General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFor the Nader Haters: a question. If you blame Gore's alleged 500 vote loss in 2000 on Nader
then why don't you also blame it on Harry Browne, the Libertarian Party candidate who got 16,415 votes in Florida?
Or
John Hagelin, the Natural Law Party candidate who got 2,281 votes in Florida?
Or
Monica Moorehead, the World Workers Party candidate who got 1,804 votes in Florida?
Or
Howard Phillips, the Constitution Party candidate who got 1,371 votes in Florida?
Or
David McReynolds, the Socialist Party candidate who got 622 votes in Florida?
Or
James Harris, the Soc. Workers Party candidate who got 562 votes in Florida?
Why not just blame them all? Why focus on Nader? WTF? If you believe one should vote for either the Democrat or the Republican ONLY, why aren't THEY culpable? Had ANY ONE of them opted to take their names off the ballot or not run at all... BOOM. Al Gore is President of the United States.
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?year=2000&fips=12&f=0&off=0&elect=0&minper=0
LoZoccolo
(29,393 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)What a novel concept!
Are you a fantasy writer by chance?
He already got a pie to the face, what more do you want? I am curious too, would people be happy if Nader stood at a podium and said, 'I cost Al Gore the race in 2000'? Would that make you happy?
Maybe we should pee on his rug.
mac56
(17,574 posts)Damn right it would.
Acceptance is the first step.
Rex
(65,616 posts)A daily pie to the face?
mac56
(17,574 posts)was full of shite when he said "there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans."
That's a good place to start.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)You know, the ones whose votes Gore went after while shunning the left.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)all Emmanuel Goldstein's fault. TWO MINUTE HATE. TWO MINUTE HATE. USA! USA!
Democrats need to clean their own damn house before they blame the mess on another.
Rex
(65,616 posts)As can be seen on display in this thread.
Orangepeel
(13,933 posts)Devil_Fish
(1,664 posts)Aparently Chad was a pregnant girl with dimples who was only running in Florida. Now there is a person who definantly should not have been running.
Hawkowl
(5,213 posts)They unconstitutionally stopped the counting of the votes. Scalia, et al should be impeached and imprisoned.
Webster Green
(13,905 posts)Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)I know that everyone likes to believe that if the recall had gone on without interruption then Gore would have won. That isn't true. The way the Gore team asked for the ballots to be counted would have still handed him a loss.
Yes, there are other ways to count the ballots which give Gore the win. Irrelevant. The Supreme Court stopped one specific recount. That recount would have gone in Bush's favor anyways. The other ways to have conducted the recount don't matter unless you want to start blaming things on the Gore team and the fact that they made a mistake with the partial recount. If so then the blame lays there and not with The Court or with Nader.
dpibel
(2,838 posts)The Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision stopped a statewide recount of undervotes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered. Gore's original four-county recount contest was over, and was not at issue.
Since Gore won using any recount method other than the original four-county one he initially requested, the Supreme Court, not Ralph Nader, decided the 2000 presidential election.
Lasher
(27,623 posts)Others share a portion of the blame but all else pales into insignificance when compared to this shameful coup by the rightwing partisan Supreme Court.
SharonAnn
(13,778 posts)They targeted Democratic leaning areas and "purged" many voters, the large majority of whom were legitimate voters.
But since they weren't allowed to cast their votes, their attempt to vote didn't count.
libodem
(19,288 posts)And I'm never getting over it.
demosincebirth
(12,541 posts)for congress or the senate years ago. He probably thought it would take too much work.
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)It's just about mindless hate, and nothing else.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)The single biggest reason Gore "lost" in 2000?
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Not sure why this isn't mentioned more often.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)mzmolly
(51,003 posts)safe states?
I respect many of Mr. Nader's accomplishments, but I can understand why some have bitter feelings about 2000.
On the same note, should we never critique political opponents of Democrats on a Democratic website?
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)they read them from while standing at the podium.
Gore was one of the few votes I held my nose for. Kerry was another. In retrospect I almost know how Rs felt being forced to vote for Dole and McCain.
mzmolly
(51,003 posts)or not?
This is a discussion board that sprung up out of support for Al Gore in 2000. It's not reasonable to suggest that Mr. Nader should not have critics here, of all places.
DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)But none of them had even half the power nader did to whip the masses up./
Zoeisright
(8,339 posts)Nader took the most votes away from Gore. Why is that so hard for you Nader worshipers to understand?
NeoGreen
(4,031 posts).. "took" votes from Gore?
Did he sneak into the election office and change the tally?
Did Gore "own" the votes cast for Nader?
Sorry, those votes cast for Nader did not belong to Gore. Gore obviously did not earm them else they would have been cast for him.
Those who wish to take the easy/simple path and blame Nader for Gore's loss would be better served asking why so many registered members of the democratic party voted for a republican.
More Democratic Party members voted for Bush than voted for Nader.
The critique should be focused on those Blues who turned Red instead on those who turned Green.
Greens and Dems could be allies, if it wasn't for all the stupid hate focused in the wrong direction.
AndyTiedye
(23,500 posts)Nader was running as a spoiler. There is no getting around that fact.
In every swing state that was a "must-win" for Gore, there was Nader attacking him.
Nader didn't spend nearly as much energy attacking Bush as he did Gore.
If Nader was just trying to get over 5%, as he claimed, he would have spent more time
campaigning in the big blue states like New York and California where there would have
been more sympathetic voters. Instead, he only showed up in those states to raise money,
then spent it in the small swing states, attacking Gore.
Nader even admitted to running a spoiler campaign at the outset, though that has not been widely reported.
RFKHumphreyObama
(15,164 posts)I've read that he got into a huff when President Clinton didn't give him a job in Washington when the Clinton-Gore Administration came to power and it all went downhill from there
He was not running because he had the best interests of the nation at heart. He ignored advice from progressives like Michael Moore and Molly Ivins to focus on winning support in the states where Gore was safe and to advise his followers to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate in the crucial swing states so that, in advancing the progressive cause, he didn't pursue a strategy that would result in the election of a Republican President. Nader instead chose to target Vice President Gore in the crucial swing states (Oregon, Florida, Wisconsin) where the outcome would have directly influenced the results of the presidential election.
Furthermore he ran a vile, intellectually dishonest campaign duping voters into believing that there was no difference between Bush and Gore. Because, you know, President Gore would have led us into Iraq, withdrawn from the ABM treaty and the Kyoto protocol, appointed extreme right wing justices to the courts, ignored national securing warnings ahead of 9/11, established Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib and goodness knows what else. Nader knew that the memo that there was no difference between Bush and Gore but yet chose to run a campaign to try and deceive people into indirectly helping the election of a right wing President.
He also allowed the Republicans to use him. Jeb Bush solicited Nader surrogates to come down to Florida and give talks to university students in the hope of siphoning votes away from Gore in the knowledge that it would help Bush. And Ralphie was a-OK with being Jebbie's little toy and coming down and helping out the Bush family dynasty
And then he went on to try and help throw the election to Bush again in 2004 despite even his former vice presidential running mate (not to mention most of his supporters) urging him to desist for the good of the wider Democratic cause. And then he spent 2008 making racist comments about President Obama and is now talking about teaming up with Ron Paul.
Some progressive hero
ellisonz
(27,711 posts)left is right
(1,665 posts)and if he knew doesnt that make him an agent of the RW
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)Nader took far more votes than all the others combined. We blame the one that did the most harm.
Old and In the Way
(37,540 posts)Check New Hampshire's results. Nader's votes in NH go to Gore and Florida doesn't matter.
the other one
(1,499 posts)If Teddy hadn't sought the nomination in 1980 then Jimmy Carter would have had a much better chance to win. Carter would not have had to run to the left to win the nomination, but rather could have held the middle ground and saved his powder for the general election.
So if we are blaming Nader for Florida we should blame Teddy for Reagan.
piedmont
(3,462 posts)Constitutional Party? Natural Law Party? Libertarian??? I'd bet not even 1% of those votes came from democrats/liberals/progressives. If they didn't run Gore would have lost by a larger margin because were conservative voters.
Nader duped 97 THOUSAND progressives into throwing their vote away in protest.
pokerfan
(27,677 posts)More than twice as many as the rest of the field combined?
NNN0LHI
(67,190 posts)But I do consider the people who voted for him to be big assholes.
There, hows that?
Don
Robb
(39,665 posts)dionysus
(26,467 posts)his wizened, dumb ass... like clockwork.. every.. single.. time...
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)Just 'cause there are other bad people doesn't make it okay for Nader to be bad.
BTW, Libertarians take votes from Republicans. Not Democrats.
AND....it's not just the votes that Nader took. It was his ego. It got the better of him. He changed from someone who was trying to help people and the country to someone who was trying to hurt the people and the country, just so long as he would remain relevant. Thus became his irrelevancy. He mistakenly believed his own P.R.
scheming daemons
(25,487 posts)Romulox
(25,960 posts)He continues to push outsourcing to this day, btw. So maybe Al Gore is responsible for a LOT of Al Gore's failures?
dionysus
(26,467 posts)have fun defending an incorrigible bastard...
mistertrickster
(7,062 posts)According to Wiki: "the Republican Leadership Council ran pro-Nader ads in a few states in an effort to split the liberal vote."
Which basically worked. By suppressing votes and gaming the system, Nader shaved enough Gore votes in Florida for the RePukes to steal it.
Ralph Nader's ginormous ego led directly to Bush and the Iraq War.
WI_DEM
(33,497 posts)even though all they do every day is post negative stuff on Obama, but it's okay to call those who believe that Ralph Nader had a part in helping GW Bush defeat Al Gore (no difference between them according to Nader) then they are 'haters.' Oh well.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"For the Nader Haters: a question. If you blame Gore's alleged 500 vote loss in 2000 on Nader"
...tactics that are despicable. In fact, look at all the dumb shit he has been promoting this election cycle, Americans Elect(http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002364725) and Michael Bloomberg (http://www.politickerny.com/2011/10/11/ralph-nader-wants-mike-bloomberg-to-run-for-president/).
There are other reasons
In a radio interview, Ralph Nader asks whether Barack Obama will be "Uncle Sam ... or Uncle Tom," and then defends the comment on Fox News.
http://www.salon.com/2008/11/05/nader_9/
Fuck Nader!
AtomicKitten
(46,585 posts)He promised not to run in contested states, and did it anyway.
He took $$$ from the GOP.
brooklynite
(94,667 posts)...for running a mediocre campaign and losing his own home State and several States won by Clinton, any one of which would have made Florida irrelevant.
Uncle Joe
(58,386 posts)Had Clinton either told the truth or kept his mouth shut, Gore would've been far better off.
As it was Clinton made the corporate media's job of transferring the sins of the President (lack of integrity) to the Vice President all the easier.
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman" instantly morphed into "Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet" this propaganda boom for the corporate media and Republicans damaged Gore in mulitple ways whether it be in not actually giving the man rightful credit for his legislative work in opening the Internet to the people or in believing his environmental message re: global warming.
CNN held a poll as to the most revolutionary creation of the 20th century and the Internet won hands down but they trashed its' primary political champion.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_gore
"Gore was one of the Atari Democrats who were given this name due to their "passion for technological issues, from biomedical research and genetic engineering to the environmental impact of the "greenhouse effect." On March 19, 1979 he became the first member of Congress to appear on C-SPAN. During this time, Gore co-chaired the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future with Newt Gingrich. In addition, he has been described as having been a "genuine nerd, with a geek reputation running back to his days as a futurist Atari Democrat in the House. Before computers were comprehensible, let alone sexy, the poker-faced Gore struggled to explain artificial intelligence and fiber-optic networks to sleepy colleagues." Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn noted that, "as far back as the 1970s, Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early stages of its deployment, Congressman Gore provided intellectual leadership by helping create the vision of the potential benefits of high speed computing and communication."
Gore introduced the Supercomputer Network Study Act of 1986. He also sponsored hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural disasters and other crises."
As a Senator, Gore began to craft the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 (commonly referred to as "The Gore Bill" after hearing the 1988 report Toward a National Research Network submitted to Congress by a group chaired by UCLA professor of computer science, Leonard Kleinrock, one of the central creators of the ARPANET (the ARPANET, first deployed by Kleinrock and others in 1969, is the predecessor of the Internet). The bill was passed on December 9, 1991 and led to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) which Gore referred to as the "information superhighway."
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The corporate media as an institution demonized Gore with a near two year war of slander and libel while enabling a corrupt, incompetent Bush to power, they did it precisely because Gore did champion opening the Internet.
The corporate media came to view the First Amendment enhancing, democracy empowering Internet as a direct threat to their top down, one way, authoritarian business model of telling the American People what reality was/is.
If the corporate media as an institution decides to trash or demonize any candidate or person, getting an undistorted message out becomes near impossible.
Gore did a great job despite of the corporate media's inherent vendetta against him.
brooklynite
(94,667 posts)...if Gore had kept his wagon hitched to Clinton's and not tried to distance himself from the moral issues, he probably would have done better.
Uncle Joe
(58,386 posts)immediately after the Senate didn't convict Clinton by a narrow margin.
That transferred lack of integrity propaganda worked most effectively in the moderate to conservative reddish states where the margin of error was not so great as in the deep blue states.
Furthermore, Gore didn't distance him self from Clinton it was the other way around.
During the height of the impeachment saga just as the Senate would decide whether to convict or not, Clinton had Gore and Hillary stand on the White House Lawn by his side and defend him.
Clinton paid Gore back for his loyalty by taking an inordinate amount of time during the 2000 Convention just walking down a hall way to the podium so the cameras and people could gaze at his "splendor," this wasteful arrogance didn't help Gore one bit at a convention that was supposed to be about Al, not Bill.
How much would Gore have been aided had Clinton used his vaunted oratory skills promoting Gore at the podium instead of wasting precious, primetime, airtime walking down a hallway in a masturbatory exercise?
bvar22
(39,909 posts)and if you had been paying attention to the DU,
you would KNOW that.
Nader was this powerful, Big Bully Superman
cleverly disguised as a mild mannered Consumer Advocate,
who beat up Al Gore and single handedly Knocked the WHEELS off the entire Democratic Party,
causing the Democratic Party to lose the election in 2000,
and ruined America for us ALL!!!!!
It was ALL his fault.
There was nothing The Democratic Party could do.
It was horrible.
If you are stupid:
*you can believe all those lies about the Clinton Administration moving to the Right
and leaving a BIG Vacuum on the Pro-LABOR, Pro-Working Class Left,
that a wimpy Consumer Activist stepped into,
*you can believe that Nader simply picked up the votes that the Centrist Gore campaign threw away,
*you can believe Al Gore who stated on Jon Stewart's Daily Show that it wasn't Nader's fault,
that it was a miscalculation on the part of the Democratic Campaign Strategists,
*you can believe that if it was not Nader, it would have been someone else,
You can believe all those LIES if you want to,
but I know the Truth!
Nader was an evil SUPERMAN
and it was ALL his fault!!!
Whenever Nader opens his mouth, I cover my ears and scream "lalalalalalala",
because he is soooo powerful that if I even listen to his ideas
he will ruin my brain by causing me to ask questions.
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KamaAina
(78,249 posts)for one.
RZM
(8,556 posts)Arkana
(24,347 posts)that "HERP A DERP THERE'S NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS! HERP A DERP DERP!!"
dionysus
(26,467 posts)frylock
(34,825 posts)yeh, there's a world of difference.
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)it's a little bit difficult to pretend there was a real difference.
just1voice
(1,362 posts)Kerry won in 04 as well. Those other candidates may have received that many votes but the Bush and Gore votes were all tampered with.
rudycantfail
(300 posts)He completely sucked as a candidate in 2000.