No doubt there were failures on the part of the Democratic Party in 2000-- but when, in the history of democracy going back to Pericles' time,  did anyone ever run a perfect campaign?  Whether you realize it or not, that's what's being demanded here.  

Your comment ignores that there is a certain amount of friction and inefficiency in politics like anything else.   Yes, if the Democrats had run a perfect campaign, Nader's little foray into the non-swing states, contrary to his commitment to those who funded him, would not have mattered.  But such perfection cannot exist except in the purely hypothetical world of abstractions.  

There are no perfect campaigns.   Only messy ones carried out under great pressure and stress with never enough time and resources or people.   Even the best elections are more like old west cattle drives than some immaculate process where every single voter is properly approached and recruited by well trained and ready canvassers.  A few cows always got lost on the trail.  

But it didn't matter, because the other side faced the same difficulty in running a perfect campaign.   In the end the inability of either side, as typical human institutions, to run a perfect campaign balanced each other out.  Nader broke the offsetting balances between the two parties that had hitherto existed.

In the imperfect world we actually live in, Nader's 97,000 votes changed the history of the world-- and entirely for the worst.  

Pre-election polls erroneously showed Bush comfortably ahead in NH. Thousands of progressives voted Nader--his vote in NH ended up being greater than the margin between Bush and Gore.

NH's 4 electoral votes would have given Gore the presidency.

That's without considering the fact that Nader made Gore spend time, money and energy in states that should have been "safe" for him (OR, WA, MN, WI, all of which Gore won narrowly in the end).

Fuck Nader. He did a lot of good in his life, but his antics in 2000 cost us a lot.

I second that.

Damn. You beat me to it.

No.

uhm, no here as well.  F--- him.

agree

is music to Karl Rove's ears.

He loves to see the Democrats write off and put out to pasture a major block of voters.

I only ask you this:

Do you think that calling Naderites names will bring them to ever vote for the Democrats?

I have to part ways with you on this one Paul.  I voted for Nader in 2000, and it was clearly the best vote I ever cast.  I don't see Nader as a narcissus any more than anyone else in public life.

Soft, convenient and so so disposable.

Nader has never been an environmentalist, did not actually run on Green principles, yet like an abused spouse certain progressives keep coming back, insisting that "He is a good provider".

Nader is anti-corporatist. Nader is pro-Nader. Which pretty much sums him up.

Do Greens like the fact that they no longer have a automatic national ballot position? Are they just thrilled that we are bogged down in Iraq? Do they think that if the positions were reversed President Gore would have sent us to war and defeated candidate Bush would have been nominated for an Oscar and a Nobel all in the same year? Me neither and you can thank Ralph for all of that.

People who backed Nader need to give themselves a quick kick in the ass and some weeks at a Reality Boot Camp. Sorry to be so harsh but at this point a committed Naderite is only one level up from a LaRouchite.

(And BTW the fact that certain Southern Democrats are not so closet right wing racists who vote Republican in national elections is not exactly a secret, and certainly no excuse for Floridian Naderites. The "I cast a vote for conscience, blame Bubba over the County line for Bush" thing doesn't cut it.)

Paul - Well said.  My biggest problem with Nader in 2000 wasn't that he ran.  That was his right.  I lived in Portland, OR at the time and he ran hard in OR.  It was the type of campaign he ran with the message that there was no difference b/w the candidates b/c both parties were financed with large donations.  I agree that campaign finance is a huge problem but that doesn't mean there weren't huge differences b/w Gore and Bush.  

Does anyone really think that if Gore had been President the last 6 years we would have 130,000+ troops in Iraq, had these absurd tax cuts or a Medicare Rx benefit that helps pharmaceutical companies.  I am convinced that Gore would have used 9/11 as an opportunity to start an energy independence movement to help wean us off foreign oil.  Gore wasn't perfect and deserves a lot of blame for the poor campaign he ran in 2000.

Nader's problem isn't that he hasn't done good things.  He did a ton over the years.  His problem is he is an egomaniac who is unwilling to admit he ran a dishonest campaign in 2000 by saying Bush/Gore were the same.  Time has proven that argument to be totally false.  I really wish Nader would go away - his time has past.

You must remember that we live in a democracy and Nader was legally on the ballot. That means every American has a choice of who to vote for. Just because Gore ran a lackluster campaign how can you pin the blame on Nader? What the Democratic Party should be more concerned about is why someone voted for Nader over Gore. Nader must be doing something right.  

Why don't you blame Bush and the people and those who voted for him, which includes hundreds of thousands of registered Democrats?  Blaming Nader doesn't make a lick of sense.

Iraq war is to be blamed on teh Democrats who lost seats in teh Senate and Congress . Iraq war is to be blamed on the Democrats who went along with Bush's rhetoric. Iraq war is to be blamed on the triangulating Democrats for taking a guy like Lieberman who played dead during his debate with Cheney.

The Gore campaign knew well in advance that Nader was going to attract a lot of third party voters. Even if they thought Nader was unreasonable, they still had the option of courting voters.

Blame Iraq on the Democraataic Party machine that played dead in Florida.

Please, no one is ENTITLED to a vote from a person just because they don't like Bush. I think the DEmocratic Party for too long as played "hey you haate the REpubs, so where else are you going to go" politics. And this is a fact because more than once , I have seen Democratic Party consultants from the CLinton era outright express this. In fact, these were pretty much Laura Swarz's words on one of the news shows.

THe idea of a third party vote is simple. It is suppossed to be even more powerful than a NO-VOTE but is no more deadly to a candidate of the major two parties. WHy aren't the DEmocratic Party guys whining about the lower Dem base turnout? Why just attack those who decided to show up and vote Nader? Don't you think there were plenty who decided to just stay home because neither campaign appealed to them? It is this lack of lessons learned which gave us Kerry in 2004 and in danger of giving us Clinton in 2008.

But some of the grassrooots got better because of 2000. I doubt the DEmocratic Party would have this new movement from within with the Deans, a new Gore who doesnt give a damn, Clark, Webh, Tester without the exposure to everyone concerned how bad the party has become. We just accelerated the decay that was going to slowly happen. Who knows. You might have had Lieberman running for 2008 as President. He might have been a distraction for 8 years with his neocon nagging and possibly sabotaging the Dem agenda because no one is listening to him enough.

Oh, and blame those who were not republicans who decided to vote for Bush in 2004 and 2000. Blame the democrats for actually losing ground in the popular vote from 2000 to 2004 showing that all they learned from 2000 was how to whine about Nader.

Quoting (ashamed to admit) JC Superstar--

And all the good you've done, will soon be swept away, you've begun to matter more
than the things you say...

Exactly, Nader sold a direct message that both parties got so bad it didnt matter. Now if you didn't agree, fine. Naderites knew there was a risk that the dems could get beaten. Maybe some of them didn't know how much. But the main thing Gore people didn't seem to realize was they did not care enough about these third party voters during the initial part of the campaign. Only once they knew they lost Florida by a measly few votes(or won, based on what you think happened in FL), they started caring about those third party voters. So blame the Gore campaign and the old time consultants for even making a very winnable  election this close. If the DEms spent a fraction of the effort to catering a message well in advance of the primaries to court Naderites, (and yes, why not. worse ass kissing and pandering have been done in politics), then maybe some of those voters feel wanted and vote Gore's way.

Democrats should be worried about WINNING elections compared to NOT LOSING elections. When people here whine about the measly few third party voters in 2000 which in most elections would be an insignificant number, then you miss the point.

Protest votes are good. It is healthy to keep the two major parties in check. I maintain this in every election. I was a big supporter of Perot not because I loved the guy. BUt here was a guy that told the parties that you can't automatically win these votes.

Nader did not take part in the DEm primaries. So the sore loser principle should not apply to him. FWIW, my ideology doesn't match Naders all the way. I just think the system needs a third party guy every election cycle to keep people honest. It is the job of the two parties to convince voters why.

I think this is wrong. What someone is responsible for is: their choices and actions, with their foreseeable consequences.

Someone who voted for Bush is responsible for voting for Bush. Someone who voted for Nader is responsible for voting for Nader. Bush himself is responsible for such things as choosing Cheney as his VP, going to war with Iraq, etc.

But Ralph Nader is absolutely responsible for his decision to run, along with such other decisions as: the decision to say that both candidates were the same, not to stick to uncontested seats, etc.

These decisions did not lead to Bush being elected all by themselves. But it was absolutely predictable that they would help. And to any of us who genuinely care about progressive causes, that's pretty hard to forgive -- all the more so because it's hard to see a single good reason why he made the choices he did.

It's possible for me to understand someone who was, oh, 20 in 2000 failing to understand just how false it was that Bush and Gore were the same. It would have taken a certain lack of seriousness, but it's comprehensible. It's not the least comprehensible that Ralph Nader, of all people, could have believed this in 2000. He was not a child. He was not inexperienced. He doesn't get to be excused on the grounds that he hadn't been around enough to know better.

He did a horrible thing, for which we are all still paying. And a lot of other people -- 600,000 Iraqis and 3,000 Americans, for starters -- have paid a much higher price than he ever will.

So: no.

Most of the Green Party didn't try to deter him.  Cobb's people took over the convention, and they nominated him instead.

Nader only indirectly led to Bush winning. He did not cause the senate and congress debacles for the DEmocrats until their 2006 successes. He was actually one of the few to all teh neocons on their bullshit while the necons were controlling both parties in terms of the rhetoric that led to the Iraq war. Just imagine a Gore presidency where Lieberman who would, incessantly, be a distraction in case Gore didnt go along with the war.

He gave you Bush, ,maybe. But he certainly did not give you this war. What prevented your precious Dem party from winning the senate or congress or expressing more opposition to the war.

"What is really means is that both parties have failed the pass/fail test and who the hell cares if one is going to be worse than others.... If you do not have this OFFSETTING effect on the process, then you will be ignored by politicians forever because there is no incentive to even listen, let alone pander, to one part of the party."

People always wonder why minorities riot and destroy their own neighborhoods. The point I was trying to make about voting 3rd party even risking a worse Presidency is similar to minorities rioting even though the riots harm their own areas in the short term. It is a fatalistic shout out that no one cares, so why teh fuck should we give a damn. Our lives cannot get any worse, so fuck it. Now the desperation for a third party voter is not quite as bad as that. But a 3rd party vote by some is like a metaphorical riot. This does not attempt to generalize every single Nader voter , some who were just voting on the cult of Nader. As in every segment, I am sure there were some dumbasses who voted for reasons unclear to them other than a cult of personality.

Pravin, a study of Nader voters concluded that if he was not on the ballot most people would have stayed home but enough would have voted for Gore to hand him the election by 27,000 votes.  Nader had a right to be on the ballot but that right had its consequences in Iraq, in New Orleans, on the environment and in Supreme Court votes for the next thirty years.

If the votes had been counted honestly, of course, it would have made no difference but it made a difference and continues to make a difference.  

We ask that Hillary Clinton essentially apologize for voting for this war.  Her vote in the Senate made no difference.  Nader's votes, on the other hand, made the difference in both Florida and New hampshire (either of which would have prevented this war).  I've voted for third parties before (the vote never mattered).  I won't do that again.

Vote Green for mayor or Governor when it makes sense but not for either President, the House, or the Senate.  

You should have been going after the Laura Swarzes , liebermans and the Lanny Davises of the party after 2000, not the Nader types.

I am CONVINCED the party as it stands now would not be this progressive without the 2000 loss. Its too bad the party did not learn its lesson in 2004.

Pravin, I completely agree.  Nader's "success" in attracting votes in 2000 has little to do with anything Ralph brought to the table as a candidate and far more to do with the moribund state of the Democratic Party and it's rightward drift during the 1990s.  I think the Democratic Party should be strong and competent enough to win national elections even if there are 10 fringe lefty candidates in the general election field.  Now I voted for Gore in 2000, but it wasn't an enthusiastic vote--it was a vote against Bush, really.  The party's standard bearer should be a strong enough candidate to appeal to both base voters like myself and the middle.  The fact that Gore struggled with this is simply an indication of the Party's weakness and the progressive movement's electoral weakness and lack of clout within the party in 2000.

The only time third party candidates have impacted elections in the past 25 years is when one of the two major parties fails to adequately appeal to the coalition of voters who typically support them.  And I don't mean they only failed to appeal to their coalition during the campaign--they also failed to govern in a way that appealed to their coalitions, and who's going to believe the campaign rhetoric when your actions don't support it?

We saw it in 1992 (when Perot pulled away Republicans down on Bush Sr.'s tax increase), in 2000 (when Nader pulled away the disaffected parts of the Democratic base after 8 years of Clinton triangulation and a lackluster Gore campaign) and even in 2006 to some extent, where Libertarian candidates pulled in vote totals in excess of the Dem's margin of victory in MO-Sen and MT-Sen after the GOP abandoned Libertarians on Terri Schiavo, illegal wiretapping, etc.  

It took W' s disastrous presidency to remind the Democratic Party what it stands for and who it represents, which is really a shame.  Hopefully, we won't forget the lesson any time soon.

EXACTLY. You are exactly the type of person who comprised some of the Nader voters and people here seem to assumne every Nader voter was hypnotized by Nader and voted like sheep. The Third party movement takes ALL types of people. Not just a bunch of rigidly ideological folk.

And voters ignored Nader in 2004. If it was just idealogical spite, why wouldn't these voters vote for Nader in 2004? Which makes my point that there were people who should be given credit for knowing what they vote was in 2000. When some people express regret, it is partly becasue they couldnt see Gore campaign being so impotent that they wouldnt fight hard enough for recount, and they couldn't forsee how bad the Dems would serve as an opposition party.