> "Neil Friedman" wrote: > > I distrust the use of a complicated anaysis to disprove the obvious. What > the Nader candidacy did was take over 78,000 votes in Florida. If Nader had > not been on the ballot, Gore would be president. Can simplistic analysis "prove" the "obvious"? At the moment, it appear that Gore will win; so blaming Nader for his defeat is moot. But if Gore loses, who's to blame? Gore suipporters' stupidity, in not properly instructing masses of voters they turned out in how to cast ballots, apparently cost Gore at least 15,000 votes. Gore advisors' stupidity, simply in so distancing his candidacy from Clinton, clearly cost him many more in Florida alone. So did their stupidity in otherwise muting and center-izing his campaign. Gore's stiffness and cowardice (need I explain?) likewise cost him enough votes to swing Florida, and other close states lost to Bush. I imagine others can point to yet more factors as decisive. How then are we to rank them, in assigning blame for a (putative) Gore defeat? The urge to blame it first or foremost on Nader is clearly a political choice and projection -- to my mind either thoughtless or despicable. If Gore loses, his own campaign will be chiefly and centrally responsible. What then do Friedman, and others thinking similarly, stand _for_ when they turn their eyes from Gore-Co.'s failures outward to pin the blame on Nader -- i.e., on a candidacy representing a genuine effort and committment to (begin again to try to) break out of the bipartisan box? Rather than rational analysis, this position seems to me in general to reflect self-serving defensiveness about having chosen not simply to vote for Gore rather than Nader, but also to actively urge others to do so -- in short, to campaign actively against any effort to break out of the box. This is retrograde politics rather than progressive, no matter how earnestly one construes its relatively-near-term consequences for the Supreme Court. Michael Rossman <mrossman@igc.org>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : 11/22/00 EST