I just want to take a quick moment to point out that Ralph Nader is mistaken.
MADISON, Wis. - Former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader (news - web sites) called Democrats "chronic whiners" for continuing to accuse him of spoiling the 2000 presidential election for Al Gore (news - web sites).As CNN (and many other news organizations) reported in 2001, George W. Bush would have beaten Al Gore in Florida under any reasonable recount scheme."They should realize that the retrospect on Florida concluded Gore won Florida," the consumer activist told the Wisconsin State Journal on Saturday. "It was stolen from the Democrats. And they should concentrate on the thieves and the blunderers in Florida, not on the Green Party."
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A comprehensive study of the 2000 presidential election in Florida suggests that if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a statewide vote recount to proceed, Republican candidate George W. Bush would still have been elected president.The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago conducted the six-month study for a consortium of eight news media companies, including CNN. ...
Using the NORC data, the media consortium examined what might have happened if the U.S. Supreme Court had not intervened. The Florida high court had ordered a recount of all undervotes that had not been counted by hand to that point. If that recount had proceeded under the standard that most local election officials said they would have used, the study found that Bush would have emerged with 493 more votes than Gore. ...
Suppose that Gore got what he originally wanted -- a hand recount in heavily Democratic Broward, Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Volusia counties. The study indicates that Gore would have picked up some additional support but still would have lost the election -- by a 225-vote margin statewide.
Nader's not mistaken, Michael; he's lying, which is something he's become very good at.
Nader believes he has a future in politics. Spoilers often do; they conceive of themselves as kingmakers, able to sell their following for other considerations. Given that his old schtick as a "consumer advocate" has worn all the tread off, maybe this is all he has left.
In all fairness, you should note that the NORC study also pointed out that had a number of voters who did such things as voting for a candidate and then also writing his name down not done so, Gore would likely have won the state by thousands of votes.
Oh, wait... doesn't this suggest something about the literacy and intelligence of the Democrats' primary voter base?
Well, I did say "reasonable recount scheme", and I don't think anyone would claim that counting overvotes was "reasonable". But anyway, maybe you're right.