It makes me nervous when Dems focus on blaming Nader

[baffie]

I continue to believe that it was not Nader who lost us the 2000 election, it was the CHEATING. And if let Nader distract us, we'll lose to Republican cheating again.

[tomorrowsashes]

1. It's just a weak strategy by a failing party

I've tried to be somewhat civil up to now, but when I saw Ralph Nader as the top conservative idiot, that did it. The Democratic party is dying. They don't have any new ideas, and are suffering because of it. So, what do they do? Blame somebody else of course. I've had it with the Democratic party. Up until a few minutes ago, I had a shred of hope, but now, I would like to just put out a nice big FUCK YOU. I almost hope that the democrats lose, as that would bring the party one step closer to it's death. Anybody can run who wants. To say otherwise is just whining. Nobody is entitled to votes, they must earn them.

[MadHound]

2. Groupthink in any form makes me nervous

And we are seeing loads of that around here lately.

And you are correct, Nader didn't cost Gore the election in FL, hell, even Al From admits that: The assertion that Nader's marginal vote hurt Gore is not borne out by polling data. When exit pollers asked how they would have voted in a two-way race, Bush actually won by a point. That was better than he did with Nader in the race.", from Blue Print magazine, the house organ of the DLC, <http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?cp=1&kaid=127&subid=179&contentid=2919>.

Then there is the matter of voter scrubbing, which Gore knew about before the Selection(see Greg Palast's book "The Best Democracy That Money Can Buy") and the Supreme Court Selection, and Gee, it doesn't look like Nader didn't spoil a thing.

But some folks would rather scapegoat an ally than look at the real need for reform in their own party:eyes:

[candy331]

3. Didn't Pat Buchanan and and Harry Browne both run

Buchanan as Reform party candidate and Browne as Libertarian? I think it was something like 800,000 votes between the two. Did these votes not come from Bush? If so couldn't the repubs say that if these two had not run these votes would have gone to Bush so he would have won. Just asking?

[Deja Q]

4. It was several issues, though I agree...

The hyping out of Nader as being the one sole issue in Selection 2000 just makes everyone on DU look like a gaggle of idiots. :-(

Cheating, a lackluster campaign by Gore, Clinton and Monica sitting in the White House tree..., the supreme court's sheer and equally crass and COWARDLY partisanship, jeb and kathy, the repukes disrupting the recounting process (of which they should be jailed for disrupting legal proceedings, ahem...)... All of that happened in 2000 as well. But how many posts remind us of these things, or others? Maybe 1 or 2, but they get drowned in the cesspool of "NADER DID IT!" "NADER IS THE ONLY CAUSE!" "NADER THIS!" "NADER THAT!" "NADER HAS A SMALL PENIS!" "NADER EVERYTHING!" "NADER NADER NADER!"

Yes, we get it folks, Nader did contribute to the failure of election 2000. But get your heads out of the sand, there was far more to it then and there's a lot more going on now that we really DO need to concentrate on (Florida and for the same reasons, BBV/electronic voting scandal, NB_'ers who'll write in their own candidate instead, and so on...)

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

5. Last time the Dems were screaming about Nader was during 2002 elections!

Remember how bad we got killed that time! Dems blamed Nader too - since "he caused Bush's coup, therefore he let the GOP win the midterm elections when Democrats in Congress were voting FOR Bush everytime".

Blaming Nader means Dems are scared and about to get killed - but the news was looking so good? Kerry is beating Bush in all the polls right? What gives?