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Issue #475 The Choice Thursday, January 25, 2024
I have railed against 3rd parties at least since 3rd-party candidate Ralph Nader took enough votes away from Democrat Al Gore, especially in Florida, that the election was sent to the Supreme Court that handed the election to Republican George W. Bush.
People tried to blame Al Gore, who didn’t even win his home state of Tennessee, for running a lackluster campaign, but Gore still won the popular vote by more than 1/2 million votes. It was the razor-thin contest in Florida of 537 votes that cost Gore the election, and that was because of 3rd-party candidates such as Ralph Nader and others.
Most notably, in 2016, there was a concerted effort to demonize and discount highly qualified Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and far too many people decided to vote 3rd-party or vote “their conscience,” leading to an Electoral College win for Donald Trump even though Hillary garnered over 3 million more popular votes.
Jill Stein of the Green Party and Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party both pulled enough votes from Hillary to cause her to lose the Electoral College. Many Bernie Sanders supporters also sat out the election, blaming the DNC for not supporting him, even though Bernie is not a Democrat and the DNC had no obligation to support a non-Democrat. But even well-known people like actress Susan Sarandon and Professor Eddie Glaude, Jr. encouraged people not to vote for Hillary in 2016.
Today, independent candidates like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Dr. Cornel West, and Green Party Candidate Jill Stein could conceivably peel away enough votes from Joe Biden to cost him Electoral College votes in swing states and give the election to Donald Trump or another Republican like Nikki Haley.
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