Yes, but Nader was running in an election whose context was peace and considerable prosperity. Most people who vote seem to vote their apparent immediate short-term interests, so the great majority were bound to vote conservatively, regardless of their race, class, gender or other category. This was certainly the appeal Gore made to Blacks, labor and women: we (the Democrats) will conserve your "gains" (the institutional concessions you've won from the State) although we won't extend them, whereas the other guy will send you back to the plantation / sweatshop / kitchen.
The two major parties, for whom winning isn't everything but the only thing, correctly went after this conservative vote so efficiently that they split it right down the middle.
There remains what we might call the crank vote, people who vote ideologically, ethically, or aesthetically -- five or six percent of the electorate, I suppose. If we assume half affect a rightist style of politics and would be put off by Nader's soc-dem decor, this leaves 2.5% - 3% of the vote, a range into which the Nader vote actually fell. In other words I think Nader did about as well as he could have been expected to given the fatness of the times. I doubt if Ms. LaDuke's reproductive pursuits and the other "problems" listed in the article cost him a single vote.
Next time around, the Greens might consider trying to establish an early alliance with leftish Black and labor groups in order to set up a movement with wider credibility and appeal -- but do those people _really_ want to give up on the Democratic Party or merely threaten it? Most soc-dems seem obedient to authority and ready to come home when the boss whistles.