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Third Party Candidates doom Democratic Front-runners. So why are so many running now? [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-08-10

This is what happened in 2000 to give us a GW Bush Presidency and the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars.

Isn’t that what we were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan under Bush?

Ralph Nader was the most successful of the third-party candidates. His campaign was marked by a traveling tour of large "super-rallies" held in sports arenas like Madison Square Garden, with retired talk show host Phil Donahue as master of ceremonies.[31] After initially ignoring Nader, the Gore campaign made a pitch to potential Nader supporters in the campaign's final weeks,[32] downplaying his differences with Nader on the issues and arguing that Gore's ideas were more similar to Nader's than Bush's were and that Gore had a better chance of winning than Nader.[33] On the other side, the Republican Leadership Council ran pro-Nader ads in a few states in an effort to split the liberal vote. Between 7:50 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. EST on November 7, just before the polls closed in the largely Republican Florida panhandle, which is in the Central time zone, all major television news networks (CNN, NBC, FOX, CBS, and ABC) declared that Gore had won Florida. They based this prediction substantially on exit polls. But in the vote, Bush began to take a wide lead early in Florida, and by 10 p.m. EST, the networks had retracted their predictions and placed Florida back in the "undecided" column. At approximately 2:30 a.m. on November 8, with 85% of the vote counted in Florida and Bush leading Gore by more than 100,000 votes, the networks declared that Bush had carried Florida and therefore been elected president. But most of the remaining votes to be counted in Florida were in three heavily Democratic counties—Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach—and as their votes were reported Gore began to gain on Bush. By 4:30 a.m., after all votes were counted, Gore had narrowed Bush's margin to under 2,000 votes, and the networks retracted their declarations that Bush had won Florida and the presidency.

This is exactly why polls should be illegal on election day until ALL the votes in the ENTIRE NATION are counted!

Most of the post-electoral controversy revolved around Gore's request for hand recounts in four counties (Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Volusia), as provided under Florida state law. On November 26, the state canvassing board certified Bush as the winner of Florida's electors by 537 votes. Gore formally contested the certified results. A state court decision overruling Gore was reversed by the Florida Supreme Court, which ordered a recount of over 70,000 ballots previously rejected as undervotes by machine counters. The U.S. Supreme Court halted that order the next day, with Justice Scalia issuing a concurring opinion that "the counting of votes that are of questionable legality does in my view threaten irreparable harm to petitioner" (Bush).[49] Though Gore came in second in the electoral vote, he received 543,895 more popular votes than Bush,[53] making him the first person since Grover Cleveland in 1888 to win the popular vote but lose in the Electoral College

This is what happened in 2016 to give us a Trump presidency.

Bernie Sanders was an extremely popular candidate in the Democratic Primary in 2016

A wide grin spread across Bernie Sanders's face as he looked out at a massive crowd of more than 20,000 supporters in Oakland, California, in May. "When we began this campaign a little over a year ago, the pundits had determined in their never-ending, never-failing wisdom that this was going to be a 'fringe' campaign," Sanders said, his tone dripping with irony. "A year has come and gone, and up until now we have won the primaries and caucuses in 23 states. We have won over 9 million votes ... and we're going to win in California."

But he lost the primary.

Sanders finally admitted defeat in the Democratic nomination in Tuesday, congratulating and endorsing Clinton. But on the narrower question of whether the pundits understood the potential of his campaign, Sanders is clearly right: He's proven anything but a "fringe" candidate in the Democratic primary.

But, his popularity may have cost Clinton the election.

Fully 12 percent of people who voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries voted for President Trump in the general election. Party seems to have had something to do with it — Sanders-Trump voters were much less likely than Sanders-Clinton or Sanders-third party voters to have been Democrats. Likewise, approval of President Barack Obama appears to be related — Sanders-Trump voters approved of Obama much less than other Sanders primary voters. This tracks with broader observations about election 2016 — for example, as I wrote last week, in general, the larger a state's general-election Trump vote, the less likely its residents are to perceive a lot of discrimination in the world, according to data from the Public Religion Research Institute. And another postelection study — co-authored by Schaffner — found a "relatively strong indication that racism and sexism were more important in 2016 than they had been in previous elections."

Of course, there are other reason Trump won.

Fears of Cultural Displacement Pushed the White Working Class to Trump

White working-class voters who say they often feel like a stranger in their own land and who believe the U.S. needs protecting against foreign influence were 3.5 times more likely to favor Trump than those who did not share these concerns. White working-class voters who favored deporting immigrants living in the country illegally were 3.3 times more likely to express a preference for Trump than those who did not. White working-class voters who said that college education is a gamble were almost twice as likely to express a preference for Trump as those who said it was an important investment in the future. Notably, while only marginally significant at conventional levels (P<0.1), being in fair or poor financial shape actually predicted support for Hillary Clinton among white working-class Americans, rather than support for Donald Trump. Those who reported being in fair or poor financial shape were 1.7 times more likely to support Clinton, compared to those who were in better financial shape.

Until the Democratic Party stresses the harm to working people for voting Republican, they will continue to lose elections.

Third Party Candidates take votes from front-running Democratic Candidates. Let’s see who is running for the Democratic Presidential Nominee and why.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, known for his work as an environmental lawyer and his anti-vaccine views, said he is running for president to end the “chronic disease epidemic”. Kennedy, who compared vaccine mandates during the Covid-19 pandemic to “Hitler’s Germany”, has promoted other baseless conspiracy theories such as telecom networks being used to control people.

Failed 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, who also unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the US House of Representatives in 2014, became the first Democratic candidate to announce she is running for president as a challenge to Joe Biden. Williamson, an author of self-help books, launched her long-shot bid with campaign promises to address climate change and student loan debt. She previously worked as “spiritual leader” of a Michigan Unity church.

Williamson's 2024 deputy campaign manager, Jason Call, departed from her team on May 20, 2023, a week after her campaign manager, Peter Daou, had announced similar intentions. The two gave substantially different reasons for their actions than did the campaign.[71] Earlier in 2023, a dozen former staffers from her 2020 campaign, who remained anonymous due to having signed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), described working for Williamson as "toxic," "traumatic," and "terrifying". Williamson has been accused of throwing phones and shouting at staff so intensely they were reduced to tears. According to one account, her anger over logistics in South Carolina led her to strike a car repeatedly to the extent that she had to receive medical attention for a swollen hand.[72] Williamson has denied the phone-throwing charge, admitted to the car incident, and acknowledged that she may have room for personal growth.[73] More staff left Williamson's team in June 2023, including her new campaign manager.[74]

The progressive activist Cornel West announced in a video posted to Twitter that he is running for president as a member of the People’s party, a third party headed by a former campaign staffer for Bernie Sanders. West is currently a professor of philosophy at Union Theological Seminary and previously worked at Harvard but resigned, saying the school had an “intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of deep depths”.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/10/2186524/-Third-Party-Candidates-doom-Democratic-Front-runners-So-why-are-so-many-running-now

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