Why I'm voting for Ralph - Molly Ivins (October 26, 2000)

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2000/198

Why I'm voting for Ralph
October 26, 2000

AUSTIN, Texas -- As Gen. George Patton said of war, "God help me, but I love it so." I realize that the only people in America having a good time right now are political reporters, but we haven't had this much fun since Grandpa fell in the fish pond. What could be more exciting than David Broder and Tom Oliphant trading thoughts on whether a heavy black voter turnout in north Florida will make all the difference?

OK, Nader voters. Let's talk.

I'm voting for Ralph. I'm voting for Nader because I believe in him, admire him and would like to see his issues and policies triumph in our political life. I'm also voting for him because I live in Texas -- where all 32 electoral votes will go to George W. Bush even if I stand on my head, turn blue and vote for Gus Hall, the late communist.

I know that many of my fellow Nader voters are young people and probably don't want to hear from a geriatric progressive. (We had to walk three miles through the snow, barefoot, uphill both ways.) But I have learned some things just from hanging around this long, and with your permission, I will pass them on.

[MADem]

1. I'll bet, in the long lens of history, she shits everytime she sees that column

And wishes she never wrote it.

[LoZoccolo]

4. Actually, she apparently hasn't learned a thing.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0120-30.htm

It doesn't matter for shit in red Texas, but she shouldn't be messing around with other peoples' votes.

[MADem]

7. Yep, she stuck the other foot in it with that one.

What will she do on the odd chance that Hillary goes the distance? Vote for the Republican? Play the halfassed "principle" game? We see how well that shit worked out over the past six years...

She has every right to push for her chosen person in the primaries, but playing the highly negative 'take my ball and go home' game is just childish--she comes off like an oppo tool, frankly. What a waste of column inches.

She'd have been better off using her soapbox to pick a favored candidate and tell us why she supports that person, instead of pushing the "Ooooh, I'm too cool to acknowledge or understand the viewpoint of the more centrist and conservative members of the Democratic Party" theme.

It's entirely an unprogressive attitude, IMO. Amazingly intolerant. Not good form at all.

[hfojvt]

14. most of what she said after the first paragraph

was about Progressive issues - undoing the Bush tax cuts, protecting the environment, single-payer health care and how Democrats should stand up and fight, rather than triangulate into Republican-lite.

I thought it was pretty good.

[MADem]

19. She is a person of influence. I just find her 'take ball, go home' declaration

really unhelpful. And it encourages those who don't read past the reality that she votes in a GOP state to toss their vote away as well...

Some people are easily led, and they're very easily led by someone as charismatic as MI. Virtually every Democratic candidate is for those progressive issues she cited, from the environment to health care and repealing those idiotic BushCo tax cuts...I just thought the diatribe was a cheap and unnecessary shot. YMMV.

[hfojvt]

32. I do not know about that

she endorsed Howard Dean last time and unfortunately not very many were influenced by her charisma.

So she is looking for a better candidate than HRC, or calling for Hillary to take stronger progressive stands and stop triangulating. I cannot fault her for that, nor for expecting people to read past the first paragraph.

[MADem]

34. Like I said, YMMV...I see her as a force, and when you have influence you need to

tread lightly, because when you do decide to throw down, it reverberates.

[Warren DeMontague]

16. Eh. Except, Hillary's not the nominee.

She's not guaranteed the nomination. She's not automatically entitled to the nomination. She's not the "only viable candidate". She's not even the "front runner".

And odds are, she's not going to BE the nominee. So Molly Ivins's views on the matter will probably be moot.

[nosmokes]

29. she's spot on in that piece from 2006.

enough with half measures and careful answers and trying to be everything to everyone. give me a *leader* that will tke a principled stand for a studied reason, and be willing to make hard decisions in the people's interest, not the boardroom's.
i love me some molly.

[LoZoccolo]

35. So if Hillary's the nominee (and it's not guaranteed, but if), then you'd vote third-party? n/t

[nosmokes]

36. in a NY second LZ. I'm done w/ corporatists and won't be voting for

anyone that falls into that category anymore. period.

[LoZoccolo]

39. See you in 2008.

:hi: :nuke:

[paulk]

42. going 3rd party? Nader?

inside Nader's stock portfolio

http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/10/28/stocks/index.html

[nosmokes]

43. Nader? i doubt Nader is gonna be the Green or Libertarian choice. I'm positive

he won't be the Socialists choice.so ralphie really isn't a factor.

[Buck Rabbit]

41. Yes I Am Going To Vote Third Party.

(That is my primary posturing position anyway. In the end I'll vote ABR, but Shhhhhhh don't tell anybody, I'm hunting Elmers.)

[fishwax]

18. Why would she? the jist of it is that it wouldn't be wise to vote for nader in a swing state

I wish a few thousand nader voters in florida had taken her advice and made the hard choice: "In the primaries, I vote to change the world; in November, I vote for a sliver more for programs that help the needy."

[MADem]

26. Because most people don't read past the first paragraph, or if they do, they don't even realize that

they ARE, or are not, in a swing state.

I'll bet a few people read that and came away with "If Molly is voting for Nader, so am I." People, sadly, are stupid, lots of them. They cannot get the nuance.

[fishwax]

27. I highly doubt that

Sure, there are stupid people, but I highly doubt there were many swing staters who either (a) hold Ivins in such high regard that they would take the advice of her first paragraph without bothering to read the rest of it or (b) are interested and informed enough to be reading Ivins, but not informed or interested enough to realize that they were in a swing state in the hotly contested 2000 election. :)

[MADem]

28. I know a few of them....they just LOVE Molly because she's such a character

But they wouldn't know a swing state if it bit them in the ass.

[Jim Sagle]

2. Wonder what she's learned since.

Not enough, if she says she wouldn't vote for Clinton.

[Dogmudgeon]

We all make mistakes.

"Burp!" said the overworked DU server, staggering under the load of post-SOTU traffic, as it inadvertently posted Pigwidgeon's cloying and sentimental message twice.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. We all make mistakes.

Even Ralph.

So, do you say "I made a mistake", or dance around it? (Are you listening, HR-C?)

I was quite positively impressed this evening. Somebody who had been flaming me, then turned around and apologized. I was floored. In a good way.

(No, it wasn't in Religion/Atheism/Theology -- no miracles allowed!)

(:evilgrin:)

--p!

[Patchuli]

5. I'd like to see her address that f/u

I like her but she is a bit too smug. Especially with that boner.

[johncoby2]

6. Stupid bitch.

[Big Pappa]

31. Thats nice.

:wtf:

[PVnRT]

45. Wow, such a compelling argument

Douchebag.

[rwenos]

8. Molly, Molly

To forgive is divine. But that's a REALLY HARD THING to forgive.

And something NEVER to forget, despite my general love of Molly's writing.

[donheld]

9. Yea, wonderful choice Molly

I love ya Molly, but god did you ever call that one WRONG!

[PBass]

10. She won't vote for Hillary in a primary?

Or she won't vote for Hillary if Hillary wins the nomination?

If it's the latter, my respect for Molly Ivins just dropped into the cellar.

[MADem]

22. Unfortunately, it looks like it's the latter

I wouldn't give two shits either if she didn't support her during the primary. Primaries are for everyone to pick the person that best matches their image of what they want the leader to be.

After the primary, though, that's when we get behind the winner--we don't stomp our foot like children and refuse to participate because our candidate didn't make the cut, or we don't especially adore the one that did...

[fishwax]

25. she'd probably still encourage swing staters to vote for clinton, though

just as she did for gore in 2000.

[bling bling]

11. In fairness, it looked to me like she was encouraging people to vote Gore.

if they lived in swing states.

From the article...

"And it is precisely those citizens -- whose lives sometimes literally depend on the difference between a politician who really does have a plan to help with the cost of prescription drugs and one who is only pretending that he does -- whose lives can be harmed by your idealism."

Unless I read it wrong.

[hfojvt]

17. you are reading it right

"In Texas, we'll vote for Nader and a perfect world. You swing-state progressives need to make the hard choice -- but you're not making it just for yourselves. Good luck to you all."

I still do not think it was a hard choice. That was one hell of a big dime.

As I wrote in October of 2000 to the Mason City Globe-Gazette "quite frankly a Bush Presidency scares me." I will NEVER forgive Ralph for helping to make it possible. Well, okay maybe after 10,000 years of purgatory, I might think about forgiving him.

[Bucky]

12. Did anyone in this thread read the whole article?

She says she'd vote for Nader because she's in a state where that vote won't matter. Without outright saying "vote for Gore" (whom she found sanctimonious) she makes it clear that the vote for Nader is throwing away a vote and that swing state voters need to look for the small differences (from her perspective) that Gore would represent.

I know it's hard for young people to envision age or illness, or the sick feeling of frantic despair when your old wreck of a car finally dies (it always does this in traffic) and will not start again. People who work two and even three jobs to support their kids get so tired -- you can't imagine how tired -- and guilt and depression and anxiety all pile on, too. The difference between Gore and Bush matters to those folks.

This is an old argument between radicals and liberals; sometimes I'm on one side, and sometimes I'm on the other. In the primaries, I vote to change the world; in November, I vote for a sliver more for programs that help the needy.

I do not believe that things have to get worse before they can get better. I think you will find that most mothers object to the idea that you would deliberately do something to make a child's life worse in order to bring about some presumed greater good in the long run. I believe that the best can be the enemy of the better. I believe in taking half a loaf, or even a slice.

And how do we ever change the whole rotten system at that speed? Brick by brick, child by child, slowly, toward liberty and justice for all. The urgent, crucial need right now is to fix the money in politics. It can be done, it will be done, it is being done, and we will get better politics.

In Texas, we'll vote for Nader and a perfect world. You swing-state progressives need to make the hard choice -- but you're not making it just for yourselves. Good luck to you all.

[fishwax]

20. it doesn't seem so n/t

[MADem]

23. The focus shifted to the second article....

The one where she says she will take her ball and go home in the (unordained) event that Clinton gets the nomination.

The problem with the first article is that most people didn't read past the first paragraph when it was written in 2000. And I'll bet she wouldn't have written it if she could go back to that year in a time machine...

[burythehatchet]

33. when you are a reactioary fanatic, you don't need to read

or think. Your mind is carved in stone and any variaion in thought patterns is anathema.

[Bucky]

37. Hey, nice job name calling. I was implying they were being careless, not evil.

Why does online discussion make people overreact so easily? Not to suggest that I've never overreacted...

[burythehatchet]

38. I wasn't referrinng to you Bucky, I agree with what you

have said in this thread. I should have said when "one" is....
Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[JNelson6563]

47. Only those who can sound out big words

:toast:

[XOKCowboy]

13. Michael Moore also voted for Nader in 2000

Damn kick Molly by bringing up a column from 2000. I believe if you look she's regretted that vote and written about why she regrets it.

Now about Hillary I think Molly made some very valid points. We didn't win the midterms by catering to the centrists (read corporatists) of that Hillary represents. We won't even talk about the IWR.

[k_jerome]

15. still stupid after all these years. nt.

[fishwax]

21. It's a great article. I wish more had taken her advice to heart.

If only a few thousand Nader voters in Florida had followed her advice and made the hard choices, not for themselves and their idealism, but for those with the most riding on the election: "In the primaries, I vote to change the world; in November, I vote for a sliver more for programs that help the needy."

[eridani]

24. Why was it a mistake?

No way in hell would Gore have carried Texas. Chomsky voted Nader in 2004, but he explicitly said that it was because Kerry was so solid in Massachusetts that he could afford a protest vote, but that voters in swing states could not.

[clixtox]

30. Voters...

certainly have the option to vote for the best person, in their estimation, among all of the candidates!

Nader is, and was, a hero, not a zero like Bush will always be, and Gore was, at the time.

Of course Gore apparently won in 2000, but didn't have the what it took to win in Florida, even with more votes, or in the Supreme Court, where he lost the election by only one vote. Probably the closest national election in our sordid history of rigged, stolen elections and institutional electoral discrimination by race, sex, wealth, etc., etc.

Whos agenda does it promote when people are propagandized to hate someone they don't really know at all, other than what they have heard, read or seen, until recently except for some of us who are Internet savvy, almost always filtered through the corporate controlled media(MSM). Whether it is Saddam Hussain, Manuel Noriega, Hugo Chavez, Kim Il Jung, Osama ben Missing, Ho Chi Minh or Ralph Nader you can be sure that the masses of people are being manipulated for the benefit of those who will control those who succumb, and everyone else.

Hate is basic, very basic, human nature, part of our fight or flight mechanism, perhaps. Hate is so easy! Almost no brain activity is required, an ideal situation, absolutely required for our dumbed down populace to get excited about something, a chance to display their "deep" understanding about what is happening around them(not!). And, of course, to be tooled into abiding war crimes done in their names, among other atrocities.

[WI_DEM]

40. But if she lived in Florida or NH or Ohio in '00 would she have voted for Nader?

She was right about Texas.

[GreenZoneLT]

44. Of course not. People can't read.

She said up right up front that it makes no difference WHO she votes for in Texas, since W has the electoral votes no matter what, so she can afford to vote for Nader. She's not stupid; she's been warning people about W since some DUers were in diapers.

[NNN0LHI]

46. 50,000 other idiots voted for Nader in Florida along with her

Being in the news business I am sure Molly knows that most people don't get past the headline of an article. A few more read a paragraph or two. Very few people reade an entire article.

I bet Molly knew that when she penned this.

Don