2004: no major parties

[Speed of Sound]

sorry if this was done before. i didnt see it anywhere. what if the dems and reps had both NOT run anyone in 04. who would have won? percentages? Maps?

[DanielX]

Nader and Cobb would eat each other's votes. I predict a narrow Badnarik victory, with Peroutka and Nader fishing for second. 

God have mercy... They're all nuts. Badnarik is my nominal preference, but even he's got bats in his belfry. Peroutka's worse, Nader's even worse, and Cobb's cuckoo for cocoa puffs, if you know what I mean.

[Jake]

Peroutka, Badnarik, and Cobb both represent the far out portions of their ideologies, Nader represents the anti-establishment block of both parties and has excellent name recognition. I'd say Nader wins with around 35% of the vote with Peroutka winning 35%, Cobb winning 15%, and Badnarik winning 15%. Nader wins around 300 EVs with Peroutka winning most of the rest.

[Jake]

309 Nader
138 Peroutka
  84 Cobb
    7 Badnarik

[MaC]

309 Nader
138 Peroutka
  84 Cobb
    7 Badnarik

yeah right, did you see the results for third parties in 2004 Jake?  Nader got the largest amount, just barely more than Badnarik.  This is either good for my party in that the name of the party got elected or bad for Nader in that the celebrity with name recognition did much worse than last time.  Either way the divide goes Nader-Badnarik with Peroutka and Cobb nipping at both sides.

I'll admit this map is biased on my party



Badnarik-blue 243
Nader-red 143
Cobb-lt green 73
Peroutka-drk. green 79

[Jake]

Yeah, maybe Badnarik won 1/3 of the third party cook voters, but do you really think that the other 98.8% of voters are going to stay home and not vote?

Assuming you aren't crazy, the answer is yes. Now, will the 50% of the nation that voted for Bush based on social issues like gay marriage or abortion vote for the candidate that supports their values (Peroutka) or the one that doesn't (Badnarik). Now, on the left, I expect Nader to gain Democrats that don't hate him and Cobb to get the votes of those Democrats that hate Nader. Your map loses any credibility when it gives Ohio and Michigan to a candidate that is diametrically opposed to everything they believe in.

[MaC]

Michigan is not populist, it's liberal (but only slightly).  Ohio I can't speak for.  Still, in a four way race Badnarik would not do that badly.  He'd have appeal for the social left and economic right.  No other candidate really has this.  He looses the south, but wins the west.  Republicans who voted for Bush are more populist in the south, more libertarian in the west.  Now I only made my map because your was initially crazy.  Badnarik got more third party vote than every candidate below him put together and you have him at 7 votes?  Sounds like you're the crazy one.

[Jake]

Michigan is not populist, it's liberal (but only slightly).  Ohio I can't speak for.  Still, in a four way race Badnarik would not do that badly.  He'd have appeal for the social left and economic right.  No other candidate really has this.  He looses the south, but wins the west.  Republicans who voted for Bush are more populist in the south, more libertarian in the west.  Now I only made my map because your was initially crazy.  Badnarik got more third party vote than every candidate below him put together and you have him at 7 votes?  Sounds like you're the crazy one.

Once again so you'll understand. Getting .4% of 1.2% of the vote makes zero difference when the large majority of the remaining 98.8% do not agree at all with your ideas. The simple fact that you still refuse to grasp is that Badnarik does not represent the conservatives better than Peroutka does. As such, Peroutka would gain a large majority of Bush voters, propelling him to victory.

[Speed of Sound]

Michigan is not populist, it's liberal (but only slightly).  Ohio I can't speak for.  Still, in a four way race Badnarik would not do that badly.  He'd have appeal for the social left and economic right.  No other candidate really has this.  He looses the south, but wins the west.  Republicans who voted for Bush are more populist in the south, more libertarian in the west.  Now I only made my map because your was initially crazy.  Badnarik got more third party vote than every candidate below him put together and you have him at 7 votes?  Sounds like you're the crazy one.

Once again so you'll understand. Getting .4% of 1.2% of the vote makes zero difference when the large majority of the remaining 98.8% do not agree at all with your ideas. The simple fact that you still refuse to grasp is that Badnarik does not represent the conservatives better than Peroutka does. As such, Peroutka would gain a large majority of Bush voters, propelling him to victory.

but would it be enough of Bush's votes to stop a Nader win?

[MaC]

probably would edit my map, but Peroutka wouldn't get the not so conservative states (that still voted Republican) like Nevada and Colorado, and Badnarik would get some of the nonleftist Democratic states such as Oregon, Illinios, and Delaware.  Plus I gave each candidate their home state, Nader-DC, Cobb-Cali, Badnarik-Texas, and Peroutka Virginia (at least what I thought, perhaps it's not) and perhaps Peroutka does pick up some states such as PA which has a large following for the Constitution Party, where it vote splits the others.  Needless to say, each candidate would have their place and nobody would win less than 30 votes.  As for the 99% of voters, I do believe that they would each find a following that's more evenly split in a four way race.  There's a wide variety of what the voting populace wants, but with major parties, they're only able to get a small fraction of it, hence the vote split being more even.  BTW, Nader would NOT do that well in the south.

[Jake]

I've made my arguements, you hold to the hope that Badnarik would magically convince social conservatives to buck their beliefs. Whatever. As far as Nader, he is *perceived* as the only non-extremist in the race and would garner the normal Democrat vote plus some moderates who would be turned off by the radical others.

[nclib]

Now, on the left, I expect Nader to gain Democrats that don't hate him and Cobb to get the votes of those Democrats that hate Nader.

Is this the only way you determined which states would go for Nader and which would go for Cobb, or do Nader and Cobb differ on any major issues?

[Jake]

They are both rank and file Greens, and most likely one would drop out in real life to endorse the other if they had any chance of winning. For the purposes of this, I went with gut feeling. As I felt Nader is much more capable of relating to populists as an independent than Cobb is, I figured Cobb would carve himself a niche as the liberal's candidate. This is really an exercise involving a lot of guesswork especially since it is so unlikely and implausible.

[MaC]

Nader-nonextreme? Ha! The guys an opeboist economically, and Cobb isn't that different.  A $10 minimum wage would scare some people, as would, health care is a right.  Many of the states that are Bush states are either- not far right conservative socially as lots of people think, or there's a dichotomy that exists with a libertarian-populist divide, hence a large portion of the west.  The Nader-Cobb divide would be enough of a split to keep either of them from attaining more than 40% of the vote.  
Besides, you hold to the hope that Americans who are secretly crying out for less government would put the less government candidate in a distant las place.

If he's socially liberal and fiscally conservative, doesn't that make Badnarik a moderate by the way?

[MasterJedi]

I'll predict a Badnarik victory. But there still we be people who vote for Nader just because (lots of people like that at my school -_-)

[MaC]

I'll predict a Badnarik victory. But there still we be people who vote for Nader just because (lots of people like that at my school -_-)

urgh, high school and college students tend to be overwhelmingly liberal