Here we go again with another go away spoiler rant. Since you use Ralph Nader as your prime example, lets look at the data rather than make conclusions based solely on outcome. If you examine the polling data in Florida you will find that Gore was the problem, not Nader.

It's very easy to look at Nader's 95,000 votes in that state and say if he didn't run, Al Gore would have received the votes he needed to win. This makes an easy pitch for spoiler theorists like yourself. We all know campaigns don't focus on winning every vote. Instead they focus in on key groups of voters to push the polls in their favor.

Let's start with two constituent groups that the democrats usually win in Florida:

1. Seniors. Bush got 67,000 more senior votes than Gore did, winning this group by a 51-47 percent margin. Had Gore simply broke even with this constituency, he would have won the election.

2. White Women. Here again we have a group that the democrats usually win. Gore lost this key group by 65,000 votes, losing it to Bush by a 53 - 44 percent margin. Simply getting 50 percent of this vote would have made Gore the winner in Florida.

It get even worse for Gore. Of the 95,000 votes Nader received, 24,000 were democrats. Yet 308,000 democrats decided not to vote for Nader or Gore, they voted for Bush! Winning just one percent of these votes and the Nader votes wouldn't have mattered.

Let's look at another key race for democrats in another state. In Seattle Washington there was a close race for the US Senate seat between the democratic nominee Maria Cantwell and the incumbent Republican, Slade Gorton. Cantwell won the election by only 2,300 votes. Cantwell was "well aware" that the 103,000 Green Party voters in Washington had an impact on her election, as stated by Senator Harry Reid when he met with Ralph Nader just a few weeks after the election. This victory allowed the Democrats to split the Senate fifty-fifty with the Republicans and set the stage for Jim Jeffords's switch to independent. This resulted in a takeover of the Senate by the Democrats.

Ralph Nader doesn't get hurt by the false claims of his spoiler status. He will continue to do what he had done for decades. The people effected are the droves of new voters that for once found a reason to go to the polls during the 2000 election to vote for him. To tell these people that their vote didn't count and resulted in Bush winning is not only false but also undemocratic. It is no wonder why we have millions of people sitting home on election days in this country.

After 2000, the Democratic party was faced with two options.

1) Recognize that their continuing crawl to the center was alienating the left-wing of the party, causing them to vote for someone farther to the left than the party candidate, who subsequently lost the election. Further recognize that in orer to win elections, they would need to regain the trust and support of that left wing. Reincorporate some of the left's ideas into the party platform and work to nominate candidates that represented those ideas well.

2) Blame Nader.

Which did they choose?

To be fair, you can rarely go wrong blaming Nader whatever the topic of the moment happens to be.

Dave

True, Dave! What about the Corvair?

I also like the ending of Jerry Flint's article The Trouble with Hybrids:

"Once, long ago when we were both young, I asked Ralph Nader if he thought everyone should be allowed to get into a car and go anywhere, anytime. He answered honestly, and I never forgot what he said: 'I don't know.'

Possibly the people who want electric cars or hybrids don't like the idea that we can just go anywhere, anytime. If they can't take our cars away from us, they want to make cars that can't go anywhere, anytime. They want to control our lives that way..."

DrPat, there's nothing wrong with hybrids. They can go anywhere a regular car can go and do it a bit more efficiently. The market ought to be driving their production given the high price of gas, and that does seem to be the case with the more reasonably priced ones like the Prius. Once people become more familiar with them I'm sure they'll come to dominate the market through natural forces. And if you like SUVs, the Mercury Mountaineer hybrid is really a lovely mid-size SUV at a not outrageous price.

Dave

WOOT!