My “Alas” co-blogger PinkDreamPoppies argues that Nader did not cost Gore the election in 2000. With respect, I disagree. I think that Nader’s run (among many other factors, such as Gore’s mediocre campaign, the press’ weird hatred of Gore, Republicans playing racist games with the voter rolls in Florida, five members of the Supreme Court, and the fact that the Dems just didn’t fight as hard as the Republicans in Florida) caused Gore to lose (or, rather, caused the race to be close enough so that Bush was able to steal the election).
Aside from the vote-counting issue PDP focuses on, there’s the fact that in the final weeks of the campaign Gore was forced to shore up his left wing by campaigning in states that otherwise would have been “safe,” such as Oregon. If Nader hadn’t been running, Gore would presumably have spent that time and money in increased appearances and ads in swing states like Florida. Although we can’t know for sure, it’s likely this would have made a 600 vote difference.
I voted for Nader in 2000, although I’m not planning to vote for him in 2004. I don’t understand why so many other Nader voters are invested in arguing that Nader didn’t make a difference to the election’s outcome. Of course he made a difference – in an election this close, everything made a difference!
I think the 2000 election showed that the Democrats can’t win a close election without wholehearted support from progressives; the outcome refutes right-wing Democrats who say that the best way to win elections is to ignore progressives. Nader’s run in 200 shows that the progressive voters (and, perhaps more importantly, progressive activists) do matter. Why is that an interpretation that so many Greens resist?
That said, I do agree with PDP that “the Democratic party has only itself to blame for Gore losing the 2000 election.” Yes, they would have done better if the Greens hadn’t run a candidate; but no one has a right (legal or moral) to run unopposed, or to run only against their chosen opposition.
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Postscript: If you’re anti-Nader or anti-Green and want to criticize me in the comments for how I voted in 2000, then welcome! All I ask is that you keep it polite, and that you read this post and this post first, so that you can understand my views a bit before critiquing them..
I don’t understand why so many other Nader voters are invested in arguing that Nader didn’t make a difference to the election’s outcome.
Actually, I didn’t vote in the last election (because I was too young) but probably would have voted Republican if I’d been able to, and will be voting for Kerry in this election, so I don’t have too much of a party investment in the issue.
Mostly I’m just irritated that many Democrats are much more interested in blaming someone else for having lost them the 2000 election than in thinking about why Nader’s run lost them so many votes. It’s the sense of entitlement to the progressive vote that many Democrats carry that really pisses me off, and that’s mostly what I was addressing in my post.
That said, I agree with some of what you’re saying but still feel that, in the end, the Dems didn’t lose for anyone’s reasons but their own. Would Gore have had to spend time in Oregon at the eleventh hour if the Democrats had bothered to appeal to progressive voters earlier in the election?
A lot of factors played in to the outcome of the 2000 election–you won’t catch me saying otherwise–but I don’t think that it’s reasonable to lay much, if any, blame at Nader’s feet.
I think it is very likely that Nader made A difference in the outcome. But the argument is that Nader (and the Greens) were not the ONLY difference. And, honestly, I don’t think we can ever know what would have happened had he not run. Would Gore’s message have been as progressive (ha, there’s a laugh) if Nader hadn’t been there? What percentage of Nader voters would otherwise have voted for Gore? (I wouldn’t have – there was at least 1 candidate on the ballot in Oregon who better reflected my positions. But I was willing to go for party building).
It’s arguing against Nader/Greens being the only ones responsible for enabling Bush & co to be appointed ruler. It may well be that Gore would have won had Nader/Greens not been running. But they have only themselves to blame for allowing it to be that close in the first place.
Didn’t Perot cause Bush the Elder to lose in ’92 (by the same logic)? What was the Rep response to that? To excoriate Reform Party voters & place ALL blame on them? It seems to me that the Reps mostly let it go, concentrated on winning a majority in the legislative branch and reaching out to those who voted for Perot.
The argument is a, “Hey. Look in the mirror first.” sort of thing. Imagine what the Dems might have accomplished had they not wasted their energy on blaming ONLY Nader/Green voters for the last four years. Imagine what will happen in this years election if the Dems continue on that path. Much as I’m leaning towards voting for Kerry, I can still be dissuaded if bitter Dems convince me that there really is nothing for me in their Party and I’m beneath contempt to them at the same time that they feel entitled to my vote.
Besides all of which, everybody is entitled to vote for who they feel is best for whatever reasons they have. I get the feeling that the Dems are the worst of the two-partiers when they tell me that Nader shouldn’t have run. Everybody who wants to should run. It’s one of the foundations of our form of government.
But I’m garbling everything, so I stop now.
I dunno, Barry; far more Democrats voted for Bush than for Nader–more than twice as many; I have the figures on my other computer somewhere, I think. Your right-wing Democrat could point to this evidence and say no, the evidence is quite clear: we must go even further right to get those voters back.
He’d be wrong (and that pronoun is used advisedly, even impishly), but that hasn’t stopped him in the past.
(Why would he be wrong? –Those Democrats didn’t vote for Bush because Gore’s policies weren’t right-wing enough; polls show that where there was a difference two-thirds of Americans preferred Gore’s [stated] positions to Bush’s [stated] positions. No, they voted for Bush because he was not Gore. That, and those fucking chimerical tax cuts. “Easy money at the brick factory!” Thanks, you idiots.)
I lost a friend in part because I voted for Nader in 2000, and this mind you in New Mexico, which Gore carried. I did so as a protest to what I saw as the increasing leverage corporate interests have in the Democratic party. However, I believed with all my heart that Gore would win when all the votes were counted. That the Republican party and the stacked Supreme Court would interfere with that truly sacred American institution never occured to me. And my friend found it easier to blame me, maybe because I was more within reach than the responsible parties.
I still believe that Nader’s candidacy was not the decisive factor that cost Gore his win. However, I can see that the narrow margins encouraged the Republicans to subvert the democratic process. And I lost respect for Nader when I read about him cozying up to Republican leaders a couple of years ago. That he’s gearing up to run again, this time without the Greens, makes me question what he is trying to accomplish.
I will NOT be voting for him; I even changed my registration from Green to Democrat.
Nadar jumping in forces the Repub-lites in the Dem party to rethink their mantra that the Dem party needs to swing to center(they mean right) to win. Look at the total volte for Kuchinch, Sharpton, and Dean. If a sizable percentage of those voters are dissatisfied with a centrist swing to the right of the Dem party they could very well vote Nader. That is good for liberals, not bad. You ask even if that means 4moreyearsofBush? If we have to give up our ideals and values to win, what have we won?
It’s highly misleading to keep saying, now that all of the facts are in, that Bush “stole” the 2000 elections. Full vote counts, the kind that Gore was asking for in Bush v. Gore, have since been conducted, and have found that Bush did in fact get more votes than Gore in the districts in question. Bush would have won the election even if Gore had prevailed before the Supreme Court. Unless you have alternate numbers to prove otherwise, it’s dishonest to claim that Bush stole the election. You may not like the electoral college, but it’s the system we have, and working within it, Bush did (and would have even if the Dems had prevailed in their legal battles) get the votes he needed to be president. Please stop misleading your readers.
*note: I hate Bush as much as anyone. I’m just trying to set the facts straight. There are plenty of reasons to hate him that have nothing to do with how he got into office.
Is it possible to say that Nader made a difference in the election but that Nader alone could not have done anything to save Gore’s ass ? For that matter, that it wasn’t his job to save Gore’s ass ? Whatever. At this late hour, it’s really hard for me to give a shit anymore. I’m bored with Democrats who get to have their cake and eat it, too. Either they say that, yes, Nader voters did have a derogatory effect on the election’s outcome, and thus it’s time to offer them something positive for their votes and not just more nastiness and threats OR they had no effect on the outcome at all and should thus be left alone to live on their mythical trust funds, or whatever.
The leadership should develop some sense of consistency on this matter, or they should just shut up and leave those with 3rd-Party hopes alone. Watching them constantly attempt to have their cake and eat it, too is just pathetic.
“Bush did (and would have even if the Dems had prevailed in their legal battles) get the votes he needed to be president. Please stop misleading your readers.”
Well, to a point this is a bit simplistic. It ignores the well documented fact that the Republicans had removed thousands of people off the voting rolls who would normally have voted Democrat–more than enough in fact to make up for any difference in votes between Gore and Bush.
You might not like the characterization but it is true. Bush stole the election.
I voted for Nader in 2000, but I don’t plan to this year.
For what it’s worth, I live in Texas where my vote doesn’t matter, and I wanted to help the Greens try to get 5 %.
If I lived in a swing state I might have held
my nose and voted for Gore, but I don’t know for sure.
I think Gore deserved to lose – certainly Bush didn’t deserve to win but Gore was a HUGE
dissapointment, and chosing Lieberman for VP
was the clincher – I’m glad he didn’t win.
(He has been GREAT the last two years – if only he had been like that then :( )
I think that trying to blame the Dems failure
on Nader is just an excuse for them not to face
up with what is wrong with their own positions.
To begin with, I suspect that rather than vote
Kerry many Nader voters might just chose to stay
home.
And seeing how badly Bush has turned out I really don’t expect Nader to get that many votes –
if Kerry doesn’t blow it.
if Nader
while we play the ‘what if’ game, what if gore had let nader into the debates? it might have helped more people see bush was an idiot, i mean, as an idiot. or, maybe, it would have just been more nader-instead-of-gore voters.
Amy P.-
you state that Bush won the elections by getting the most votes – but, as Floyd points out above, there was in fact an illegal purge of thousands of mostly African-American voters from the Florida rolls – this is quite well-documented (most notably by investigative journalist Greg Palast)
do the “full vote counts” you speak of take into account these illegally purged voters? just curious….
“According to your people, all Ralph or I have to do is wave a magic wand and the Nader voters will “come back to Gore.” Look, Mr. Gore, you have screwed up — big time. … I will not feel one iota of guilt should you screw up and lose on Tuesday. The blame I do share is that I voted for you and Bill in 1992.” -Michael Moore, 2000
Ahh… but Moore, along with 99% of the Left, has seen the light this year, remember ? Ah, well. If Nader actually gets only 1% of the vote, I can deal. At least there’ll be plenty of beer at the Election Day party to go around: I won’t have to split my bottle with anyone else. :p
I knew Moore had slipped off the deep end and caught the Post 911 Machismo Virus when he started kissing Clarke’s ass last year, or whenever it was. Big deal.
Poor Ralph he’ll get the blame no matter what. I think a lot of reasons can be noted. The Democrats assumed votes that weren’t guarenteed (never rest on your laurels) Democratic voters didn’t think Bush would win (don’t count on anyone else to vote for you)
I think Nader didn’t do such a big affect because first of all, Nader wasn’t voted too many times. Also, Al Gore already was in the lead before the “incident” so just minor vots made Bush the president. Bush was supposed to be president, anyway.
It is absurd to say that Nader cost Gore the election. It is like saying Bush cost Gore the election. These votes actually belong to nobody until they are cast. I am personally an independant, I voted for Nader in 2004, my vote didn’t belong to Nader until I cast it. I might have even voted for Dean or Kucinich if they had won the nomination. That never happened though. Besides, I happen to know more Republicans than Democrats who are voted Nader in 2004. Most of the democrats have sold their principles to the simple minded one-liners cooked up.
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