[nader-colo-students] A Vote for Gore is a Vote for Bush and letter by Michael Moore

["Damon Haley " <dhaley@greens.org>]

After reading these two pieces I am reminded
of what Ralph said in his press conference on
Thursday...he met with Gephart in May and
the FUTURE house majority leader was not
at all displeased with the votes Nader voters
will bring to the dems  in both the house and
senate...these are voters who would not even
be showing up at the polls on Tuesday if it
were not for Ralph...too bad we don't hear more
about these Nader-led victories...Paddy
************************************

1.  A Vote for Gore is a Vote for Bush...
2.  Letter from Michael Moore
=======================================

This is a Z commentary --

Will Gore Throw the Election to Bush?
By Robert W. McChesney

This past Friday a dozen former "Nader's Raiders" held a
press conference and told Ralph Nader to drop out of the
presidential race and throw his support to Vice-President Al
Gore. Concerned about Gore's faltering numbers in the polls,
they argued that votes for Nader might well lead to the
victory of George W. Bush.

It is not an original argument. But the problem with it is
that they are asking the wrong candidate to quite the race.
Had they thought it through, they would have demanded that
Al Gore quit the race and throw his support behind Nader.

Think about it.

Vice President Al Gore has now had three 90 minute mano a
mano debates with George W. Bush. His campaign and related
soft money groups have spent hundreds of millions of dollars
on political ads to convince Americans to support him. He
has received an overwhelming amount of press coverage, much
of it sympathetic. He is a household name across the nation.

Yet here we are less than two weeks from election day and Al
Gore still is not ahead of George W. Bush, arguably the
least impressive and most unqualified candidate for
president in U.S. history. Many polls find him trailing
Governor Bush. And there is little hope for a turnaround, as
Bush has twice the money Gore does to bombard the nation
with TV ads. Were a politician the caliber of Bill Clinton
running against W., he would mop the floor with Bush's
carcass, and lead him by 15 points in the polls.

Al Gore has failed. For whatever reason, people just don't
like the guy, and the more they see him, the less they like
him. The voters have made it clear they might not elect him
even over such a numbskull as George W. Bush.

It seems pretty clear why Gore cannot expose Bush for the
fraud he is. Bush is owned lock, stock and barrel by the
huge corporations and the wealthy. As president, Bush will
reduce the tax burden on the wealthy and eliminate those
remaining regulations that protect the environment,
consumers and workers. He will also give the green light to
anti-competitive corporate mergers and consolidation. A Bush
Administration will make the Republican administrations of
the Gilded Age and the Roaring 20s look like socialist
states.

But Gore cannot attack Bush on these obvious points. Why?
Because Gore is pretty much in hock to the same crowd, and
the Clinton-Gore administration has been pursuing similar
policies, albeit with a different grade of rhetoric to dress
it up. So the debate is a lot of  insincere focus group
tested sound bites or a lot of mumbo jumbo on a bunch of
incomprehensible policy programs. No one is advocating
positions that tackle the extreme inequality of wealth and
power in the United States directly, and the total
corruption of our governing system by big money.

Since there is little of substance to debate between them,
those voters who haven't fallen asleep are making their
choice between Gore and Bush on the basis of which they
think has a better personality. On that score, whether it is
fair or not, Gore is a sure loser.

Ralph Nader is not the reason Gore's campaign is struggling.
Gore has has ample opportunity to make his case before the
American voters. Gore had a ten point lead in some polls in
September. As that lead disappeared, most of the votes
shifted to Bush, not Nader. In fact, surveys show that a
significant percentage of Nader's supporters -- perhaps a
majority -- either would not vote or would vote for someone
other than Gore were Nader not in the race. Most of those
sympathetic to Nader but scared about a Bush presidency have
already decided to vote for Gore.

Al Gore, and Al Gore alone, has blown his golden
opportunity.

In fact, that Gore has laid such an egg is damaging Nader's
effort to reach the five percent threshold and earn matching
funds for the Green party in 2004. If Gore were doing as
well as he should be doing, he would win the election
handily and Nader could get 7-10 percent of the vote with
little effect on the outcome. But Gore has indeed laid an
egg, and party hacks are desperate to find a scapegoat.

If Democrats are truly concerned about the fate of
progressive politics, the rational solution would be for
Gore to quit and throw his support to Nader. Gore can't win.
Nader can.

Without hardly any money and worse media coverage than
Andrei Sakharov got from Pravda in the 1970s, Nader has
drawn the six largest crowds in the campaign -- ranging from
10,000 to 15,000 people -- and these were paying audiences
no less. When people actually hear Nader's message they
respond, and they respond favorably. Nader can galvanize the
citizenry in a way Gore cannot. He is the smartest, most
competent, and most honest figure in public life today. He
is a national treasure.

In leaving the race, Gore should demand that George W. Bush
have three 90 minute debates mano a mano with Nader in the
final 10 days of the campaign. Without Gore's dreadful
semi-Republican record, Nader will easily expose Bush for
the ignoramus that he is. Let's see Bush serve up his
banalities about favoring "small government" and "returning
power to the people" in the face of Nader's command of the
real record of massive corporate welfare that Bush supports.

Those genuinely concerned about the fate of progressive
ideals should urge  Vice President Gore to withdraw from the
race immediately. Only Nader can defeat Bush. All that
progressives stand for -- the Supreme Court, a woman's right
to choose, the environment -- is on the line. The sad truth
is that on November 7 a vote for Gore is a vote for Bush.
============================================

>From Michael Moore - October 9, 2000

Dear friends,

There is a quiet revolution about to happen on November 7. Few in the
media
or electorate have paid any attention to it. Because I would so like 
to
see
it happen, I am reluctant to speak of it for fear that it will freak 
out
the
wrong people and thus prevent it from occurring.

No, I'm not talking about my fantasy that 100 million nonvoters will
turn
out to vote for Ralph, or that great Cheney rumor floating around the
web
(the one where he drops out the week before the election and Bush
appoints
Colin Powell), or the other great rumor about George W. paying a visit
to
Reagan on his deathbed (Who starts this stuff? Keep it up!).

What I am referring to is the STRONG possibility that the U.S. House 
of
Representatives is about to be taken over by... African Americans!

That's right. After 200+ years of white guys running Congress 
occupying
the
White House, get ready for "The Black House!"

In a scenario that might make D.W. Griffith return from the grave and
demand
the sequel rights to "Birth of a Nation," the black members of 
Congress
are
about to fall into a palace coup and make every redneck and racist run
for
cover.

The Democrats are only 6 seats shy of winning back control of the 
House.
All
indications are such, thanks to so many Republican incumbents choosing
not
to run for reelection this year (and the back-to-back suicide moves by
the
Republicans to shut down the federal government and then overthrow a
popularly-elected President), the Democrats may just pull it off.

The ace card, which Democratic members are privately cheering on, is
Ralph
Nader. I have spoken to aides of a half dozen members of Congress and
they
are all convinced that Nader's presence on the ballot is going to 
bring
out
millions of voters who had planned on not voting. If that happens, 
once
in
the voting booth, who do you those disgruntled, pro-Nader voters are
going
to plunk down for when they gaze down at the section for "Member of
Congress" on the ballot? The Republican? I don't think so. Because the
Greens have so few candidates running for Congress, those Nader voters
are
going to vote for the Democrat for Congress.

The 1994 election that gave the House to Newt and the Republicans was
decided in 19 districts where the Republican won by a thousand or so
votes.
A few Nader voters could make all the difference.

So how does that put African Americans in control of the House?

Thanks to the seniority they have accumulated, no fewer than TWENTY-
TWO
members of the Congressional Black Caucus stand to take over the
chairmanships of 22 House committees and subcommittees!

That's right. If the Democrats get the House back, Rep. John Conyers 
of
Detroit will become the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. 
Rep.
Charles Rangel of New York will be the chair of the powerful House 
Ways
and
Means Committee. And Rep. Julian Dixon of California will head up the
House
Intelligence Committee.

Three of the most important committees in Congress will be led by
African
Americans for the first time in our history.

But wait. It gets better.

Nineteen - yes, 19 -- subcommittees in the House of Representatives 
will

have as their chairmen/chairwomen 19 other members of the 
Congressional
Black Caucus!

How cool is that? I never thought I would live to see such a thing. 
In a

week where I have just read that the black household median income is
$27,000 compared to $44,000 for whites, where I read that ONE-THIRD of
African American men between the ages of 18 and 35 are prohibited from
voting in this election because of our bigoted judicial system, for me
to
then hear that nearly two dozen African Americans might be calling the
shots
next year in Congress was the kind of good news that rarely comes our
way.

Of course, it's not just that they are black. These 22 members of
Congress
have, for the most part, consistently voted for labor, women's rights,
education, controls on corporations, cleaning up the environment and
standing firm against free/sweatshop trade bills. They are the first 
to
question U.S. meddling into the affairs of other countries, and the 
last
to
send our young people off to war.

The Black House, my friends, is a good thing for all of us.

As you know from my previous letters, I see little or no difference
between
the Democratic and Republican Parties. They both are there to do the
bidding
of Big Business, and the Democrats have gone so far to the right they
should
just call themselves Pro-Choice Republicans.

But this issue of the Democrats getting the House back is a different
matter. Much to the chagrin of many Democrats, these House committees
and
subcommittees will fall into the hands of the old school liberal New
Deal
Democrats -- who just happen to be black. There is little the 
Democratic

leadership can do about it because seniority rules.

Which brings up another interesting point. The reason these black
Democrats
have kept winning their seats is because they stuck to their
liberal/left
guns, even in the face of a country that was seeming to turn to the
right.
Those Democrats who thought the way to survive was to sound "more
Republican" wound up losing many of their seats. A study conducted by
two
professors from the University of Utah on that 1994 Congressional
election
found that it was not the liberals who lost their seats to Newt's 
army,
but
the Democrats who were moderates or who changed their position to
moderate.
The voters aren't stupid. If they want sirloin, they sure as hell 
aren't

going to vote for the hamburger trying to pose as a sirloin.

Of course, if word gets out to all those conservative, reactionary,
racist
Americans of what is about to occur -- Fear of a Black Planet! -- then
they
will probably pour out of their sinkholes on election day to vote for
the
Republicans running for Congress. So be careful who you tell this 
secret
to.

It's been just 137 years since the end of legal slavery in America.

I want to wake up on November 8 and witness the ultimate payback time!

Whoo-hoo!

Yours,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com


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