2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumA Letter to a Bernie-or-Bust Voter
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[div style="display:inline; background-color:#FFFF66;"]In the year 2000, fresh out of college, I cast my second-ever presidential election vote for Ralph Nader. Later that night, I watched in horror as the contest between Al Gore and George W. Bush ended in an unprecedented electoral college toss-up, leading to a messy recount battle and the infamous Supreme Court decision Bush v. Gore. The chosen successor of a popular incumbent administration, Gore should have sailed to victory on the strength of the economy alone, yet he conceded the election to Bush, a candidate initially considered too unserious to be a true contender.
Gore lost Florida by 537 votes. Nader received almost 100,000 votes in Florida. And he actively campaigned in swing states, including Florida, in the lead-up to the election. If Nader had quit the race and thrown his support to the Democrats, we might be reminiscing about a Gore administration right now.
And I share the blame. Now, before you post mean things in the comments, let me clarify: I voted in New York state, which went blue in 2000, so my individual vote did not help swing the election. But I still feel complicit. I jumped on the Nader bandwagon and bought into a set of beliefs that seemed right to me at the time but were proven very wrong over the eight years that followed.
[div style="display:inline; background-color:#FFFF66;"]Chief among them, I thought that Gore and Bush were essentially indistinguishable. Carbon copies of each other. Both corporate insider candidates, beholden to big-money interests and out of touch with people struggling at the margins of the economy. Im from the Rust BeltI grew up near Clevelandand I had seen factory closures turn a once-vibrant part of the country into a series of ghost towns. I blamed NAFTA and the Clinton administrations failure to defend unions and stem the tide of outsourcing. In this and on other issueswelfare reform, prison sentencingI thought the Clinton administration had bent so far backward to win over the right that it had lost its progressive conscience. The economy boomed during the Clinton years, but the gulf between the rich and poor, the haves and have-nots, only widened.
Read the rest on Slate.
Matt_in_STL
(1,446 posts)There were many reasons why Gore lost that election, Nader being only a minor piece of that. The Nader/Bernie comparison is weak at best, especially considering Bernie won't be running a third party campaign. Hillary supporters say she has this, even without Bernie voters, so why continue to push?
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Oh, you don't want another war? Well, you voted for Clinton and that means you approved of her vote for the Iraq War and what she did in Libya and Honduras so just shut your hypocritical mouth.
They want everyone covered in filth so that no one can credibly speak out against it.
Matt_in_STL
(1,446 posts)Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Swiftboating actually started with Max Cleland, a triple amputee Vietnam vet who lost his Senatorial seat, his chickenhawk Republican opponent called him a "traitor" and ended up winning the election.
Come to think of it, they are already using Kerry that way, if you voted for Kerry then you must vote for Clinton or you're a hypocrite on the IWR vote.
Silver_Witch
(1,820 posts)Silver_Witch
(1,820 posts)Florida, corruption, the Supreme Cout and a Democratic candidate who would not fight are the reasons Bush won. Please spare us all the Nader narrative until you tell the truth. Gore surrendered or shall we say compromised! Pity really .
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)"Gore probably would have won, by a range of 42 to 171 votes out of 6 million cast, had there been a broad recount of all disputed ballots statewide"
bvf
(6,604 posts)bigwillq
(72,790 posts)Gore and Lieberman were not very good. Gore couldn't even win his home state.
Cobalt Violet
(9,905 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)And you know better.
Puglover
(16,380 posts)Not the bullshit part which is spot on Cali. What a pant load.
Kittycat
(10,493 posts)You will find some brutal honesty in the past, if you're willing to face it. First being the large number of Democrats that voted for Bush far outnumbered those that voted for Nader. Second will be the themes that drove voters to Nader that both parties continue to ignore, only for it to grow louder. You can't quiet these issues, at some point - the country is going to have to face what they've done.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/6/1260721/-The-Nader-Myth
http://www.salon.com/2000/11/28/hightower/
One of the 99
(2,280 posts)TheKentuckian
(25,029 posts)"Fear will keep them in line" is the card they are playing. They think they can refuse to reform because they'd rather keep the gravy train rolling and terrorize.
I say feed them back self interest, if they don't want to live under what they fear for the next four, eight, twelve, sixteen, or twenty years then it is time for some of the vaunted "compromise" and the longer they wait the more will have to be given up.