Dems Should Get Over Nader
This is one of those rare occasions that I agree with this blogger.
So, really, the assertion that Nadar lost the 2000 election for dems is a red herring and shame on both Hillary and Barack for asserting as much.
Why so much focus on a Nadar run, when the wing-nuttier third party candidates have been more divisive than Nadar in the past?
The election was really close in 2000, so yes if Nader had not run, Gore would have won Florida. But Nader still has every right to be in this race, just like anybody else.
Rather than pressuring people not to run, maybe the other less principled, corporate liberal candidates should just stick to convincing people to vote for them.
Southern Beale also is making sense.
Will this hurt the Democratic nominee? Nah. Anyone voting for Ralph Nader these days isn’t going to vote for HIllary Clinton or Barack Obama anyway, no matter what they tell you.
The only real problem I have with Nader’s candidacy is that the media gives it a lot more attention than it deserves. The guy pulls numbers Ron Paul would be ashamed of, so why all the hype?
(Because of 2000, of course, where he was a contributing factor in deciding the election, but not the contributing factor. If elderly South Florida Jews could figure out a butterfly ballot, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, either…)
Again, though, my suggestion for preventing a repeat of 2000 is to do away with plurality victories. In any state where no candidate gets a true majority of the votes, have a run-off a week later to determine who won that state. Or better yet, do IRV.
and if Gore won his home state, we wouldn’t…..