The moral case for Hillary Clinton

[moonshaz]

The moral case for Hillary Clinton: Even if you might dislike her, this isn’t the year to back a third-party candidate
Voters planning to support Jill Stein or Gary Johnson should take a moment to examine the potential consequences “What would it take for you to vote for a third-party candidate

Comments

[prehnite]

More Florida Dems voted voted for Bush in 2000 than for Nader ("Nader only drew 24,000 Democrats to his cause, yet 308,000 Democrats voted for Bush") or any other third party candidate, and a significant number of them didn't vote at all.

Gore ran a poor campaign in 2000, anyway. He alienated more liberal voters by choosing Joe Lieberman as running mate, performed poorly in the debates, and made the terrible strategic choice of distancing himself from the very popular Clinton administration.

Leaving aside the clusterfuck Florida turned into and the intervention of the Supreme Court, if Gore had run a stronger, more engaging campaign, it's likely he would have been able to get the votes he needed by convincing nonvoters to show up at the polls for him and Dems who switched to Bush to vote for him.

Florida aside, if Gore had been able to take his home-state, Tennessee, as Clinton had done both in 1996 and '98, where a third party wasn't a factor, Florida wouldn't have mattered at all. Loosing Tennessee hurt him more than Nader and the other third party candidates being on the ballot in Florida, and Gore lost Tennessee all on his own.

[prehnite]

I've heard that who would have won depended on the recount method, but it's been a while since I've looked at the Florida results outside of the impact of third party candidates, so I may be misremembering.