March 06, 2004
Nader Can't Win
As a way to show off both my "Social Proof" concept and my new plugin to display wiki nodes in a weblog entry, I now present my proof that Nader Cannot Win The Presidency.There is a discussion of this proof going on over at daily kos.
The Social Proof starts with the conclusion, based off of several subproofs. You can then choose to follow the links to see the subproofs, but I'll include all the subproofs here to show the complete line of reasoning.
First, the conclusion:
NaderNeedsToWinLotsOfStates proves that Nader needs to win several states outright in order to win the Presidency, contested by NuclearNader.
By definition, Nader needs to outscore all other candidates in the same state to win a state.
NaderWillNotWinEnoughStates socially proves that Nader cannot win 270 electoral votes worth of states in 2004.
Therefore, Nader cannot win the Presidency, contested by NuclearNader.
Parent: NaderCannotWinDemocratically
This relies on two subproofs. These are social proofs, which means that we can't always prove through straight fact - we have to sometimes make strong arguments that cannot be opposed except through arguments of absurdity.
First, we'll examine why Nader can't win enough states.
This is ultimately a subjective proof, or a strongly-argued allegation.
Nader has no party organization behind him. Nader is not focusing on attracting Democratic voters. Nader's policies are more liberal than conservative, and will not attract a large portion of Republican voters. Nader intends to gain support from the millions of nonvoters, but he intended that in 2000 as well and did not get them. Nader's message is not extremely different than in 2000, when he got less than 3% of the vote. Nader cannot match the ground organizations of the other two parties, and has not exhibited strong support online or through the media. Nader has not demonstrated the abililty to win, and does not have an entirely different approach than when he lost before. Nader cannot win one state, much less the eleven largest states (or the 40 smallest states and DC).
Most of the reasoning behind this proof, however, rests on polling. In various state polls, Nader is not polling above 10% anywhere. His unfavorable ratings are also significantly higher than his favorable ratings. He's not even close to gaining more support than even one of the other two candidates, much less both of them.
Therefore, Nader will not win enough states to capture 270 Electoral Votes in 2004.
Parent: NaderCannotWinThePresidency
And here's the proof for why Nader needs to win that many states:
NaderNeedsToWinTheElectoralCollege proves that the only way Nader can win the presidency in 2004 is to win the Electoral College outright.
By definition, Nader needs to win 270 Electoral Votes.
A candidate can get Electoral Votes in two ways:
- Winning a state outright (states award their Electoral Votes on an all-or-nothing basis)
- Convincing pledged delegates to vote against their party and their state's elected candidate.
A candidate's pledged delegates are party loyalists, from the party of the state's winning candidate, and will not vote against their party in most cases.
Therefore, a candidate needs to win enough states outright to get 270 Electoral Votes.
The largest eleven states are the smallest number of states that total 270 Electoral Votes.
Therefore, Nader needs to win several states outright - at least eleven - in order to win the Presidency.
There is one NuclearNader scenario, invented by Carl Nyberg, that contests this proof...
Parent: NaderCannotWinThePresidency
This depends on the proof that Nader needs to win the Electoral College:
- WinningThePresidency shows that is only possible through system-breaking revolution, winning at least 270 Electoral Votes, or winning through the House of Representatives.
- NaderWillNotWinByRevolution shows that Nader cannot currently win through nonconstitutional means.
- NaderWillNotWinInHouseOfReps shows that Nader cannot win if a contested election goes to the House Of Representatives.
Therefore, Nader can only win the Presidency in 2004 by winning the Electoral College outright.
Parent: NaderNeedsToWinLotsOfStates
That proof depends on a definition and two proofs. The definition shows all the constitutional ways a candidate can win the presidency:
A presidential candidate can win the presidency in any of three ways:
1) A system-breaking revolution - Whether by force or by a huge proactive effort by American society to be led in a new way, this would be a massive change in context that would have similarly massive resistance.
2) Winning the Electoral College - the Constitution requires that a presidential candidate win a majority of the Electoral Votes in order to win the presidency outright. There are 538 Electoral Votes, so this means 270 must be won by a candidate.
A plurality is not enough. In other words:
Candidate A: 200 Candidate B: 170 Candidate C: 168
does not mean that Candidate A wins the presidency. If no one gets 270, it goes to the House of Representatives.
Illustrative point: this means that to win the E.C., a candidate must win more Electoral Votes (more electoral support) than all other candidates combined.
3) Winning the House of Representatives - in manners where there is not a clear electoral winner, the election is determined in the House, with the Representatives voting for the candidates.
We shoot down the ridiculous idea that Nader will win through some sort of coup:
Proving that a revolution that would result in Nader being installed president through means other than the Constitution will not be successful by 2004.
Such a revolution can be accomplished publicly or secretly. A secret revolution would require a small number of players that have the power to have an effect in overthrowing government. There does not exist a small number of players with the power to overthrow and redefine the U.S. Government. Therefore, a secret revolution is impossible.
A public revolution would require public momentum before it would become successful. As of the moment of this writing, there is no public momentum for such a revolution. Furthermore, Nader is not calling for one, and there is also not a well-known independent effort calling for one.
If a credible public effort begins to overthrow the U.S. Government, then this proof would be contestable. As it stands now, it is not.
Therefore, it is currently impossible for Nader to win in 2004 through a non-Constitutional revolution.
And finally, we prove that it is impossible for Nader to win through the House Of Reprsentatives in the case of a tie. Not many people understand the intricacies of the House process.
(formerly named NaderWinningHouseOfReps)
In order to win the House of Representatives, you have to have Representatives willing to vote for you. When the election goes to the House, it is determined by the Representatives that were just voted into the House. Each state's delegation caucuses separately. Each state gets one vote. The state's vote is determined by the representatives in that state. So if CA has more Democratic reps than Republican reps, the state's vote would most likely go to the Democratic candidate. (Interestingly, the Senate chooses the Vice President, but not by state - each Senator just gets one vote.) Here is a scenario based off of 2004 numbers.
Currently, alll the Representatives but one (Vermont) are either Democrat or Republican.
Representatives represent Congressional Districts. One representative might be loyal to their party even if their candidate doesn't win their district or state.
In the cases of a split delegation (two Republican Reps and two Democratic Reps), the delegation might choose to go to who won the state, but otherwise they vote by party.
In order to win the House, a candidate needs to win the majority (not just the plurality) of the states. If they can't, the Senate picks a Vice President that can serve in the President's stead. So, Nader would need to win 26 state delegations.
In other words, the Republican and Democratic representatives of 26 different states would need to agree to vote for Nader, even when Nader would not have won the popular vote of their state.
The only way a state delegation would vote for Nader is if Nader won the state, AND if that state had a split delegation of representatives.
There are not 26 states with split delegations, or even an even number of representatives, making this impossible.
Therefore, Nader will not win through the House of Representatives.
Parent: NadersShotAtWinning
So it's proven.
And the good part? It's a wiki. So if you disagree with any of the proofs or find them to be based on inaccurate information, you can go and edit those areas of the proof itself, or argue the points, or declare the proof in contention. This is what make it a social proof.
The other good part? Since it's a proof, we can then use it as a subproof for other contentions, like whether Nader has a secret plan or is merely delusional.
Posted by Curt at March 6, 2004 04:33 PM