On Tue, 22 Aug 2000, Michael Pollak wrote:
> > Waiting until after Gore's speech is hardly cricket :)
>
> Ah, the opportunities we miss when let the inbox fill up :o) I would have
> made the same bet last week. But I'm glad to see you clambering out of
> the slough of despond so quickly.
As I said, I'll stick with the bet (you talk to Seth whether he wants to hand it off to you) but I will admit to a certain amount of political motive in trumpeting my analysis. Usually, I am a believer in revolutionary optimism (helps being a very optimistic person) but it was interesting how a bit of pessimism by me suddenly made a bunch of Nader-promoters explain why voters would reject a git like Bush and choose Gore in the end. So occasionally a bit of pessimistic visualization is useful.
I have been a bit surprised how many Nader-sympathizers swung back to Gore in the course of the convention. According to some sources, Gore had the largest convention bounce in modern polling history - a lot of it having to do with the fact that he combined bringing in both independents from the center and bringing back Nader supporters from the Left.
Being able to pull from both directions is an impressive political feat, whatever else you can say about Gore's performance.
-- Nathan Newman