bad nooz for Dems

[ravi]

Nathan Newman wrote:
>
> But the fact is that he won more votes than Bush and actually won a higher
> percentage of the vote than any Democrat since 1976.   And if Nader hadn't
> divided the progressive vote, he would have translated that numerical vote
> into winning the election.
> 
> Folks can blame Gore for all his failings, justifiably, but the refusal to
> deal with Nader's responsibility as well shows how absolutely resistant
> third party folks are to analysis.  They make predictions and when they are
> proven false, they just pretend they didn't make them.
>

i didnt make any predictions actually and i know you are not talking 
about me, so let me ask you this: if nader and his followers want to run 
for office, whats wrong with that? you feel that they are acting against 
the causes they support? that those causes are best achieved by working 
within the democratic party? can you really generalize based on a sample 
space of one i.e., the bush victory and the ensuing downturn in left 
causes? the formative years of civil movements might well include 
temporary downturns wont they? weren't the indications pretty much that 
clinton and the new democrats had in fact swung further right and 
therefore little could be expected of them?


> Nader folks said that electing Bush would make little difference and that
> Gore's defeat would force the Democrats to move left.  Both predictions have
> proved to be massively false.

how do you say that? we can answer the second part of the prediction 
only in the next elections, wouldnt you agree? it will depend on what 
gore and other democrats say and do during their campaign. the nature of 
gore's loss and the events of 9/11 might skew the results away from the 
prediction, but they could not have been anticipated! had gore won while 
nader put up a strong showing or had gore lost decisively again with 
nader coming in strong, would not the democrats have reconsidered their 
platform?

	--ravi