[lbo-talk] Nader, again

[C. G. Estabrook]

"By early 2000, opinion surveys were reporting record satisfaction with
the performance of the administration. Against this background, the
Democratic and Republican candidates for the White House waged their
campaigns in the autumn. In the event, Gore won a narrow popular
majority-a margin of less than 0.51 per cent, on a turnout of 50.7 per
cent of the electorate. About a quarter of American adults voted for him.
It is possible that he would have won a majority of the Electoral College
as well, had a manual recount of all counties in Florida occurred. He was
not, however, confident enough of the outcome of such a recount to demand
one, preferring instead to mine only his own strongholds for extra votes,
a decision that may have cost him the Presidency. The courts at all levels
followed partisan preferences without compunction, but a request for a
full manual recount after the second mechanical recount on November 8
could not have been blocked. What is clear, however, is that Nader's
substantial Green vote in Florida-a hundred times the margin of difference
between Democratic and Republican tallies-denied Gore the Presidency.  
Rarely has a third party in a first-past-the-post system been so decisive
in settling the result of a national election..."

"What, then, explains the failure of the Democratic succession? The answer
is obvious enough. Clinton, though his poll ratings were high at the end
of his term (when voters knew they would see the back of him), was an
albatross in a way that Reagan was not [in 1988]. Partly this was because,
unlike Reagan, it was plain that Clinton had no particular convictions,
beyond the desire to stay in office-he attracted no broad or dedicated
following. More acutely, however, the scandals that surrounded his
Presidency made it impossible to convert into any kind of a
rallying-point. He was plainly guilty of the charges-molestation in
Arkansas, perjury and obstruction of justice in Washington-against him,
which were fully impeachable: the Constitution calling for the removal of
a President culpable even of 'misdemeanours' short of such breaches of the
law, which in other fields of office would have swiftly led to resignation
or dismissal. Widespread resistance to this logic, strong enough to block
it, comprised a number of elements. Partisan loyalties were affronted
among Democrats and the academic following attached to the Party. Cultural
susceptibilities were aroused by fears of Grundyism. Popular aversion to
impeachment, however, rested on a much more powerful bedrock of
sentiment-attachment to the quasi-monarchical status of the Presidential
office itself, as embodiment of national identity in the world at large, a
late-twentieth-century fixation foreign to the Founders. But if popular
opinion did not want impeachment, instinctively seeking to protect the
Presidency, for the same reasons it did not relish Clinton's conduct, an
indignity to the office not easily forgotten..."

--from Perry Anderson, "Us Elections: Testing Formula Two," New Left
Review 8, March-April 2001