With all due respect, Wojtek, there's no evidence that compelling the Clinton administration to issue an executive order pledging not to interfere with the SA attempt to reduce drug prices dimmed Al Gore's electoral fortune in 2000, is there?
[WS:] That is not the point. The point is that splinter vote of the leftos who voted their individualistic conscience while loosing the bigger picture of social costs of that behavior led to Bush victory in 2000, stolen or not. The ACT UP act in question is just an exemplification of that approach to politics.
Although I said that time and again on this forum, I will reiterate that political outcome in any democracy, even as flawed as one in this country, is not decided by personalities of the leaders, but by the overall balance of power. In that balance of power all the Left combined is really small potatoes, a junior partner at best - if that. This is not a value judgment, this is a statement of fact.
Now, a rational goal-oriented person should know what kind of game he/she is entering and what strategy will or will not work in that game. At the very least, he/she should know whether he is playing with a weak hand or a strong hand, and play accordingly. Adopting a strong hand strategy while having a weak hand is a sure recipe for defeat and every card player, save the most novice or obtuse one, understands that. Bluffing may only work when every player has a weak hand, but if some players have a really strong hand and know it, bluffing is suicidal.
Unfortunately, 2.73% of the lefties did not understand that basic strategy obvious to every card player, and voted their individual conscience (oh, how WASPy that was!) instead of looking at the broader picture and the distribution of power in society. Only 0.79% of the right wing voters made error http://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/ The remaining 1.94 percent handed the victory to Bush.
Talking about Gore's "screwups" is really missing the point entirely, that point being that this is a politically divided country that unfortunately has a majoritarian electoral system and given those parameters, the winning strategy is unity not splintering. The latter is a sure way to a defeat. Again, card players understand that quite well when they gang up against someone well ahead in the game. Even if they do not personally win, they at least try to make sure that someone who beats them, gets beaten too. The point is, and should be repeated clearly and loudly, that the grandstanding and voting their individual consciousness left (not even Nader but those who voted for him) fucked it up by its splinter knee-jerk reaction and gave us eight years of Bush with all the accoutrements from tax cuts for the rich to the war in Iraq.
Disclaimer: I participated in a "Nader-trader" to maximize Gore's chances outside MD, which was Gore-safe. Of course, how I pulled the lever did not really matter as long as the other party to the agreement (someone in MI, if memory serves) pulled it for Gore, but I was honest and kept my end of the bargain. Gore carried MD anyway. I support Democrats not because I like their politics but because November is NOT the time to voice my political conscience. It is the time to make a move that maximizes my political benefits, even if that means only thwarting the Right.
Wojtek