From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V13 #56 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, February 23 2004 Volume 13 : Number 056 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: reap (slower of two fatal tortures) [Jeff Dwarf ] Tom Tomorrow on Ralph [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: a quick Nader URL ["Fortissimo" ] Gob Roberts rides again ["Rex.Broome" ] Re: Gob Roberts rides again ["Jonathan Fetter" ] Re: ouch [Capuchin ] Mark Steyn Rawkz : Kerry v. Edwards [FSThomas ] Re: that Nader Bush thing - delete if yr not interested [Capuchin ] Re: reap [] Re: reap [Capuchin ] Re: Mark Steyn Rawkz : Kerry v. Edwards ["Fortissimo" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 08:18:32 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: reap (slower of two fatal tortures) Fortissimo wrote: > Bush, at least, has shown that he cares > not a whit for minority viewpoints. Actually, since Gore received more votes, he's shown he doesn't care about the majority viewpoints either. He only cares about those he agrees with. > You know, as long as we're going to have celebrities as > "viable" political candidates, maybe Tim Robbins or > someone should run too. Why let the right have all the > fun? Sheesh... The difference is that the left leaning candidates all still have careers going. Other than Clint Eastwood -- who probably is more of a libertarian than Republican philosophically anyways -- or maybe Fred Thompson, the rightwing celebrity candidate all run for office once they aren't able to sustain their "real" career (and yes, I am including Arnold here; T3 may have done okay, but when was his last hit before then?). Tim Robbins and Sean Penn and Michael Stipe et cetera are all still busy satiating their muses. Which is why the "left" has to settle for Pat O'Brien or Jerry Springer threatening to run instead. ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 08:38:10 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Tom Tomorrow on Ralph Tom Tomorrow on Ralph His detractors are going to dismiss this run as ego-driven, but I suspect it's more about stubborness, and, frankly, dedication. It takes a special kind of stubborness to fight the battles he's fought, these past forty years, and I think you have to learn pretty quickly how to tune out the naysayers, to ignore the people who say, you're crazy, there's no need for safety belts in automobiles, and once you've fought those battles and lived to see a world in which seat belts are simply a mundane fact of life, given no more thought than running water or electricity...well, you probably lose some perspective. I think he's spent so many years tuning people out because he had to that he's forgotten how to listen when he needs to. And now he's on the verge of becoming the next Lyndon Larouche or Gus Hall. In more ways than one. I could surely be wrong, lord knows, but I don't think Nader will be much of an issue, in terms of the actual vote. I know there's a poll that says he'd get 4% if the election were held tomorrow, but that's nonsense. He didn't even pull 3% in 2000, and that was before--everything. But here's the thing: I think the damage he will do is in re-igniting the liberal/left Civil War of 2000. To expand on something I wrote a few days ago: Nader's critique is, essentially, that there is a cancer on the body politic--and he's right about that. The problem in the year 2004 is that the body politic is also suffering from multiple wounds and blunt force trauma, we're in the emergency room and it's a damn mess and there's blood everywhere and the doctors are working furiously but it's anybody's guess how things are gonna turn out. We are in triage, and we have to deal with the immediate problems, or the long-term ones won't matter anyway. ===== "Life is just a series of dogs." -- George Carlin __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 11:32:32 -0600 From: "Fortissimo" Subject: Re: a quick Nader URL On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 10:55:27 -0500 (EST), "Christopher Gross" said: > Four _American Prospect_ writers hit Nader's decision to run: > > Most of Cap's arguments are addressed therein. BTW: I still don't understand why, if we're championing Nader, we weren't championing folks like Kucinich*, Sharpton, and Moseley Braun, whose positions are *more* progressive than Nader's, particular on gender-related issues. *Yes, I know - Kucinich became pro-choice all of five minutes ago. At least he did so and doesn't hedge on the importance of those issues, which Nader doesn't really seem to grasp. Note that none of these arguments even *require* thinking about Nader votes' effect on who wins: they're more about why Nader is't even the best candidate out there. - ------------------------------- ...Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: "In two thousand years, they'll still be looking for Elvis - :: this is nothing new," said the priest. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 10:02:56 -0800 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Gob Roberts rides again JBJ and Jeff D: >>> As Dan Bern recently put it, "when you go into that >>> booth, and you see a name on the ballot across from >>> Bush's, and if it looks like the guy is a mammal, PULL >>> THAT LEVER!" >>Why only if the guy looks like it's a mammal? There are >>probably several birds, amphibians, fish, and even a few >>types of millipedes and spiders who would be remarkable >>improvements as well. Hey, it's feg... vote Squid '03! Their eyes are remarkably similar to human eyes, and you can't say that for Bush. James: >>now this is something I don't really get - can someone explain to me >>whatit is with party membership in the US? Seems like just about >>everyone belongs to one of the parties. (I'm guessing that in NZ maybe 2 or >>3% of people belong to a political party, if that). Partly it's programming... people do seem to believe they have only two options, since their candidates have really only ever come in two flavors. But also it's the primaries... in most states you can only vote in the primary for the party with whom you're registered. So if you want to have any say in the presidential nomination process, you need a party registration. That 's the only reason I'm a registered, although not self-professed, Democrat. It's true that registration doesn't equal membership. You don't get a card or anything. Maybe swag like that would convince more people to register in the first place... which would be... a good? thing? I dunno. >>just a short apology if I've been grumpy or argumentative in the last 24 >>hours - I managed to injure my foot last night (I currently only have four >>nails on my right foot), so if I'm not my usual cheerful self I hope you >>forgive me! Remarkable post. Props to James. Apologizing for being slightly less nice than normal, which still leaves him at least 85% more pleasant than the rest of us. Maybe I have a shot at being a better person for having consumed some beer from NZ over the weekend... If it helps, James, I've had six nails on my right foot for about 18 years now, so it averages out. Jeffrey who no longer has 2 FF's so I should stop saying he does: >>You know, as long as we're going to have celebrities as "viable" >>political candidates, maybe Tim Robbins or someone should run >>too. I think the "liberal Hollywood" knives would come out if Robbins or someone like him (Beatty) stepped up. Too easy to tar and feather left-wing celebs... To be a viable celebrity candidate, you'd have to buck that trend (see Ahnuld, Sonny Bono, etc.)... I think the same thing applies to "crossover candidates" in other arenas as well. Religious figures that run as conservatives are not viable, since they seem like zealots... but people can take their liberals a little easier when they have religion to balance out their populism (half the rationale behind Lieberman as Gore's VP pick). I could trot out examples of both, but I think it holds up if you think about it. - -Rex, who *does* have a card indicating that he's a subscriber to Tim Robbins' theatre group, The Actor's Gang... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 13:45:28 -0500 (EST) From: "Jonathan Fetter" Subject: Re: Gob Roberts rides again > JBJ and Jeff D: > >>> As Dan Bern recently put it, "when you go into that > >>> booth, and you see a name on the ballot across from > >>> Bush's, and if it looks like the guy is a mammal, PULL > >>> THAT LEVER!" > > >>Why only if the guy looks like it's a mammal? There are > >>probably several birds, amphibians, fish, and even a few > >>types of millipedes and spiders who would be remarkable > >>improvements as well. > > Hey, it's feg... vote Squid '03! Is Cthulhu running again? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 11:35:21 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: ouch On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, James Dignan wrote: > just a short apology if I've been grumpy or argumentative in the last 24 > hours - I managed to injure my foot last night (I currently only have > four nails on my right foot), so if I'm not my usual cheerful self I > hope you forgive me! Uh... what Jeffrey said. Dear Lord. Keep it clean. As long as it stays damage only, it'll fix itself. I personally always find that a soothing thought. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 14:39:27 -0500 From: FSThomas Subject: Mark Steyn Rawkz : Kerry v. Edwards In light of all the banter about Nader (or is it nadir?), I thought you all might appreciate chewing on this. As far as Nader stealing votes goes, for as long as I can remember people have derided the two party system in American politics. Now, when there is a third option offered, people complain. To those who want to see the Green Party, or the Libertarians, or the New American Communists on the ballot: you simply can't have it both ways. Multiple parties fracture votes, it's that simple. Enjoy. - -ferris. - ------- Jewish World Review Feb. 23, 2004/ 1 Adar, 5763 Mark Steyn So which would America rather have: Pretty Boy or Long Face? Last weekend, George W Bush went to Florida for Nascar's Daytona 500 race. His likely Democratic rival, John F Kerry, did not approve. "We don't need," he declared, in the portentous drone he has been perfecting for three decades, "a President who says, 'Gentlemen, start your engines.' We need a President who says, 'America, let's start our economy.' " Hmm. If this is the best material Senator Kerry's high-price consultants can provide, it is going to be a long, long while from here to November. It's unlikely that any but the most partisan Democrats can stomach nine months of a candidate who is Al Gore without the personal charm and affable public-speaking style. The Massachusetts Senator with the patrician manner and a face as long as his one-liners is the Default Democrat. He is the guy the party's voters fell back on after concluding that Howard Dean, the surging Vermonter, was, in the pithy summation of the union boss Gerald McEntee, "nuts". And McEntee was a Dean supporter. So Democrats decided that Kerry was more "electable". Which he is, next to Dean - in the same way that, if Saddam Hussein and Robert Mugabe entered the Iowa caucuses, Farmer Bob would be Mister Electable. But, once Saddam had thrown in the towel, you'd start wondering whether Bob Mugabe was really the best you could do. So, having anointed Kerry as the unDean, a significant chunk of Democrats are now looking around for the unKerry. The only guy available is John Edwards, the pretty-boy trial lawyer from North Carolina. He is 50 but looks about 13, which is kind of refreshing after that strange feeling you get a third of a way into Kerry's stump speech that your body's atrophying and crumbling to dust. In Tuesday's Wisconsin primary, Senator Edwards ran Kerry a strong second and came bouncing out on stage, his fabulous bangs (that's "fringe" in British) dancing in the air like a Charlie's Angels title sequence. He said that the voters of Wisconsin had sent a message: "Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear." These words are printed on the wing mirrors of every American automobile, and Edwards meant them as a jocular warning to Kerry: you may be in the driver's seat but I'm closing in fast. He was upbeat and breezy and his line, if only by comparison with the President-who'll-start-the-economy gag, was cute. At that point, over at Kerry HQ, the frontrunner decided it was time to get Pretty Boy off the air, so he walked out and started his victory speech, knowing the networks would cut away from Edwards to him. Not such a smart move. For the television audience, Edwards's solitary minute was entertaining, Kerry's 20 minutes of hollow stump banalities was a sonorous snoozeroo: "The motto of the state of Wisconsin is 'Forward' and I want to thank the state of Wisconsin for moving this cause and this campaign forward tonight here in this great state. Tonight I say to all of America, get ready. A new day is on the way." It may be a new day, but already a lot of us are finding it hard to stay awake. As The New York Times put it, when Senator Kerry "bumped Mr Edwards's own ebullient speech off the air, it was as if a pep rally had morphed into math class". When you are too dull a Democrat even for The New York Times, you've got a problem. On the other hand, if Edwards is the unKerry, he is developing a distressing habit of never doing quite well enough. If Edwards were to come a narrow first instead of a close second, the Kerry bubble would burst: he wins because he's seen as likely to win. Alas, coming a close second is pretty much all Edwards does. He was a close second in Iowa, a close second in Oklahoma, a close second in Wisconsin. The only difference is that coming a close second in an eight-man race in late January is more impressive than coming a close second in a four-man race in late February. Given that on Super Tuesday, March 2, it will be impossible for Senator Edwards to come worse than second, he really has to win something, and he doesn't seem to have the wit or energy to pull those extra few thousands votes that would put him over the top. So the race has come down to a weak default candidate v a glamorous insurgent who is not quite glamorous enough to insurge sufficiently. Other than that, there is not much to choose between them. Both men are enormously wealthy. Kerry was a blueblood of relatively minor means who married a woman worth $300 million and then traded up to a woman worth $500 million. If I were Teresa Heinz Kerry I'd be worried, now that Massachusetts is introducing gay marriage, that hubby may start giving the come-hither look to some of the state's elderly bachelor billionaires. By contrast, John Edwards had a dirt-poor hard-scrabble childhood but managed to sue his way out of poverty. He has made 25 million bucks just from suing tobacco companies. His is an inspirational message: If I can do it, the rest of you haven't a hope in hell. But fortunately I've got a thousand new government programs and micro-initiatives that will partially ameliorate your hopeless mediocrity. (I paraphrase.) My favorite line in the Edwards spiel comes about two-thirds in, when, after outlining the regulatory hell in which he is going to ensnare banks, the pharmaceutical industry, etc, he confides: "But I'll be honest with you. I don't think I can change this country by myself." It's good to know the other 280 million Americans aren't entirely redundant. His basic pitch is that the entire electorate are victims, and his candidacy is the all-time biggest class-action suit on your behalf. Edwards is condescending. Kerry is far too grand to condescend. But both are agreed that America is a vast wasteland of unemployed, shivering, diseased losers. For single-issue guys like me, Edwards barely says a word on Iraq and the war, though I am inclined to think he'd be better than Kerry. The latter seems eager to do whatever Chirac and Kofi want, whereas with Edwards there's always the possibility he will wind up suing the UN Security Council for emotional distress. More importantly, even as he's painting his heart-wrenching portraits of starving children, Edwards is sunny, albeit in a grotesque and mawkish way. And, as a general rule, the sunnier disposition wins (see Bush/Gore, Clinton/Dole, Reagan/Mondale). It is true that in his five years in Washington Edwards hasn't accomplished anything, but then neither has Kerry, and he has been there four times as long. If Pretty Boy wins somewhere, anywhere, on Super Tuesday, the mantle of inevitability falls away from Kerry. If he doesn't, Dems are stuck with the default guy, and by April they're going to be awful sick of him. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 11:47:28 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: that Nader Bush thing - delete if yr not interested On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Fortissimo wrote: > I sometimes think elections should be completely anonymous: candidates > should fill out position papers and list their experience (all of which > should be vetted for accuracy by some hypothetical independent entity) > and people vote for whichever positions and experience they most agree > with. This, of course, will never happen & is mostly impossible, but > hey... Well, two complaints come immediate to mind (in addition to the obvious one about the independent entity): No process for active debate and no way to prevent serious ommission. > It's one thing to take risks knowing you could get the shit kicked out > of you. It's another to do so knowing that *everyone* will get the shit > kicked out of them. Everyone's going to get the shit kicked out of them anyway. That's the whole point. > > On what do you base this doubt besides your deep contempt for Bush and > > wishful thinking? > > Because Bush's disregard for any sort of multilateralism, any sort of > legal precedent, any interest of anyone other than himself and people > like him is far more extreme than that of any other president, or nearly > any other legislator or governor, certainly in the last twenty years. Again, this is true of Bush, and you seem to be convinced that it wouldn't be true of almost anyone else. But is it only the extremism that makes you think he's somehow politically unique? The stuff Bush has done is stuff that Presidents (otUSA) have been trying to do for at least that same last twenty years, but haven't been able to get past the people or Congress. 9/11 changed that. It made it easy to get this shit right through. The Gore team would have done all the same things, except they'd have had more convincing lies and rationalizations that made it seem as though it was the compassionate thing to do. At least the Bush folks are really bad liars and we can maybe learn to distrust power again. Unfortunately, however, I think people really believe that some Democrat is going to NOT lie and swindle and work for the best interests of the monied elite. THAT is the most dangerous outcome of this race. Four more years of Bush would suck. Another fifty years of corporate control will suck more. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:12:38 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: reap On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Christopher Gross wrote: > Actually, Gore got half a million more votes than Bush. He only won > because of the Florida thang, NOT because he outpolled Gore. Right. So Nader had nothing to do with it. Find enough states to counter Florida that had a margin of difference between Bush and Gore votes that was less than half of Nader's votes. That at least would be SOME reason to suspect a splitter effect. Didn't happen. > > I still hold that the legacy -- the lasting effects on law and policy > > -- of the Bush presidency are functionally identical to those that > > would have been left by a Gore presidency > > Another one for the classic-quotes file! And another complete dodge of the issue. What reason do you have to believe otherwise? > > In fact, where was Gore for > the past four years? Why wasn't he out > there criticizing the President > for his crazy actions? > > Umm, he has been. Of course... the point of that bit was to counter Marcy's question about where Nader has been for the past 3.5 years. The simple fact is that real debate is kept far from the national spotlight and journalism completely lacks analysis. My friend Russell said this past Wednesday (of another issue in the news), "They never give you enough information to see WHY." That's basically true. The questions are framed by the powerful and the "journalists" just play along. I saw a clip (and have it here, if anyone's interested) from a press conference with GWB. A reporter (misleadingly) asks Bush what he thinks about "Dean's insinuation" that the Office of the President had something to do with the 9/11 attacks. (The fact is that Dean just said that all the files on the thing should be thrown open so that we can put that doubt to bed before it gets too ugly.) Bush's response was mostly unintelligible. If you were to clean it up for print, it would probably read, "The insinuation is proposterous. There is a time for political posturing." (Now, he said those things in his usual slurred speech and repeated them both three or four times with long gaps between repeats... but literally spoke no other words.) The reporter said, "OK... something unrelated then..." and everyone laughed and they moved on. That's it. They laughed and moved on. The President had no rational response to an apparently serious allegation and the press ignored it. > > To quote a lecture I once saw, "If you're headed toward Mexico at 100 > > miles per hour and you want to be in Canada, it doesn't help to slow > > to 20." > > I don't think that's a valid analogy; but more importantly -- it's now > possible to turn around without slowing down first?! When did this > happen? Is all that Area 51 technology finally reaching consumers? ;) Actually, it's called a cloverleaf... and it's 1951 technology, not Area 51. The point is that the Democrats don't seem to be pointing in another direction at all. > > You've got to respect his waiting until the Democrats finally showed > > they had no interest in changing out of the elephant suit. > > Well, the falsity of his "no significant difference" argument would > have been even more obvious if he didn't even know who the Democratic > nominee would be. He's not stupid. There's no significant difference, Chris. And it's shocking that you still evade that fact with nothing more than baseless refutation. > >> There are a lot of lessons to be learned from 2000, and one of them > >> is most certainly that Nader's candidacy turned around and bit us all > >> in the ass. > > > > Oh, PLEASE, Chris. You were opposed to the Nader candidacy from the > > start... and it wasn't because of any splitter effect. You were > > opposed to his ideals and his platform. > > I don't see how this is a response to my paragraph above. The Nader candidacy didn't "turn around" and bite YOU in the ass. You considered it to be aiming at your ass the whole time. It's disingenuous of you to claim that the campaign turned on you. You've been one-note the whole time. > > I truly believe that EVERY SINGLE PERSON who MIGHT have voted for Al > > Gore did so. > > In numerous separate polls, half or more Nader voters said they > otherwise would have voted for Gore. Exit polls? Polls after November 2000? I'm talking about Nader's meteoric drop from October to November of 2000. That is due to nearly every single one of those potential Gore voters getting back into the party line. The fear won out over the hope. Courage and honesty were lost. > Furthermore, many Nader voters said that they were only voting that way > because they felt they were in a safe Gore state, and would have voted > for Gore if their state was in play. Uh huh... and Gore won lots of states. Nothing to do with Nader. > And the voter turnout in 2000 was quite close to that of previous > elections, making it extremely unlikely that Nader brought in very many > new voters; Not even 1% higher? Considering the 3% turn-out for Nader, it wouldn't take much fluctuation to argue that effect. > and since he got far more votes than leftist third parties normally > receive, it's unlikely he got most of his voters from there either. Except that he was seen as more viable than most third party candidates, so people were voting for him that weren't even particularly leftist. Hell, NADER isn't particularly leftist (as was pointed out earlier in the Kucinich comparison). I know at least one person that voted for Nader instead of Buchanen because she thought he "could win" and thereby both credit third parties AND work against NAFTA (Buchanan is fairly protectionist). J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 15:13:28 -0500 From: Subject: Re: reap [demime could not interpret encoding binary - treating as plain text] >If it's a Bush-Kerry race, it doesn't matter much. i'll toke one to that. a partisan defeating a partisan is like masturbating, alone. gSs - ---- Msg sent via WebMail ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:19:10 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: reap On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Christopher Gross wrote: > While this is doubtless true, I'm afraid that a lot of other people > don't vote because they're basically *content*. (I also learned, while > researching a project on the jury system, that many people say they > refuse to register to vote in order to stay off the list for jury duty. > Sad but true.) I think it's great that people who are content don't vote. I think it's great that people who would dodge their civic responsibility as jurors don't vote. Hell, I'm even pretty strongly opposed to those "get out there and vote!" campaigns because at best it just introduces noise by compelling the uneducated to cast random votes and at worst gives more votes to the candidate with the most hype and name-recognition. > As far as the Senate goes, it wasn't designed to favor conservatives; > instead, it came about simply because the smaller states refused to > ratify the Constitution unless they were given equal representation in > one house of Congress. They threatened to refuse... all those decisions were made before the people saw the Constitution at all. And it's important to note that Madison, the principle author of the document, was pretty strongly in favor of the ruralist focus _because_ it prevented progressive ideas from gaining a foothold as much as any other reason. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 14:19:00 -0600 From: "Fortissimo" Subject: Re: Mark Steyn Rawkz : Kerry v. Edwards On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 14:39:27 -0500, "FSThomas" said: > As far as Nader stealing votes goes, for as long as I can remember > people have derided the two party system in American politics. Now, > when there is a third option offered, people complain. Uh, a huge part of the derision of the two-party system is the way it's rigged against third parties; and a huge part of the appeal of third parties is reforming that system - but as I swear I've said a zillion times in the past two days, ya don't *start* by running for President. It's like saying, hey, I want to play baseball - and asking to try out for the New York Yankees. You start in local races, which are often non-partisan (officially); you start in state races where it's likelier people will actually know you and vote for you on principle not on party; you build a powerbase so that you stand a chance of *changing* the laws that lock in the two-party system. We fetishize running for president - doing so w/o a party base is, in this country, inherently ridiculous, since damned near everything's about party anyway. That may well suck slimy rocks - but you can't change it only by running for prez. Pretty much the same applies if you want to explode the whole party system, probably. (Note your shift from "party" to "option," by the way: I sure did. Nader can no longer claim to be building anything...) - ------------------------------- ...Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: crumple zones:: :: harmful or fatal if swallowed :: :: small-craft warning :: ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 14:24:04 -0600 From: "Fortissimo" Subject: Re: reap On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:12:38 -0800 (PST), "Capuchin" said: > Find enough states to counter Florida that had a margin of difference > between Bush and Gore votes that was less than half of Nader's votes. > That at least would be SOME reason to suspect a splitter effect. Didn't > happen. From that link posted earlier: In all, there were 15 states decided by less than 6 percent and seven states decided by less than 3 percent. Every one of these states teeters on a seesaw, with only the slightest nudge required to send it into one column or the other. Nader got 97,488 votes in Florida. Al Gore would have been president had he gotten even 1 percent of those. In New Hampshire, too, Nader's 22,198 votes dwarfed the 7,211-vote margin by which Bush won the state. In other states, Gore barely dodged Nader's bullet. Nader got 21,251 in New Mexico, which Gore squeaked out by 366 votes. Nader got 94,070 votes in Wisconsin, which Gore won by only 5,708 votes. Nader got 29,374 votes in Iowa, which Gore won by 4,144. And Nader won 5 percent of the vote in Oregon, which Gore won by one-half of 1 percent. - ------------------------------- ...Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: crumple zones:: :: harmful or fatal if swallowed :: :: small-craft warning :: ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V13 #56 *******************************