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Originally Posted by Ninkobei
Well Ross Perot managed a decent amount of the total votes 19% of the popular vote. So Surely he took votes from one of the candidates.
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The idea that Perot *took* votes from one of this candidate presumes that the candidate (let's say Bush) had some claim on those votes in the first place. Bush didn't have any claim to those votes-- they weren't Bush's votes to begin with. How does Perot take votes from Bush that Bush doesn't have?
so...I guess you could say that had Perot not ran at all, some (most or all) of those votes might have gone to Bush. Fair enough, but that is kind of a useless construction. Had neither Bush nor Perot ran, some of their votes would have gone to Clinton. So what?
There was a common argument regarding Nader in Florida in 2000 -- Nader's votes in Florida cost Gore the election because had those Nader voters voted for Gore, Gore wins Florida and the electoral college....
...nonsense, I say. Alot of those Nader votes were votes against Gore and the Democrats -- the presumption that Gore would have received those votes and that it would have pushed him over the top was most unwarranted.
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Originally Posted by Ninkobei
What I'm asking is, what are the chances of the GOP removing Ron Paul from their party and having him run Independently?
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something close to 100%....
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Originally Posted by Ninkobei
]I certainly doubt he would receive 20% of the popular vote, but even 10% could influence a tight election.
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i'd say 3% is pretty optimistic, but let's say Paul pulls 3%....
A significant portion of that 3% may be voting for Paul rather than some other third party candidate, or rather than not voting at all. So far starters, one cannot begin to presume that votes which went to an Independent like Paul might have thrown the election one way or the other had Paul not run in the first place.
Even in the case where a fellow that's voted Republican in the last several election votes for Paul, you can't assume that this guy would have voted Republican in the absence of Paul. Like I said earlier, dis-affected voters are quite plausibly voting against major party candidates, as such a *republican* voting for Paul will quite plausibly be someone voting to show his disapproval of the Republican party. You just can't assume that the independent candidate is taking a vote from anyone else.
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Originally Posted by Ninkobei
And, if he ran Independently, how similar would his campaign platform be to someone like Obama?
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Very dissimilar.
but it's all moot. Hillary will win and by a landslide.
cheers