Gore did it to himself

[Marco Anglesio]

On Tue, 6 Aug 2002, Chuck Munson wrote:
> 1) Any U.S. citizen over the age of 35 can run for president. The Greens
> have every right to run Ralph Nader as a candidate. 

Certainly. No one's arguing that. It's also entirely possible that Nader
voters would not have voted for any other Green candidate, but for Nader's
personal appeal, and would have voted Democratic - something you can't
easily say for a SWP candidate. However, the new Green voters appear to be
disproportionately taken from former Democratic voters. 

It's very much unlike, for example, Jesse Ventura's gubernatorial
candidacy in Minnesota, where he took former Democratic and Republican
voters in roughly equal parts, plus gaining support from new or non-voter
populations, and that was enough to send him to the governor's mansion in 
a 3-way race.

If I recall correctly, acting as a presidential spoiler for Gore/the Dems
was the point of the exercise, at least for Nader. Nader said as much
during the campaign. Why am I seeing people twist in circles on LBO-talk
to avoid admitting it now? If you're a Nader supporter (which I realize
you aren't, Chuck), you got exactly what you wanted, in spades - a narrow
Bush victory predicated upon vote-splitting on the left of center. 
 
m.

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>        Marco Anglesio        |  The hottest places in Hell are reserved  <
>       mpa at the-wire.com       |      for those who, in times of moral     <
> http://www.the-wire.com/~mpa |     crisis, preserved their neutrality.   <
>                              |                   --Dante                 <
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