleron leaned coolly toward me with extra steel in his voice and body. He did not disagree. He simply said, "We're not going to do that."

"Why not?" I said.

With just a flicker of smile, he answered, "Because we want to punish the Democrats, we want to hurt them, wound them."

(From a 2004 Village Voice article, still worth reading.)

Yeah, uh, I suggest to anyone who thinks McCain might be "okay" that they read THE NINE: INSIDE THE SECRET WORLD OF THE SUPREME COURT by Jeffrey Toobin. It's a relatively dispassionate account of what sort of disaster we are (a) already in, or (b) headed for if we get another 8 years of conservative Republican control of the Supreme Court Justice nominating process.

Randomly, variously...

I'm not at all convinced that the Democrats are going to roll into the White House in November.

Anybody who votes for Nader in November is beyond help. Okay, it doesn't matter what you personally think of the two parties. If we don't get some leftish balance on the Court in the next 8 years, you are going to get everything you ever wanted w/r/t the collapse of the American political system. I'll shake your hand on the enormity of your, um, accomplishment.

What the hell is it with NOW and this picture of the purported snub of Clinton by Obama on the floor of the Senate? Maybe he did snub her, but you can't tell anything like that from the infamous "turning away" pic. Clinton is holding Kennedy's hand. She is looking into Kennedy's eyes.

And she says: "I reached out my hand in unity and friendship".

Um, based on the picture, my favorite Senator from my great State of New York is making herself look like a lying, manipulative shit. If she has a pic or better yet footage of things happening that way, then let's see it, at which point I'll eat my (very small, appropriately seasoned) hat. And when I'm done, I won't particularly care that he snubbed her. They are in a knock-down, drag-out battle with each other. I wouldn't expect them to be best friends at the moment.

I would love to be able to vote for Senator Clinton. Why won't she let me?

Sean 6: Now the fact that the Republicans look to be nominating someone who isn't a complete wingnut could tempt me to vote for McCain, but if it's Romney vs Clinton or Obama, I'll choose a raving loon like Nader.

Hmm, this is clearly a really stupid strategy, but since it's taking your vote away from Romney, not from Clinton or Obama, I guess I encourage you to do so. I generally object to people uselessly discarding their votes, but since yours is clearly a Republican vote, my heart isn't in telling you not to.

___ 17: Now, if you want to tell me Reagan was a wingnut, go ahead, but don't expect me to take you seriously.

Well, Reagan was the asshole loser President of his generation, of course, but for sheer wingnuttery he can't compare to today's crop of gaudily deranged monstrosities, in politics and out, so I guess he wasn't a wingnut as the term is used today.

He is, however, one of the people who occasionally make me wish I believed in Hell so that they could burn in it, and I do hope he spends 1000 lifetimes as a person born with AIDS and addicted to crack, and when he died I was torn between happiness that the world had become a better place with him gone, and regret that his suffering was over.

A bad President? Absolutely. A monster? Yep. A mass murderer (2nd degree, depraved indifference)? You bet. But I guess he wasn't strictly a wingnut.

I lost all respect for Nader when I heard his line about "no real difference" between the Ds and Rs (and also that he really didn't like Gore, personally). Now I will freely admit to quite a bit of despair, anger, and frustration with the way the D's have been allowing the Constitution and ordinary folk be torn to shreds (the R's, too, but my expectations are lower) by the Bush/Cheney Administration, but to say that Gore and Bush were about the same? Nuh-uh. I knew there was a big difference in 2000, so he should have too. That said to me that Nader was incapable of putting the good of the country ahead of his personal foibles (at the very least), and he would be a very poor President.

His continued runs since then have caused me to change my opinion. He's an arrogant jackass, who likes the attention.

If Nader runs, he'll have the effect of making my write-in for Edwards into a vote for the Dems.

I will vote for the Democratic nominee, whoever that turns out to be, because the worst possible Democrat is miles and miles better than the best possible Rethuglican, and that would be true even if Rahm Emmanuel were running on the Dem side...and I can't think of a "good" Rethuglican to put on the other side. Surely there used to be some that weren't so bad, and simply had the intelligence not to run for POTUS, but I can't call any to mind right now.

I was going to say that there aren't words to describe how wrong you are, but it occurs to me that there is indeed such a word: "privileged". You don't seem to have the misfortune to belong to any of the unprivileged groups who see the difference very clearly; none of those things affect YOU, so of course there's no difference.

I would greatly appreciate it if you ceased putting words in my mouth. Nowhere have I ever said that there's no difference between the Democrats and Republicans. They are quite different. And they're both equally wrong, and their policies have the effect of screwing people over, even if in completely different ways. I'm willing to give McCain a chance because I think he'll screw people over within acceptable tolerances.

Furthermore, you're willing to sell the birthrights of your fellow citizens for a mess of ideology. Ptui.

Yes, I'm a horrible person for not supporting your candidate. That argument is really going to win me to your side.

Imagine me clutching my head and muttering about being rid of this turbulent -- uh -- whatever.

MKK

Jim, I think you're way too optimistic to think the Reps are in a lot of trouble. In the latest polls, McCain has a really big lead over both Hillary and Obama. (Though many Republicans would probably see a choice between McCain and a Democrat as enough trouble in it's own right.)

I don't see that as significantly different from Reagan joking, "The bombing starts in five minutes." Now, if you want to tell me Reagan was a wingnut, go ahead, but don't expect me to take you seriously.

So, err, do I get this right- - - -you say that Reagan wasn't a wingnut- and at the same time- you talk about how, under certain circumstances, you won't take other people seriously?

Wow.

This election has the potential for a whole slew of vanity candidates -- Nader, Bloomberg, R*n Pa*l, hey, maybe we can get Roy Moore to run since the wacky evangelicals need to vote for somebody. Don't just limit yourself to Nader. The opportunities for throwing your vote away on some delusional egomaniac will be plentiful.

Hmm, this is clearly a really stupid strategy, but since it's taking your vote away from Romney, not from Clinton or Obama, I guess I encourage you to do so. I generally object to people uselessly discarding their votes, but since yours is clearly a Republican vote, my heart isn't in telling you not to.

Don't jump to conclusions. I'm philosophically a libertarian and not registered with any political party. I've never voted for a Republican in a Presidential election (I did vote McCain in the 2000 primary, and Dean in 2004).

And the claim that people are throwing away their vote if they go for a third party candidate is pure sophistry. Unless you live in a swing state, your vote doesn't make a bit of difference anyway. By your logic, I'd be throwing away my vote even if I went for Clinton or Obama because there's no chance either of them will win Virginia.

Nowhere have I ever said that there's no difference between the Democrats and Republicans.

And yet your purported future vote treats them that way.

Yes, I'm a horrible person for not supporting your candidate.

No, you're a horrible person for supporting the collective and demonstrated incompetence, greed, ignorance, viciousness, and arguable evilness that makes up the current controlling political party, the Republicans. The rhetorical fallacies are only a bonus.

Can a thread go downhill?
Can a thread go downhill very fast?
Nah.

#41 Serge: Can a thread go downhill very fast?

At least we haven't stooped to punning yet.

Oh, sorry. Actually, it's a free country and people who want to pun should clearly be free to do so and enjoy themselves while they do.

It's just that I have the same sort of reaction to them that, as I understand it, autistic children have to being touched.

So, you know, "going downhill" is a matter of perspective, of course.

Sean O'Hara @ 35

I'm willing to give McCain a chance because I think he'll screw people over within acceptable tolerances.

Senator McCain yesterday

He begins by remarking about Justice Alito — "I supported him, I thought he was a magnificent choice, I spoke on his behalf from the floor of the Senate... I've said several times that I'd like to find clones for Justices Roberts and Alito. Of course, that opens up raises other issues, so I ahven't used that phrase anymore... It was a tough fight. He only got 57 views. If you ask Jon Kyl, Lindsey Graham, or anyone on that committee, they'll say that I was a supporter... I was astonished that my record — I just wanted to make clear my record of supporting Justice Alito."

Justices Alito and Roberts are confidently expected to provide the margin of victory for requiring federal ID in order to vote, effectively disenfranchising not a few people, disproportionately old and minority, in response to a "threat" of fraudulent voting which the government has conceded hasn't resulted in any actual fraudulent voting.

In other words, it is no longer necessary to balance the remedy with the need, so we're bringing back the poll tax. Buhbye, voting rights act.

If you're reasonably certain that three or four more Alito clones won't be able to damage anything you care about in the forty years or so they'll probably be sitting on the bench, then I suspect that McCain isn't much of a stretch for you.

And yet your purported future vote treats them that way.

I don't shop at Wal-Mart because the merchandise is shoddy. I don't shop at Best Buy because the merchandise is overpriced. Are you saying that I'm treating them as though there's no difference between them?

No, you're a horrible person for supporting the collective and demonstrated incompetence, greed, ignorance, viciousness, and arguable evilness that makes up the current controlling political party, the Republicans.

Yes, saying that I'll consider voting for a Republican who is broadly disliked by the conservative base of the party is an endoresment of the party.

Sean #39: The John McCain you voted for in 2000 probably doesn't exist any more. He has spent 7+ years sucking up to the Republican powers-that-be in the hope of being chosen as their anointed successor to Bush. I think his original plan might have been to hang on however he could until he got a chance to wrench the Republican party back to sanity. If true, that was a laudable aim... but a bad plan.

Unfortunately, 7+ years of saying one thing while originally believing another creates a massive case of cognitive dissonance, which is pretty much guaranteed to be resolved in favour of coming to believe what one has been saying. We're talking human psychology 101; only fictional characters with the firm support of an author or scriptwriter get to ignore this. Politicians never do.

I don't know that McCain ever was the independent maverick he was presented as in 2000. But he certainly isn't one now.

Justices Alito and Roberts are confidently expected to provide the margin of victory for requiring federal ID in order to vote, effectively disenfranchising not a few people, disproportionately old and minority, in response to a "threat" of fraudulent voting which the government has conceded hasn't resulted in any actual fraudulent voting.

You mean the case brought by a woman registered to vote in two states?

Also, how does requiring an ID inconvenience minorities?

#44 Sean O'Hara: Yes, saying that I'll consider voting for a Republican who is broadly disliked by the conservative base of the party is an endoresment of the party.

Let me just say first of all that I think attacking you for saying you would vote for McCain is a pretty stupid idea.

But I would like to ask you... do you have any concerns about McCain being able to, over the next eight years, appoint Supreme Court Justices along the lines of Alito and Roberts? If you don't, I beg you to look further into the matter.

I find my voice echoes distractingly when I have political conversations under bridges.

Obama taught Constitutional Law. What are the odds President Obama expands the Supreme Court to 11 Justices?

I could see that as one of his first honeymoon moves, taking a lesson from the last eight years and stacking all three branches asap.

Sean #46: So, to refute the point that "threat" of fraudulent voting hasn't resulted in any actual fraudulent voting, you cite a link about a (72 year old) woman who apparently filled out a Florida registration form by mistake, but... golly, only ever voted in Indiana, never in Florida, and thus didn't cast any fraudulent votes.

Hmm.

#49 Lance Weber: What are the odds President Obama expands the Supreme Court to 11 Justices?

I've always loved the fact that this option is always available and that most people don't know that it is. Most people think 9 is some sort of holy number.

However, it's not all that easy to pull off. FDR tried it and couldn't get it to happen.

Sean, he's a Republican and will do Republican things. He's "broadly disliked" is a SO FUCKING WHAT when it comes to the GOP. They always vote at their party's call and they never think of thinking for themselves at all. The Rethuglicans in the House and Senate will vote with a Rethuglican POTUS almost all the time.

Moreover, the President of the Senate will be a Rethuglican if the POTUS is, and with a closely-divided Senate that could be important.

Still more...the POTUS runs the entire Executive Branch, which includes the EPA (talked to any Ground Zero workers lately?) the Justice Department (Alberto Gonzalez, anyone?) and the various internal and external spy agencies that make up the Department of VaterHomeland Security. He will appoint Republicans with Republican ideas (such as they are).

And remember, McCain is on record as thinking we should be in Iraq for the next hundred years. If that's what you want...well, that's evil, and people who want evil are evil themselves.

I just checked with Vegas, the over/under on number of threads to reach Godwin's Law is 83.

I put a dime on the under.

"Surely, this time around, everyone will recognize that there are differences that matter between the Democrats and the Republicans?"

The Democratic candidates are conservative and the Republican candidate is a right wing loon?

Randolph@#54: The Democratic candidates are conservative and the Republican candidate is a right wing loon?

Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that the above assertion is true in all respects, it should still be patently obvious that between the two possibilities there is, as the saying goes, a great gulf fixed.

#46: Because historically, "ballot security" has meant one thing: keeping the "wrong" people from voting. Requiring ID, apart from being a poll tax on people who have to pay to get an ID, will certainly result in certain groups having their ID found insufficient.

But I would like to ask you... do you have any concerns about McCain being able to, over the next eight years, appoint Supreme Court Justices along the lines of Alito and Roberts?

No, actually I don't. The Dems are almost certainly going to expand their control of the Senate this year to the point that anyone McCain appoints will have to be a compromise candidate. They'll have that margin for at least two years, and all the way to the next Presidential election if they don't screw up royally. If the liberal justices resign within that period, the court shouldn't shift significantly to the right, and if Scalia resigns in that time, it could even move closer to the center.

@Xopher: If you want me to take your arguments seriously, stop using childish phrases like "Rethuglican". It makes you sound like Rush Limbaugh.

Sean, I think you are highly optimistic if you think that: a) the Democrats will hold 60 seats in the Senate throughout the next Presidential term or two and b) they will have the spine to filibuster nominees even if they *do* have 60 seats.

Puns? We laugh at your puns?

We see the choice, it's obvious and plain
to anyone of decency and sense;
no need to claim you're sitting on the fence,
or say that both sides carry the same stain.
Be reasonable, come in out of the rain,
you're not a jerk, don't be so bloody dense.
One side is all lies, vanity, pretense
and propping up what's left of John McCain.
The other guys have got rid of the mange,
have brought on competence and human reach,
the smarter woman, and the better man.
The larger vision, and the chance of change,
return of open and of decent speech,
and bringing torment once more under ban.

Jen 58: It takes 60 votes to end a filibuster, not to maintain one.

Reagan, a wingnut?

Hmmm. Let's think back to some of the things he's said...

cue harp music:

"It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas."

"I have a feeling that we are doing better in the war [in Vietnam] than the people have been told."

"Because Vietnam was not a declared war, the veterans are not even eligible for the G. I. Bill of Rights with respect to education or anything."

"If there has to be a bloodbath then let's get it over with." (referring to how he would deal with student protesters)

cue harp music:

Nope! Can't see any wingnuttery there!

As for Nader acting as spoiler for the Dems, I would be more upset if the Democrats had spent the last 8 years fighting rather than compromising and capitulating. Pro-war, pro-deficit "centrists" have enabled the Bush administration run this country into the ground.

Maybe if they'd spoken up the way the loyal opposition speaks up in other governments, I'd feel something valuable was being threatened.

I'll still vote Democrat--please, God, put the Permanent Majority farther behind us--but I'd much rather be supporting active, vigorous, effective advocates for progressive policies than the people who stood well back while the right wing destroyed itself like Brittany Spears at an open bar.

Xopher: um, yes. ::slaps forehead::

Sorry about that.

The point about the spine still stands, though, as far as I'm concerned.

#57 Sean O'Hara: The Dems are almost certainly going to expand their control of the Senate this year...

I have no such confidence. At least not enough confidence compared to what is at stake.

...to the point that anyone McCain appoints will have to be a compromise candidate.

But a compromise candidate is not sufficient. This is what people don't seem to understand. The Supreme Court is not a panel of Politically Unifying Good Guys. It's a struggle over what Americans want to be. Or, at least, what they shouldn't have to wrestle to the ground in order to live their limited lives not under the thumbs of their "betters".

You don't reach balance by appointing "moderates" or "compromise candidates". Reaching balance means appointing persons who are capable of taking principled stands and pressing for them, with sufficient vigor and skill to direct a majority of the court in a direction that increases the chances the mythical American Ideal will be someday achieved. This is what right-wing conservatives have understood for over 20 years. It's what "moderates" delude themselves into disbelieving. It's what leftists know but cannot seem to get their shit together enough to do anything about. The conservatives have had their go. It really will be a fatal mistake if the country doesn't call time on them.

If the liberal justices resign within that period...

They will. No "if".

...the court shouldn't shift significantly to the right

I'm sorry but this "should" is not sufficient.

...and if Scalia resigns in that time, it could even move closer to the center.

Surprisingly, perhaps, Scalia is nearly irrelevant at the moment. He doesn't have the respect of his fellow justices. Very far from it. Most of them think, like the rest of us, that he is a clown. He convinces none of his fellow justices. He puts on shows. When he is replaced, by McCain in your scenario, his replacement will be much more dangerous than Scalia (at this point) could ever be.

But I fear you are not serious about considering the consequences of your "McCain is okay enough" stance. So, you know, vote as you will. There's nothing any of us can do about it. Or so it seems to me.

(I just want to mention that it's not possible for anyone in this thread to hate Ralph Nader and his cronies more than Xopher and I do.)(Unless Dave Howell is lurking here.)

Sorry, Jim, but I gotta make my usual objection: So long as the Democrats do nothing about the Electoral College, whining about Nader just looks pathetic.

Sean O'Hara - getting a proper ID requires three things: 1) proper papers (such as a birth certificate), which disproportionately disenfranchises the elderly, who in rural areas are very likely to have never had one; 2)Money, not much money, but some, which will disproportionately disenfranchise the poor, who are dispoportionately minority; 3) Access, which will again disproportionately affect the poor, who are far more likely to not have a car, or other reliable transportation.

Amen. If only Nader hadn't run in 2000, so the Dems could have had at least 41 votes in the Senate, to block the war authorization. If only he hadn't run in 2006, so the Dems could have taken over Congress and stopped funding the war.

Damn him.

Frankly, I find it a bit counterintuitive that someone who has the strained right-wing talking point on the voter identification case at their fingertips isn't fully aware of what the arguments are on the other side.

Cynthia @66: Also, the usual default form of official ID is a driver's license, which people who don't own cars are rather less likely to have. Such people tend to be disproportionately located in densely-populated urban areas where they can get by on a day-to-day basis with a combination of walking range, public transportation, and taxi service.

#67: I'm confused. Did anyone suggest that the Democrats handled impeccably the mess Nader's antics in 2000 got the country into?

Frankly, I find it a bit counterintuitive that someone who has the strained right-wing talking point on the voter identification case at their fingertips isn't fully aware of what the arguments are on the other side.

Unresponsive. I repeat: How do voter-ID laws disenfranchise minorities. The poor I can understand, but poor=/=minority.

#17, 57: You cannot possibly imagine our sheer abject terror at the prospect of not being taken seriously by you.

...Get a new rhetorical gimmick.

We don't need compromise candidates. We need Brennan and Marshall back, dammit. And we're not going to get them or anything like them from a McCain Administration.

The present Court doesn't even *have* a liberal wing. It has the center, the right, and the far right. "Compromise candidates" chosen by a Republican aren't going to fix this problem - even if they are genuine compromise candidates and not "I'll appoint whoever I want, now do as I say before I call you all traitors and obstructionists" candidates. I don't know if you noticed, but the Senate that blocked Bork isn't exactly around anymore.

No difference between Democrats and Republicans? It all depends on which Democrats and which Republicans you're comparing. Kucinich and Brownback? Loads of difference. Clinton and Giuliani? Not so much.

There's a difference. There's just not enough difference. For once I'd like a presidential candidate I can wholeheartedly support, not just someone who is only half as evil as Huck McRomney.

In re Sean O'Hara:

To quote Julia, one's voice tends to echo strangely when conducting conversations underneath bridges. The way I'd put it is that there aren't nearly enough vitamins and minerals (not to mention small colorful paper-wrapped candies) in an argument with Sean for him to be worth our while.

He doesn't know enough plain garden-variety facts about the world. That means he can't extend his arguments beyond simple statements, which means you can't have a real exchange with him. All we can do with him is volley away like two tennis players who hit serve after serve at each other but never return each other's shots.

Ol' Sean there thinks it's not only possible but actually the case that Democrats and Republicans are bad in completely different ways, and yet do exactly the same amount of damage. He thinks this in spite of the Republican dominance of national politics for the last seven years, their astonishing corruption, their unprecedented disregard for the Constitution, and their obvious incompetence.

More to the point, he thinks it's possible for this to be true of any two parties. He thinks it's not only possible in theory, not only literally true now, but ascertainable.

It doesn't even occur to him to wonder how this perfect balance was measured and calculated, which to me is clear proof that he is not and has never been any kind of critical thinker.

He's just too, too special for real everyday politics.

Why try to convince him of anything? Nader is his perfect candidate: incompetent, unrealistic, blindly egotistical, contemptuous of mere fact, willing to see incalculable amounts of human suffering come to pass as long as it gets him the particular gratification he desires, and on some level serenely certain that he will always have enough privilege to shield him from the consequences of his folly.

Also, on a practical note, I think it will take Sean O'Hara far too long to figure out that this forum is never going to give him the kind of ego strokes he's looking for. We will get bored.

Sean, #35: You're a lost cause already. Why should I make sweet to you? That's the mistake we've been making all along -- trying to make nice with people whose idea of "compromise" is to throw us to the wolves.

How do voter-ID laws disenfranchise minorities. The poor I can understand, but poor=/=minority.

Already answered, see #66. The people most likely to be disenfranchised by a poll tax are HEAVILY disproportionately members of minority groups. It's politically-correct racism in action, and you're falling for a transparent screen of "plausible deniability". This does not give anyone a good impression of your intellectual capacity.

Sean @71: On the off chance that this was a serious question, I refer you to this page at the US Census Bureau's website, especially the breakdowns of poverty rate by race/ethnicity.

If we assume that all people living under the poverty threshold are equally disenfranchised by an ID requirement (and thus ignore rural/urban considerations), then this would affect ~8% of non-Hispanic whites, ~20 of Hispanics, and ~24% of blacks.

If you genuinely had no previous knowledge of these statistics, then it's about time you found out.

Sheesh.

Lee, he isn't making an argument. He genuinely doesn't know why it should work that way.

He is small, and has pinfeathers, and will grow up to be a member of an unattractive species.

Lets see.

Nader isn't all that bad.

He's better than either of the main options.

Reagan wasn't a wingnut.

John, "I'll pretend to take a stand against torture and then make a compromise which gives the president more than he asks for and hold it up as my principled objection to torture" McCain isn't a wingnut either.

All of these things resident in the same person's thinking.

Wow. That's a lot of ignorance, or cognittive dissonance, or wilful pot-stirring to live with.

How to the voter ID laws disenfrancise minorities... non-responsive.

The real issue is the people whom this affects, by and large, tend to be urban, poor, and so prone to voting Democratic. It's, esp. when the rationale for it is known to be false, a patent attempt to game the system. It's as wrong as Clinton trying to get the delegates from Michigan and Fla. seated.

But I think you know that. I think (note, I am not putting words in your mouth; I am telling you the conclusions I've come to from the words of your mouth, which I take to be based on the meditations of your heart. Which meditations you took the time and effort to make here, in an apparent attempt to persuade people of the correctness of your point of view; some of which I paraphrased above) you actually want the republicans to win.

I think you are, in fact, a wingnut; of the stripe that refuses to own up to what he truly believes, cloaking it in a mask of libertarian independence. You voted for Dean and Dole in the Primaries, big deal.

Who did you vote for in the general, that's where the rubber meets the road. This time around you say it's going to be the greater evil (based on the track record of the past 8-14 years; depending on when you measure the Republican takeover).

If the Repubs run someone you don't like, you'll vote for Nader, or some other third party. If they run someone you do (i.e. McCain) who has said he will continue, in spades, the present course of insanity, you'll vote for him.

That's what you said.

That makes you a wingnut. A raving loon, someone who can't see the harm which has been done, and thinks the lesser of the evils is the greater.

So, the back of my hand to you. Get thee behind me and if I never see your words again it will not bother me in the least.

(Teresa, while I may not have the same visceral loathing of Nader that you and Xopher do, my housemate makes your dislike of Nader seem as mere annoyance, but he doesn't post here. His dislike of Nader may be as great as my loathing od McCain, for whom I still had some tattered shreds of respect prior to his "stand" on torture; after that, well words fail me. Hatred isn't right, that requires me to think some shreds of human decency remain, and I can't. For him to have abandoned that principle... as I said, words fail me)

Besides which, even if the numbers for poor minorities weren't disproportionate - who says that it's okay to disenfranchise the poor? When did not having money come to mean you weren't supposed to have the right to vote?

eyelessgame #38: Yes, but only two of the delusional egomaniacs will have a chance of winning. Select wisely.

Sorry, I got lost, it wasn't Dole, it was McCain.

I'm running! I'm running!

/radio club joke (from 2000 election)

I don't know why you guys are arguing with Sean about minorities when it's already been done all over the stfnal newsgroups.

albatross @ 79

When I read that I got an image of the grave ancient crusader knight in the last Indiana Jones movie saying "Choose... wisely" (the scene they used in the Burger King ad)

Made me smile.

Marilee: I can't speak to the rest, but I do it because silence would mean the casual lurker/reader might think he wasn't getting response because he was right.

So, tedious as it is, I, at least, am doing it pro bono publico

I vote for deliberate pot-stirring. And I am already bored with whatshisname.

Letting out the dinosaur in the basement... now.

Terry: For a while, I was willing to hypothesize that GWB & Co. are better at torture than the North Vietnamese. But then I said "no," and returned to the first opinion I ever rendered of McCain. I'd just come back from visiting my clan in Arizona, and someone asked me what I thought of him. I said that no one I knew owed him a favor, or was owed a favor by him; which, considering the extent of my clan and other acquaintance, was a significant thing.

What I'd know to add today is that politicians always owe and are owed favors. If you can't see them, they're happening behind closed doors.

Maybe McCain was a different person in 2000. But then, weren't we all?

When did not having money come to mean you weren't supposed to have the right to vote?

I heard Rush Limbaugh say that very thing on election night, 2004: that only those who have "a stake in the system," those whose income is high enough to be taxed, should be able to vote.

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I'm about ready to make a sizable contribution to Ron Paul's campaign.

We've just made 2 trips across the Southeast this month, and you would not believe the number of Ron Paul campaign signs all across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. That's a good chunk of the Republican stronghold; a good boost for Paul there might well destabilize the Republicans in the same way that they want to destabilize us by funding Nader.

Marilee, you smart memorious thing you. He's had every chance in the world.

Lizzy: Loosing dinosaur, aye. What follows after that, only Sean and the dinosaur know for sure.

Julie L #76: I understand the issues here with disenfranchisement, but there is also an issue with not identifying voters, and there are known (easy) attacks that exploit them. The whole "ID requirements are unreasonable because nobody can prove they're necessary" argument strikes me as very close to the argument I've been hearing for many years now, which says that "paper isn't necessary for DREs because nobody can prove there's been an attack on the software inside DREs."

There are surely other procedural defenses against trucking in voters from out of state (or just out of town). Maybe one of those would be better. But I keep seeing people (essentially only Democrats) arguing that ID requirements are evil and some kind of plot to disenfranchise minorities, without any acknowledgement that there might be a reason behind wanting ID requirements.

Teresa: I was a very different person in 2000. I can lay much of the change at the feet of the present occupant of the Oval Office.

Much of it is, I think for the better, but those parts are only tangientally his doing. The ways in which I am less tolerant, quicker to anger and not as willing to brook inanity or suffer fools, well he did that.

I am worried about the fate of this great experiment, in ways I wasn't eight years ago, and McCain is a large part of the reason why.

McCain owes me something, but it's not a favor, and it's not something I think I'll ever get.

He owes me an explanation, and if he can do that, he'd sure as hell better be able to follow it up with an apology.

Xopher @ #34

...and I can't think of a "good" Rethuglican to put on the other side.

Joe Lieberman?

I brought a tube of PteroGlide!

John @70, everyone who blames Nader instead of the Democratic failure to address the Republican manipulation of the system is excusing the Democrats.

Remember that the Republicans have shafted the Democrats three times with the Electoral College in presidential races, and still the Democrats support it.

Sometimes I wonder if the Democrats simply like to lose. This year, for example, thanks to the super-delegates, we're down to the DLC-approved candidates. And since the super-delegates favor Clinton, she'll probably be the candidate. Never mind that in the national polls, the strongest candidate against any Republican is Edwards--Edwards' talk about class made the DLC uncomfortable, so he was edged out.

I will vote for the DLC candidate that I'm offered. But I will not pretend that having some choice in the representative of corporate America will guarantee anything. I'm old enough to remember '64, when my father and his friends were delighted that the peace candidate won. And then the escalation in Vietnam truly began.

Edwards pulling out saddened me. Not least because he was the candidate of my lifetime I like the most (I was for Dodd, srongly, but that's because I think we have some very specific problems he was going to address. Problems I think more important, right now than the class issues Edwards was addressing. I also knew Dodd had not much more chance than I of getting the nomination).

He also managed to get the hurt, confused and angry conservatives I know to support him.

It's a gladdening thing to see them looking at class, and disparity, issues and coming up with the answer I like. It's depressing as all hell that the Dem. Party doesn't see the same things.

julia @ #48:

I find my voice echoes distractingly when I have political conversations under bridges.

It's about time you learned that being homeless removes you from the political conversation.

LMB 92: Naw, I mean someone who's a good person who's just wrong about things. Joe Lieberman is a cross between a slug and a turnip, and he makes my flesh crawl.

Julia #15:

The thing is, among normal human beings you would interact with by choice, McCain and Romney come off as smarmy, unprincipled, corrupt, and expressing unsettlingly beligerent ideas about what we should be doing in the world. Put them on a stage with Guiliani and Huckabee, and they come off as calm, stable, sensible guys.

ethan #21: That's where I am, too. I don't much like the Democrats' ideas. Some Republican ideas sound better to me, some sound worse, and then there are the bone-chillingly batsh-t nutty ideas.

And along with that, I want to see that weeping and gnashing of teeth Fragano talks about on the Republican side. They've let a bunch of ideologically blinded fools and frauds take over their party, and they've seriously hurt the country. They maintained party discipline when it was clear we were heading off a cliff, they abandoned their principles wholesale when those principles became inconvenient, they protected their own from facing the consequences of crimes and horrible misjudgements. If that were done by a person, you'd want them fired or sued or beaten up. Parties respond to different incentives. If their corruption, blind obedience to bad leadership, and abandonment of their good ideas (like some kind of distrust for unlimited state power, or fiscal discipline) doesn't cost them a lot, as a party, then they will continue it. I think getting their clocks cleaned in the next couple elections will bring the kind of pain to the party that might offer the chance for them to get better. That's important, because we need two parties; that's (as Patrick said in another thread) a pretty much inevitable result of the way our political system works. Having one of those two parties taken over by crazies will send the country off a cliff, either directly (when the crazies get power back) or indirectly (when the unchecked craziness on the other side gets power).

Xopher #97: I like neither slugs nor turnips, and I think you're being unfair to both.

Will Shetterly, don't even start. Don't do it. You have no idea how often I've looked at the latest Republican abomination and forcibly restrained myself from sending you a note saying, "But of course, there's nothing to choose between the two parties."

Julia is an astute political analyst. Never doubt it.

albatross # 90

It's not so much requiring ID, it's that they require one photo ID, which generally requires producing a birth certificate, which the federal and state laws are making more expensive and harder to get, because they're trying, so they say, to protect us against identity theft. (I have yet to hear of any case of identity theft in the last decade or so that was done for the purpose of fraudulent voting.)

I've heard that in some states getting a birth certificate costs fifty dollars - if you're well off, that's not much, but if you're in a minimum-wage job, or unemployed, that's a lot of money.

Plus, if you have to go to the county courthouse or someplace similar, you'll have to take time off work (and lose more money, because you probably don't get any paid time off for this, either). If you're lucky, you'll only have to make one trip.

All this because they're worried about someone voting who might not be legally entitled to vote: they'd rather take the vote away from thousands who are entitled. That's a pretty fair description of this administration right there: afraid that someone somewhere might get something they shouldn't, so they'll take that stuff away from others who should get it.

Will #65 -- There are 278 days to go until Election Day. Do you really think it's plausible that the Electoral College could somehow be overturned within that span of time? Seriously?

If at all, given that doing so would require the active consent of states whose obvious best interests require opposing such a change?

Even the National Popular Vote movement has only gotten two states to pass the law so far, with a total of 25 electoral votes. That's less than 10% of the way to getting their law to actually take effect. Do you think they're likely to get the remaining 245 votes worth of states to sign on before November 4th? (Or maybe December 15th?)

...and I just had the dubious pleasure of seeing someone on a different bulletin board declare with great personal conviction that McCain is demonstrably a Democrat at heart.

Sigh. Is it time yet to have a nationwide intervention to try to reclaim what "Democrat" means? Because I don't think most people out there use it to mean the same things I do.

Will, you know something, there's being bravely principled, and then there's being fucking stupid. And when you decide it's ever so smart to try to argue on behalf of Ralph Nader, the man whose organization shut down the production of pemoline, in Teresa Nielsen Hayden's weblog, you know something, you're just demonstrating to the world that you're fucking stupid.

You're a great guy, you're a good writer, I appreciate all sorts of things about you, and you're fucking stupid.

Don't explain yourself. Don't get all defensive. Don't tell us that you didn't mean to defend Ralph Nader. Just. Stop. Being. Fucking. Stupid.

...and attract enough lawyers willing to work free of charge ...

Maybe there's some hope ... maybe even Ralphie-boy can't find any such lawyers.

Teresa @100, we live in the nation the Democrats and Republicans made together. I'm looking at the Pelosi-Reid record, and I'm not impressed.

Avram @103, I understand the Dems not addressing the Electoral College in the 19th century, the first two times they were shafted. But around '92, there was serious discussion of how we could end up with undemocratically elected presidents. Still, I realize that most people fight battles of the past, not the future, so I don't hold that against them.

But in 2000, it was clear the system was broken. Their reaction? Gore told the members of the Black Caucus to sit down and accept what the system gave us. It's nearly eight years later. If you can point to a major effort by Democrats to amend the Constitution, I'll be very, very grateful.

I like the National Popular Vote, of course. But it's an end run solution, because the Republicans and the Democrats prefer two-party politics.

Xopher was taking Pemoline too. So was Dave Howell. It was our year-in-year-out maintenance drug. Also taking it were people I'd never heard of before, who found me on Google and wrote to me, asking desperately whether I knew of a way they could get some.

The reasons given for discontinuing Pemoline were bullshit, and we all knew it. It had been covered as an Orphan Drug. There wasn't another drug like it in the pharmacopoeia. Occasionally it ate someone's liver, but we've never seen stats on that. We just know it was rare. We also know that Tylenol eats people's livers all the time, and it's still over the counter.

And so we were pitched into the waiting hands of the American pharmaceutical industry, which wanted nothing more than to sell us wildly expensive Provigil every month of every year forevermore, amen.

We've lived with the consequences every bleeping day since then. It's not just the loss of high-end functionality, me bucko, though you try losing that and see what it's like. Xopher and I both have serious medical problems with the alternate drugs. What will become of us when we can't take them any longer? Good question.

And finally, though it pains me to say so, this is a trifle compared to some of the other things he-and-his have done.

Nader is a scumbag. Don't even start.

Patrick @105, I am just fucking stupid. I look at the world the fucking smart people made, and I've decided it's much better to be fucking stupid.

But I love Teresa, so I'll stop talking about Nader, the Electoral College, and the Democrats in Making Light now.

albatross@90:

there are known (easy) attacks that exploit them

I doubt that they exist, and even if they exist I doubt they're easy. If they were, Canadian elections would be rife with fraud. To vote in Canada, you need to show up at your designated polling station with:

1. A photo ID, utility bill or bank statement with your name and address on it, matching the entry on the voter's list, or
2. A friend on the voter's list who'll vouch for your identity, or
3. The willingness to swear an oath that you are who you say you are, or
4. Any of the above, even if you're not on the voter's list for that polling station.

Now, note that #4. You don't even need to be enumerated to show up at the polls and get a ballot just as good as anyone else's, and you will never be required to show a photo ID, and you might not even need that bank statement. It's like they handed off the entire system design to Eighteen Vans Full Of Dead Chicagoans LLC. And yet, do you know how many people think that Canadian elections have been subject to the easy exploits you propose?

As close to none as makes no odds.

And I don't just mean that this is not a mainstream view. I mean that this does not even show up in the nutbarsphere. The Canadian political extremes can entertain theories from "proportional representation is a CIA plot" to "Jean Chretien had people murdered, regularly, and possibly for kicks". There's even a racist, Islamophobic segment who go into apoplexy that the four-item list I mentioned above says nothing about forcing Islamic women who wear the niqab to reveal their faces.

And yet not even the kooks think there's a problem. You can find 9/11 truthers and NAFTA superhighway freaks under any rock, but even if they think that the Canadian people are hypnotized sheeple who are voting for reptilian kitten-eaters from another planet they still believe those votes are being counted properly. Even the Islamophobes don't think that any vote fraud has actually happened -- take their claims at (ahem) face value and you're still looking at people who say that the election system is fine now and always has been, but we are facing a future full of, uh, demographic threats, and let's do something about it today just in case.

So yeah, the sort of ID requirements that would be imposed by the sort of people who talk about "vote fraud" are unnecessary. In much the same way that a unicorn tied up in your backyard would prove the existence of unicorns, Elections Canada operating in America's backyard proves that you can run a fair election on nothing more than phone bills, friendly neighbors, and a little bit of trust.