election demographics

Brad DeLong delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Wed Nov 8 12:53:52 PST 2000



>Brad,
> The argument here was strictly one of
>Nader's own motives. Presumably he was
>out to get 5% nationally above all else. As
>long as he believes that there is not much
>difference between Bush and Gore, as he
>apparently does (I did not say that I do), then
>it was perfectly logical for him to seek his votes
>wherever he could find them.

But he thinks there's a *big* difference between Gephardt and Hastert--big enough that it's important to elect Democrats to the House. The difference between Gore and Bush is at least 2/3 the difference between Gephardt and Hastert.

The "not a dime's worth of difference" was George Wallace's line: it was false then, and false now.


> The news has been pretty confused this morning,
>but I gather that Wisconsin did finally go Gore's way,
>although close as hell with Nader clearly a major factor.
>Unfortunately, Nader appears to have failed to achieve
>his 5% while nevertheless (probably) throwing the
>election to Bush.

Yep. A pretty substantial defeat. Demonstrate that you can't pull in many votes *and* throw the election to the right wing candidate.

I haven't seen a better example of shooting yourself in the head in quite a while (save for the quality of campaign that Al Gore ran this time).

Brad DeLong



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