"Slander"-- what silly rhetoric. Nader was AWOL from the whole battle in Florida. That's the reality. And he was the leader picked by Greens to represent progressives. It is absurd to compare a few local Greens showing up to a rally compared to the institutional support of the Dems for black voters of Gore, Jesse Jackson, John Sweeney and a host of other Democrats mobilizing around the Florida issue.
Nader was AWOL, period. Go back to the record in LBO if you want; immediately after the election, I was not slandering Nader but saying everyone needed to join hands, progressives and Greens, to fight for election reforms from IRV to defending voting rights. It was the fact that Nader blew off those Florida voters, far more than his Presidential run itself, that pretty much permanently alienated me from the whole Nader/Green movement.
I don't even denounce Nader personally, since I've continued to defend his actual political work (as opposed to his electoral work), but I denounce the strategy. And those who can't distinguish criticism of strategy from criticism of people are the ones trapped in institutional thinking.
-- Nathan Newman