Jim,
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StumbleUponThanks for giving me the opportunity to reply to the responses regarding the Cantwell-Gorton race and the impact of the Green Party spillover votes on that contest, which did not have a Green Party senatorial contender. Some responses can be described as both irrelevant and true, e.g., the claim that I supported Deborah Senn, the best insurance commissioner in the country, and criticized Cantwell for her purchasing the primary is accurate. Recall I said that if anyone wants to play the selective what-if game, then they must pay attention to the Green spillover vote in the Cantwell-Gorton race. That is, they cannot avoid looking at one set of numbers, and then draw conclusions, and not at another set of numbers just because they choose to focus on a negative Green impact and ignore what to them had to be viewed as a beneficial impact (Florida in the former case and Washington state in the latter). Leave intent, motivation, and other intangibles for another discussion because my point did not include those traits—just the selective what-if numbers.
As for the preference point you make, in our previous exchange, I was not referring to that—i.e., whether I preferred a Democratic Senate to a Republican Senate. I was just establishing a logical lens from a complaining Democratic Party viewpoint because they were acting illogically in trying to have it both ways. My preferences are for another time and place; this exchange, after all, is narrowly focused on the readers' reactions. The anonymous RonK's extravagant exaggerations in the "Fray" deserve a reply only because they are communicated to the unwary. As far as anyone knows, RonK was not in the room with my associates, Sen. Harry Reid and his staffer, unless he has access to some secret technology. So, RonK, my response to your prefatory "unless I am very much mistaken" is that you are.
RonK is also a pop psychologist. He aspires to reading minds, Jim—a trait that should provide him with a lucrative avocation. He probes the question of "what is the meaning of us?" "Us" I meant to mean "us"—me and my two associates who responded to Sen. Reid's invitation to meet. I was not claiming responsibility for Cantwell's win; I was merely referring to the numbers and the conditional "If the Democrats want to play the selective what-if game, then. ..." RonK then becomes the political statistician slipping on his premises and sprawling to his conclusions. According to exit polls, about one of three of our votes said that they would not have voted at all if the Green Party slate was not on the ballot. Cantwell wins by about 2,300 votes, loses none to the Greens because there is no Green candidate, and the Nader/LaDuke ticket received about 103,000 votes. Go figure.
Instead, RonK confronts his audience with an even shakier tier of hypotheticals, which presumably serve as his premises. Maybe he is a comedian. He overthinks! His next sally encroaches on the land of absurdum. A third-party competitor should be held responsible, he thinks, if he thinks that candidacy cost the least-worst major candidate his victory.
Whatever happened to political competition, diverse agendas, a focus on the concentration of power and wealth in a few hands undermining our modest democracy, and voter choice? Does America belong to just two parties? He should read the history of 19th-century third parties, only one of which won the presidency (the Republican Party in 1860) and view their many contributions that alerted and aroused both citizenry and politicians and pressed for needed reforms and changes (abolition of slavery, women's right to vote, the right to form trade unions, the populist-progressive farmers' revolt, and more).
RonK next accuses by asserting broad factual error. He asserts without being at all factual—thereby inviting readers into his bottomless pit of deception. He moves to a presumed list of recent Republican-Bush moves as if the Democrats would have done just the opposite with action, not rhetoric. (For a list of performances by Clinton-Gore under the heading "Wouldn't President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney Have Done the Same?" see Appendix D from my book Crashing the Party).
RonK tells us that he suspects that Sen. Cantwell would have "in a heartbeat" sacrificed her Senate seat for a Gore presidency. He forgets she worked at Real Networks. RonK plods on saying, "we're still not done." I wonder what the meaning of "we" is, given his singular pontifications. He mistakes again. When I mentioned that there were 120 votes in the House of Representatives in 1993 for a single-payer health insurance bill, I did not say they were cast for that legislation. Single-payer was never presented on the House floor for a vote. But about 120 members signed on to the bill, which went nowhere. And that sends RonK's assertion of "the perfect being the enemy of the good" to nowheresville.
RonK unmasks his empty rhetoric with his conclusions: "and you know what's good for us, better than we do ... right, Ralph?" That's just what you spent e-mail time doing. What I do is urge others to advance justice as citizens in the arena of deliberative democracy. Always looking for better ways to make cars safer, air cleaner, water purer, corporations more accountable, government more accountable, and have the future a little more foreseeable—all within democratic processes. Someday a book may be written showing a correlation between the quality of communications and their ease of transmission. Letters written years ago between politicians, for example, were much more thoughtful than in recent years because they were rarer events and took longer to get there. E-mail is at the other extreme, quick, cheap, and too often thoughtless. RonK can be advised to think a little more before his fingers fly on the keyboard. For this, he should read a sobering new book, titled Silent Theft, by David Bollier, about our society's commons or commonwealth and how corporations are appropriating it installment by installment. He will receive valuable information about commonwealth that will give thoughtfulness a chance to ponder how a society protects its common assets (public airwaves, public research and development, public lands, public works, and public space).
Thanks, Jim. I'll give you a call soon.
Ralph
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Notes From The Fray Editor:
Fray stars were out in force for this "Breakfast Table," proving that there's still a lot of strong feeling about Ralph Nader and the 2000 election. A post from the Ghost here, one from Kassandra here, and BML's contribution, here, all produced good threads (and some good arguments), as did Dilan Esper's contribution, below. RonK (of Seattle…) wasn't taking any prisoners on the subject of that Senator from Washington State, and other matters.
There's a nice post on trains from Lee, and the Fray team agrees with him that the train ride from Portland to Seattle is a winner: and that the trains go so slowly to those of us who have lived with European speeds. Publius makes the point that it is cars and trucks that did for the railway system, not airplanes.
Many many readers had comments on lawsuits. The problem is contingency fees says Trebor Ecilef. Econ Rocky's view is that "the largest legal cost is the loss of the business that is not done. By this I mean opportunities are missed because of perceived risks caused by the uncertainty of regulation and legal awards that could potentially be given." History Guy agrees with the Gerard Winstanley below: "Well over 90% of all lawsuits today, and I'd bet also in 1830, are debt collection actions…. The total number of cases has nothing to do with the impact of litigation on the economy." Leonard asks: If campaign finance reform kicks in and really does change the way money is raised in politics, will the Dems start to distance themselves from trial lawyers?...making tort reform more likely."
Reader Comments From The Fray:
There seems to me to be something tremendously anti-democratic about those who, like James Fallows, blame Ralph Nader for Gore's loss in the election. Essentially, that argument must rest on some sort of duty Nader has to stay out of the race so as to force liberal voters who didn't like Gore and didn't think he would be a good President to vote for him anyway.
I think it is quite arrogant of Fallows and other Gore supporters to say that liberals shouldn't have the opportunity to choose a presidential candidate who reflects their views. Fallows has his own vote to cast in the Presidential election; he doesn't have the right to dictate how others cast their votes. And if Gore failed to convince Nader voters to vote for Gore instead, that was entirely Gore's fault. And if we are going to cast blame, how about blaming the elites who run the Democratic Party who nominated a presidential candidate who was so weak he couldn't even carry his own state, and folks like Fallows for supporting such a loser?
--Dilan Esper
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
It's deliciously tempting to wonder what would happen if Nader was in office. All the corporate fatcats he'd take the hickory to--it's hard to even know where he'd begin. As obnoxious as America's energy, financial and health care oligarchs may be, however, I don't think society's ready to reach for his brand of problem solving just yet. If and when corrupt corporations and rent-seeking lobbyists become a serious drag on the prosperity and happiness of a majority of the American people, though, he'll be in for a renaissance.
By "serious", incidentally, I mean severe enough to outweigh the inefficiencies, costs, and oppressiveness of strong and intrusive government, which (as anyone but Nader himself could tell you) are quite considerable. I'd say a few more changes in the tax code, combined with 6 or 7 more Enrons would just about do it.
--Thrasymachus
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
It's often said the in the Good Old Days business deals were often made on a handshake, and a man was as good as his word. The first half of this statement is true. The second half is no more true than today. For that reason, the dockets of courts in the 19th century were chock full of "assumpsit" cases, occasioned by failures to fulfill promises (often not sealed with a written contract) to pay or provide goods and services. Because cash was scarce and banknotes constantly devalued or became worthless, even routine transactions were made on credit. So when someone didn't pay for that new stereo-opticon it didn't go to a collection agency: it went to court.
--Gerard Winstanley
(To find or answer this post, click here.)
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