In 2000, there was one famous right-winger running for president: Pat Buchanan. "While not widely reported, GOP renegade Patrick Buchanan played a similar role [to the one attributed to Ralph Nader]. Bush lost New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin and Oregon by margins so small that Buchanan's votes could have given him victory. If Bush hadn't eked out a court-ordered edge in Florida, Republicans would be denouncing Buchanan just as Democrats do Nader" ("Spoiler-Free Elections," February 5, 2001, <http://www.fairvote.org/op_eds/usatodayeditorial020501.htm>). Should sophisticated liberal or left-wing ideologues have spent $92,948 or more on the Buchanan campaign in order to create the "Buchanan Factor" to offset or outweigh the "Nader Factor"? Would doing so have had an effect of "pushing the country to the left"? Or would only the crazy or the misinformed have come up with such a harebrained scheme? :-)
Seriously, if you really think such a scheme works for one of the duopolists, you had better convince the rich liberals who are given to wasting money on MoveOn and Air America to spend lavishly to manufacture a credible presidential campaign to the right of the Republican Party pronto. :-) -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>