-It seemed that in the election, roughly speaking, Bush got the suburban rural areas and Gore got the big cities and big population centers - -the antagonism of the city and the country 2000 was reflected some.
-The election was a tie. How better to reflect objectively that there is little difference between the Dem and Rep candidates ?
Yet these two sentences seem to contradict themselves. Rather, what is shown is intense opposition between two groups roughly matched in population. At the level of political leadership, the policies may converge toward the center, but the real parties - ie. the voters making up each electing group - are intensely different.
The real division in political strategy of Nader and Gore supporters is this: would you rather start with better leadership - Nader - with a less broad political base of supporters and seek to improve the political base, or to start with Gore's diverse working class base and work to improve the leadership elected by that base.
I have less faith in leadership than the Nader supporters or the idea that better leadership will somehow improve the base. I think it is better to start with the better base and work to improve the leadership elected by it.
-- Nathan Newman