Reply #246: In the general, it's not about party anymore

[zipplewrath]

No, Nader didn't run in the democratic primary, that time, but he had before. And that's sort the point. The way our system is set up, it begs for 2 candidates. There are rare exceptions, but when it gets to the general election it isn't really about parties anymore, it's about the person. And we are all compromising in our choices. When you have three, what tends to happen is in order to maximize your votes, you look for the spot that puts you furthest from both of your opponents. You don't go trying to poach your opponents supporters that are closest to him, you try to get those furthest from him. The end result is that 3rd party candidates tend to force someone towards the "middle".

The natural political reaction to Nader was for Gore to stay as far to the right of him as he could to pick up the moderate middle, while drawing off just as many left leaning folks as necessary.

In the end I tend to agree with your larger point, and the one that Nader was actually trying to make, which is that both parties have moved way to the right and no one is pulling the democrats back to the left, especially the DLC. The issue was that many thought that the WRONG way to pull politics in general, and the Democrats specifically, to the left was a third party candidate.