Primary colors
Last night Hillary Clinton finally won a few primaries, showing once again that going negative works. Amid legitimate salvos about Obama’s NAFTA waffling and ties to a shady developer were Muslim smears and ads whipping up fear of terrorism. A Clinton attack ad seems to have darkened Obama’s skin color, like Time magazine did with O.J. Simpson.
On the Republican side, John McCain benefited from wingnuts spreading similar smears, and Rush Limbaugh may have tipped the Texas primary to Clinton.
Jabbing bluntly at the reptilian sub-brain works. Triggering a fear reflex works. And billions in government contracts and political patronage are at stake. Buckle up. It’s going to be a long, hot, racist summer.
on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008, 11:27 am in Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Politics, Religion › 
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Manish,
I think that you are being unfair to the voting population of Ohio and Texas .Why do you assume that a fear reflex will drive droves of people to vote for Hillary? By the same account, one could say that empty rhetoric and hopeful optimism/optimistic hope drives people to vote for Obama - a “feel good ” reflex.
I think - regardless of which candidate one supports - one should at least attempt to respect the voters.
The messaging which moved the undecided into Hillary’s column was largely fear-driven– the red phone ad, the Muslim smear and so on.
I definately do not like the fear mongering and religious smear campaign. But in a campaign people do what they can get away with. Obama evokes Dr. King and “fierce urgency of now” …. Well, there is no real “urgency” right now that can even come close to the urgency that Dr King was talking about (urgency of getting civil rights). Similarly “Si Se Puede” was the rallying cry of Cesar Chavez who devoted his whole life for the upliftment of the workers. We have to say to Mr. Obama … that “you sir are no Cesar Chavez”.
Someone who is tirelessly fighting for “change” is Ralph Nader. He is the real “change” candidate.
He should be campaigning for a ranked voting preference system which prevents the third party spoiler effect– not taking funding from the Republican Party to defeat Dubya’s opponents.
I was not aware that he was taking funding from Republican party. That would be playing into Republican hands. But on the other hand he and his party may be thinking that they have to make a few tough choices (or compromises) to make some headway against the system in Washington. What does he and his party do when they have 24 lawsuites against them by Democratic party?
Weigh every one of those lawsuits against the lives saved had Nader not re-elected Dubya. I don’t like challenging third party ballot access either but we need to switch systems to something like instant runoff voting. The current system is the real culprit.
I think you have to be fair to Nader. Nader (or any other person for that matter) had no idea that Bush would be such a disaster. Bush himself kept claiming that he did not want to engage in “nation building”. Everyone made the mistake of taking him at his word. Besides who knows, this might be all done by Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney.
So blaming Nader for the horrible outcomes of Iraq is unfair IMO. In 2000 the prevailing thought was that there is no real difference between Dems and Reps and that the two parties have shut out new ideas.
Oh I forgot to add, that we have to blame Papa Bush to have appointed the Judges who “delivered” when asked for a favor (ala the Godfather)
In ‘04 when he ran again, he sure did.
I agree that in ‘04 he knew, but he was running against Kerry who had supported the war himself. Kerry didnt show the courage of taking a bold stand against the war like Dean showed. Also after the 2000 fiasco there was so much mud slinging on Ralph Nader that he must have been bitter.
Also whenever Nader is running he knows that he is NOT going to win. His running is purely motivated from an activist point of view. That is why I call him the change candidate. The change that is needed in Washington. That change will not come with a change in gender or color of the ususal presidents.
Well my 2 cents anyways.
I just want to point out that the votes Nader receives are always far, far, far outnumbered by the number of registered voters who just STAY HOME on election day. Why don’t we blame those people for the loss of life caused by President Bush? At least the Nader voters actually bothered to show up and participate in the civic process.
Ralph Nader was one of many contributing factors to Bush’s election in 2000, but he was nowhere near the biggest. IMHO it’s easier to beat up on one guy than to face the dizzying number of problems in our electoral system, and the far bigger behemoth of voter apathy.
And to add to that: I understand not all registered voters can make it, some people are sick, incapacitated, or otherwise legitimately not able to make it to the polls. I have a hard time believing that roughly 50% of America has this problem, though.
I agree. It seems very wrong that in a world where elections seem to be constantly decided by 51-49/52-48 narrow differences, turnout is probably the biggest factor that swings the election. Sometimes, I feel like mandatory voting, like they have in Australia etc., would be a good idea.
Nader is a moron. Or senile. Or both. Period.
In consumer marketing you learn that it takes around 7 touches / impressions to motivate someone to take an action. The gap between staying home and voting at all is enormous, and dwarfs the gap between voting Nader vs. voting Gore or Kerry. So it is a legitimate point to complain about his presence.
Having said that, I’d far prefer instant runoff voting or some other ranked voting scheme to trying to knock third parties off the ballot, which is highly undemocratic, especially given the rich history of these parties in moving important issues into the mainstream. Eliminating the spoiler effect would require a constitutional amendment.
I don’t think mandatory voting is smart for the same reason that the military prefers a volunteer force over conscripts. If you think voters are dumb now, wait ’til they’re so uninterested, it takes fines and jail time to make them go to the polls.
A missile. Or Sauron.
Voters are pretty damn uninterested now, and propaganda and jingoism rule the roost as determinants. If Karl Rove’s turnout machine of religious nutbags is making the difference, I would rather have mandatory voting :) But I do agree that it is no silver bullet, although it might eliminate the fundamental issue of individual’s votes being irrelevant at the margin, and hence removing incentives to vote.