Anyone But Bush?

[Solitaire]

There Never Were Any "Good Old Days" In The Democratic Party

In 2000 and now again in 2004, Nader seems to be underselling his
own prospects by giving the Democrats more credit and import than
they deserve. Nader had far more support and sympathy than the
final 3% vote on Election Day in 2000 indicated. A Zogby poll found
that 18 percent of the population seriously considered voting for
Nader. An analysis of the National Election Study data by Harvard
political scientist Barry Burden shows that only 9% of the people
who thought Nader was the best candidate actually voted for him.
If people had not voted strategically for the lesser evil, Nader would
have had over 30 million votes instead of 3 million and might have
won the election, especially if he had been allowed in the debates.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, a substantial proportion of Nader
supporters thought Bush was the lesser evil. While 54% of the people
who thought Nader was the best candidate voted for Gore in order to
defeat Bush, 37% of the people who preferred Nader voted for Bush
in order to defeat Gore. Nader's populist anti-corporate, clean politics,
environmentalist issues clearly appealed to substantial sections of the
bases of both major parties as well as independents.

I'm just beating a dead horse again. Thwack! Wheee....

 

[gnome]

There Never Were Any "Good Old Days" In The Democratic Party

I'm just beating a dead horse again. Thwack! Wheee....

The Nader/Bush voters statistic seems way off... yes I know they supposedly had this poll... but at risk of being accused of using anecdotal evidence, has ANYONE spoken to a Nader voter whose second choice was Bush? I'll back off if someone can come up with just one.

Something just doesn't add up.

As for the rest of the article... plenty of food for thought. I wish I had the time and research skills to seriously review some of the comments in this article... has anyone already, with some of these issues?

 

[zultr]

Contrary to conventional wisdom, a substantial proportion of Nader supporters thought Bush was the lesser evil. While 54% of the people who thought Nader was the best candidate voted for Gore in order to defeat Bush, 37% of the people who preferred Nader voted for Bush in order to defeat Gore.

I don't think the cited stats necessarily back up the stated conclusion (depending on your definition of a "substantial proportion"). Bush had the money, the momentum, and led in most polls. It could have been that more Democrats avoided Nader because they felt that Bush would win otherwise, while Republican crossovers could have been more inclined to vote their "conscience" because they figured Bush would win anyway. Also, that blurb does not mention numbers in addition to percentages: if that 37% was based on 100 people who voted for Bush to defeat Gore and the 54% was based on 10,000,000 who voted for Gore to defeat Bush, I wouldn't be very impressed.