Is potentially squandered, you mean. Time will tell in any case. If Gore loses by a huge gap, then it'll be impossible to blame the Greens; if Gore loses in a squeaker, yes, there will be hell to pay. And if Gore wins, the Greens win too (since they'll have attracted plenty of national attention *and* benefit from Democratic-leaning goodwill, or at least not attract Democratic-leaning vitriol), while if they gain the 5% to gain federal funding they win twice over.
>From a strategic perspective, Nader probably made the right decision to
campaign in this election. Gore should have had a clear advantage here.
Bush's campaign team, especially his researchers, must be given credit for
the current state of affairs. (And, in 90 minutes or so, we should start
to know how much credit indeed).
That said, Nader hasn't exactly taken the easy road to his 5%. Rather than picking up easy votes in core Republican or Democratic states, where the outcome is a foregone conclusion, he's attempted to campaign strongly in the battleground states like a major national party leader, which he is not. Not yet and probably not ever. One must wonder who the hell is advising him or whether he has a strong desire to martyr himself.
That said, protest parties (and the Greens still seem largely a protest party to me, right here and now) tend to self-destruct after their first or second taste of success. They gain support through rabid populism and realize too late that many of their high profile supporters just fell off the turnip truck. A protest or populist party run by visionaries becomes a national party run by crackpots awfully fast.
Cheers,
Marco
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> | The further I get <
> Marco Anglesio | from the things I care about <
> mpa at the-wire.com | The less I care <
> http://www.the-wire.com/~mpa | how much further away I get <
> | --Robert Smith <
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