As posted by DU'er madhound
Every time I see somebody showing off their political/Selection '00 ignorance again. OK, here goes.
First off, Gore, due to his connections with BP Oil, pissed off nearly 200,000 registered Dems, and almost 400,000 self described liberals in Florida. The reason that he pissed them off is because of his pro-drilling stance off the shores of Florida. In fact he pissed the registered Dems and liberals so much that they decided to double screw Gore and voted for Bush. Think about that for a moment, almost 600,000 votes lost, all due to the fact that Gore didn't want to cross his oily master. Whoops, there goes the election.
Secondly, the journalist Greg Palast handed the whole vote scam package to the Gore camp on a silver platter, while the recount process was still undreway. Now think about this, you've just been handed the key to not only winning the election, but to also banish your opponent and his cohorts to the political wilderness for a long time, if not forever. What would you do with that information? Well, Gore, on the advice of his handlers just sat on it. So much for wanting to win.
Third, even Al From, head of the DLC, concluded long ago that Nader didn't adversely effect the Gore campaign. From the 1/24/01 issue of Blueprint, the DLC house organ: "The assertion that Nader's marginal vote hurt Gore is not borne out by polling data. When exit pollers asked voters how they would have voted in a two-way race, Bush actually won by a point. That was better than he did with Nader in the race."<
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=127&subid=179&conte ... > Get that? Gore did better with Nader in the race that he would have without Nader in the race.
Fourth, Gore and his handlers bungled the recount process, and handled the media madness poorly. Rather than jumping out in front of this and going on the attack, he decided to play defense and got his ass handed to him.
Fifth, Oh, and there was the matter of the Supreme Court and their Selection. Was Nader on the court? Did he influence the court's decision? No. And as a '04 election side note, who were the people who were crying fraud in Ohio in the '04 election? Yeah, the Greens and Nader, Kerry was mysteriously silent, and continues to be that way until this day.
Sixth, And at the end of of it all, when the votes were finally all counted(though it didn't matter then) it turns out that guess what, Gore actually won.
I'm sick and tired of Democrats using Nader and the Greens as their whipping post. The only reason that they are doing this is in order to divert blame and attention away from their own failures, both before and after the election of 2000. It is easier to scapegoat somebody that to perform the sort of in depth self analysis that is desperately needed concerning Democratic party practices and campaign strategies. So before you continue to play the Nader card, I would suggest that you stop, and take a hard, long look at the failings of the Democratic party and how they handle campaigns. The answers that you seek are there, not in blaming the person who had the least to do with the Democratic failings of '00.