Nader

[drydem]

Alright, I am sick of people blaming Ralph Fucking Nader for Bush's presidency. Dan Savage did it in his most recent column and I hate it. Here's the deal. Sure, if Nader hadn't run in Florida, then Gore would proably have won. However, if Bush had murdered somebody on national television a few days before the election Gore would probably have won also. Here's where Gore lost.
In filing charges before the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore, Gore had a few options for what he could demand. He could have demanded a recount of the counties where he had a lead(which would have been a sure victory if he won the case, but which left him open to equal protection arguments) or he could have demanded a recount of the entire state(which may have made things uncertain in terms of victory, but which avoided the equal protection clause on a state level). He chose the former, and the high court(assuming it was not entirely partisan, which I am dubious about) ruled against him, precisely based on the equal protection clause.
In all the recounts done by independent organizations, including full state recounts, without hanging chads, Gore won. So, really, if Gore had taken the moral high ground and asked for a full recount, he could have won, both the Supreme Court case and the Electoral College. Sure, there would have been a period of doubt, but our government could have withstood that.
So, to sum up, Nader did not lose the fucking election. Gore lost it because he played partisan rather than playing fair. If he had played fair, chosen to try and ascertain the will of the american people instead of just trying to win, we wouldn't be in a kakistocracy right now.

Comments

Re: Wrong Again, Marge

[bigsnob.livejournal.com]

Oh there's plenty of anger to go around. I'm angry at every one of those things. I'm most angry about the supreme court and the disenfranchisement of black voters (similarly, I'm furious about Jeb Bush failing to recuse himself from election reforms, despited an obvious conflict of interes). I also believe the following to be true:

1.) No-one, not even Dan Savage blames the _entire_ election debacle on Nader, though they may be mad that the margin that he did sway probably helped us get into that Florida mess (not that it was his fault mind you). Still, he helped put us where we are today, even if it was unintentional... which I doubt. He knows he's a "spoiler."

2.) Ralph Nader started being a potential ally long ago and is following his own weird agenda. This is especially clear with the hindsight of the last four years and his decision to run again/ the way he's decided to frame his campaign.

"Aaron MacGruder said at one point that the Democrats are such losers that they were able to lose an election that they won."

I like Aaron MacGruder, but the irony of that is he's perpetuating the Democratic stereotype of loser-dom that he's satirizing. What I like about the Democratic party is that we're open to nuance and subtlety, but what seems to go along with that (and I don't know why, because it doesn't have to) is a negative fatalism. What we need to do, if we want to win, is to band together behind a unified party. That's where the Republicans always have us beat, as monumentally vexing as it is-- they're on message. Even if that message is evil and wrong. They spend enough time calling us losers without us doing the same thing to ourselves.