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October 05, 2004
Another Friend's Blog
I recently realized that I have not linked to him yet, here is my college roommates blog. He warned his readers when he linked to me that I was significantly to the right of most of them. So I guess I will warn my readers that he is to the left of me on most issues, but his blog seems to be more rambling and not that politically focused (his little motto is Dreams inconsistent angel things). One recently political post (I cant figure out how to do permalinks on his site) he made was about Nader and to briefly sum up, he is mad at democrats for keeping Nader of the ballot if they believe every vote should count and mad at republicans for supporting Nader only to screw Kerry over. I was actually approached by a Nader supporter on the University of Houston campus back in June and did not sign the petition to put him on the ballot. Maybe if I did not live in Texas and lived in Florida or Ohio or another potential close state I might have acted differently, but I think unless a third party candidate has a serious chance of winning (such as Perot in 1992 or Teddy Roosevelt with the Bull-Moose party) that they should not be on the ballot.
He also mentions in that entry that people who know about Chomsky either love or hate him. I hate him.
Posted by Pete at October 5, 2004 10:40 AM
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Comments
To get a permalink, just use the comments page. The link for the post you're referring to is http://www.livejournal.com/users/lennoxhc/39636.html
Posted by: Dangerous Dan at October 6, 2004 08:56 AM
So, if candidates should only be on the ballot if they have a serious chance of winning, should Mondale have even been listed?
Posted by: Lennox at October 7, 2004 12:09 PM
Lennox: Yes he should have. Mondale had a serious chance. He got over 40% of the vote, carried a state, and at times was closer. Perot who got over 19% had a serious chance and had he not dropped out proabable would have gotten more. Nader in the last election polled under 3%. It is a tricky question and my first instinct is to say that only those who have a reasonable chance (not a likely chance) of winning an election be on the ballot. It is easy for me to imagine a scenario where Perot or Mondale could have won. Nader had no chance and I can not imagine any reasonable scenario where he could have won. The two main parties always have a serious chance because of their bases. Third parties only occasionally have a serious chance.
Ultimately it should be up to each state and most have standards that are similar, but more lenient, than mine that allow third parties like Libertarians and Greens, but still require a minimum number of signitaures or some similar requirement. If you can't get the minimum number of signatures most states require than you for sure do not have a serious chance. Without some sort of standard like this the ballot will get way too full of unserious candidates like what happened in the California recall election with Gary Coleman and porn stars on the ballot.
Posted by: petetheelder at October 7, 2004 02:36 PM
Um, the Mondale crack was a joke.
Seriously, I think there should be limits on who gets on the ballot, and I imagine my threshhold for eligiblity is a lot lower than yours. The California gubernatorial recall was absurd, and the electoral process shouldn't devolve into a satirical reflection of contemporary culture. In this specific example, I don't really mind if Nader is on the ballot, but here in Texas, he won't be.
Posted by: Lennox at October 7, 2004 04:29 PM
I think we talked about this before, but I am torn about the recall. On the one hand Davis was a horrible governor and if any major politician needed to be recalled it was him. And I think Arnold has already shown he is a better governor and that he is much better at making the hard, but right, choice when forced to make a choice. But on the other hand recalls are extremely dangerous to orderly republican government and the voters of California got what they deserved when they elected an obvious loser like Davis in the first place.
Posted by: pete at October 7, 2004 04:51 PM