Gore not becoming President: whose fault?

[MannyGoldstein]

Who do *you* think is most responsible for Gore not becoming President on 1/20/2001?

69 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Time expired
	Ralph Nader
	3 (4%)
	George W. Bush
	1 (1%)
	Al Gore
	9 (13%)
	The Supreme Court
	50 (72%)
	Jeb Bush and his Florida cronies
	1 (1%)
	Not sure, but Nader wasn't the primary problem
	2 (3%)
	Other
	3 (4%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[Boudica the Lyoness]

1. It was actually more than one thing

Supreme court
Bush
Nadar
Fixed ballot boxes

[mainstreetonce]

4. The Supreme Court

Florida's mess.

Court never should touched it.

Florida would have given it to Bush anyway.

Gore lost Tennessee. Blame the NRA.

[Electric Monk]

19. Yes, if Al Gore had won his home state of Tennessee, Florida wouldn't have mattered.

[font size=+1][center]For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.[/center][/font]

[Samantha]

30. Tennessee was a little Florida when it came to vote fraud

Karl Rove had planned to make sure Gore lost Tennessee as an acute national embarrassment. That vote was pretty close, as I remember, but there were many complaints from voters on election day who experienced the same type of problems as voters in Florida. Three of the complaints were eventually picked up and pursued by Uncle Sam (DOJ) along with about 18 cases from Florida.

The one case I distinctly remember was an African-American minister who reached the front of the line and was told he did not have the proper id. He had voted for years with no problem. He angrily responded that if he was not allowed to vote, he was not moving from the line and would be calling a lawyer on the spot. They allowed him to complete a provisional ballot.

But many African-Americans complained about having to stand in line way too long, having too few voting machines, voting places moved at the last moment without public announcement - you know the drill.

We will never know who truly won Tennessee had all of the votes genuinely been allowed to be cast, just as some people say we will never know who truly won Florida. I take exception to that second part of the sentence - I think there is no question Gore won Florida, and there is additionally no question the final word on the subject rested with the highest court in Florida, not the Supreme Court.

Sam

[Reter]

39. I don't believe voter fraud was to blame for Gore losing TN

I also don't think Rove had the power to just steal states like it was nothing. Florida was unique. I believe Rove and Bush thought they had it in the bag, but once the election was over, they did everything in their power to stop recounting.

[Samantha]

72. Well, we will just have to disagree over this

It is quite possible that it did. I am from Tennessee and I followed the election there closely, as well as the followup examination of voter complaints. As I said before, many of the techniques used in Florida were replicated in Tennessee. And the DOJ thought 3 of them were serious enough to investigate. It was indeed a mini-Florida.

Sam

[treestar]

97. Why would he win that state?

It is red as red can be.

State pride is a thing of the past. I seriously don't see expecting candidates to carry a state just because they are from there.

The benefit to that is small states can have candidates for President or VP. They wouldn't have picked Biden or Palin if winning the home state was a big deal. They'd always pick someone from a high vote state.

[HooptieWagon]

130. Maybe because they elected him Senator earlier?

It seems to me he should have been able to repeat a state-wide election win in his home state, had he run a better campaign.

[hrmjustin]

102. If nader didn't run Gore could have spent more time in TN instead of NM, WI, IA, and OR.

[gordianot]

14. Yes many factors, along with distorted media.

The Neocon hiding in plain sight was probably also a factor.

[kelliekat44]

86. Actually, the NRA via: W.VA and TN. nt

[treestar]

93. Yes, perfect storm

of factors going together.

[Gravitycollapse]

2. The American Electorate.

[Art_from_Ark]

17. The American electorate voted for Gore

Gore: 50,999,897
bu$h: 50,456,002

[Gravitycollapse]

38. No, they did not. Between 40 and 45% of the electorate didn't vote at all.

As an homogenous chunk, those who didn't vote vastly outnumbered any candidate.

It's not even comparable. The number of persons who didn't vote outnumbered the number of those who voted for Nader by as high as 31 to 1.

[Art_from_Ark]

47. Yes they did

The popular vote total was in Gore's favor. What matters in all US elections, except presidential, is who wins the popular vote, not how many qualified voters voted. The people who were concerned enough to vote, wanted Gore.

[Gravitycollapse]

58. So the only people concerned enough to vote voted for Gore?

All other voters were unconcerned? That's an amazingly ignorant dismissal of political opposition.

[Art_from_Ark]

62. By your criteria, no president has ever won an election

because no candidate has ever received a majority of the *potential* vote

[Gravitycollapse]

65. I suggested no such thing. I did say the electorate did not vote for Gore...

Which is a statement of fact. A large majority of the electorate did not vote for Gore even though he did win the popular vote.

You will realize that fundamentally the argument that Nader was responsible for Gore's loss is the same as the argument that the non-voters were responsible for Gore's loss. If you accept the logic of the former you must necessarily accept the logic of the latter. Which is to say that those who did not vote for Gore are responsible for his loss. Of course, I think this is probably a reasonably sound claim.

Which is why I think that if we were to stratify those who did not vote for Gore as an explanation for their inaction, the strata with the largest size would shoulder the most blame.

In order, from most to least responsible, those would be non-voters, those who voted for Bush and, in a hugely distant third, those who voted for Nader.

[Art_from_Ark]

66. Put it this way-- the Americans who cast their votes in November 2000 preferred Gore

Thousands more voters were capriciously knocked off the voter rolls in Florida (and other states) before the election.
http://www.gregpalast.com/the-great-florida-ex-con-gamernhow-the-felon-voter-purge-was-itself-felonious/

Thousands more were denied the right to vote on that day merely because the polls closed or because they were purposely detained, before they had a chance to vote.

http://www.michaelparenti.org/stolenelections.html

And still others like me, who voted absentee from overseas, maybe didn't even get to have their votes counted. For example, the last ballot I mailed, which was sent by registered mail, somehow didn't make it to the county clerk's office after it arrived in the US.

[Cosmocat]

89. WINNER!

Every dumb ass who voted for Jr. and every dumb ass who didn't bother to vote.

[BainsBane]

3. It was the butterfly ballot

If the Palm Beach County ballot had been normal, thousands of votes from retirees would have gone to Gore, as they were intended, rather than Buchanan. Then we would have never had that nutty recount or a case in the Supreme Court.

[JI7]

5. Many things were to blame and fuck those who try to defend any of them

[onehandle]

6. Multiple, but Nader was a key. Without Nader, Gore wins.

He was one of four participants in a perfect storm. Period.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

11. Gore did win.

He could have won more I guess.... But that's pretty low standard.

[kelliekat44]

88. BINGO!!! SCOTUS...to blame for stopping the recount. nt

[AgingAmerican]

24. Assuming Nader voters were Democrats

...which they were not. By a huge margin, the people who voted for Nader were not ex-Democrats, but ex-Reform Party voters who supported Ross Perot. These people vote third party or stay at home, won’t vote for a D or R regardless, and are conservatives not liberals.

[onehandle]

25. One half of one percent of them could have prevented Bush.

Nader campaigned for Weeks in Florida.

Nader and Bush are Exactly the Same.

[AgingAmerican]

29. Nader got 1% of Republican vote

...and 1% of the Democratic vote. Thus he had zero effect on the outcome. Had Al Gore fought and had a full recount, he would have won. Instead he folded because Republicans were saying stupid, mean stuff about him. Of course that's all they ever do, but for some reason Gore folded like a two year old attempting origami.

[onehandle]

37. LOL!

Yeah. Nader had Equal appeal to Democrats and Republicans.

Hilarious.

[AgingAmerican]

40. 1% is almost ZERO appeal

1% barely counts as fringe. Exit polls don't lie, though they do blow your narrative to smithereens.

13 percent of registered Democrats voted for Bush in Florida in that election, BTW.

[Maedhros]

105. Oh, AgingAmerican!

Facts can be used to prove anything that's even remotely true!

[Jim Lane]

112. Your reliance on party registration is ludicrous.

The obvious question is: "If Nader had not been on the ballot, what would the people who actually voted for him have done instead?"

The three relevant categories of answers are: (1) voted for Bush; (2) voted for Gore; or (3) deprived of the opportunity to vote for Nader, found some other way to make themselves politically irrelevant.

We can ignore the last group. The issue is the comparative size of the first two groups. Every bit of data I've ever seen, including some from Nader himself IIRC, states that Group 2 would greatly outnumber Group 1. The difference between the two numbers would have represented Gore's net gain. It would have swamped the official margin for Bush in Florida. Gore would have had a cheatproof margin of victory and would have become President.

If you think that Group 1 and Group 2 are equal in size, you'll have to present some pretty powerful data to make that sense -- much more powerful than party registration.

[AgingAmerican]

118. 13% of Democrats voted for Bush in Florida in 2000

nt

[Jim Lane]

119. So bleeping what?

I'm sure everyone here agrees that anyone who voted for Bush in Florida in 2000 (or in any state in any general election) made a mistake. I'm also sure that everyone here agrees that their mistake in no way excuses Katherine Harris's illegal purge of pro-Democratic voters.

You wrote in #29 that Nader "had zero effect on the outcome." Do you honestly believe that, if Nader had exercised his constitutional right to not run in the general election, the Gore-versus-Bush tally would have been unaffected? It depends on your assessment of the people who in the real world voted for Nader. Is it your position that, in a hypothetical scenario in which he's not on the ballot, the number of those people who would have voted for Gore would be roughly equal to the number who would have voted for Bush? If so, do I understand correctly that your sole basis for that position is party registration?

[AgingAmerican]

120. Do the math

nt

[HooptieWagon]

133. True. Far more than voted for Nader.

Anyone pointing fingers at voters has to conclude conservative democrats voting Bush were to blame, not liberals.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

127. Heh.

Given that we never saw President Gore, by your logic, anyone who didn't vote for Bush, including Gore voters, 'found a way to make themselves politically irrelevant'. Just like those who voted for Dewey, Kerry, or anyone else who failed to become President.

[Samantha]

42. No, he folded because he didn't want to see an open revolution in the Country

He thought that was the best thing to do for the Country, and additionally the Democrats failed to back him up except for a couple who weakly spoke out while the recount was being conducted (and the Congressional Black Caucus who protested on the date the Electoral College met to count the votes).

While we did not have an open revolution, what we did get was this: a man who sat in the Oval Office for 8 years and destroyed our economy, our Country's reputation, a terrorist attack on our Country 9/11 that Bush* failed to thwart, a huge deficit which accumulated and was hidden from the public eye since the figures were kept off the general ledger (Enron-type accounting), and the lives of thousands of innocent civilians who had misfortune to live in Iraq. The damages done by Bush*, including appointing Roberts to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, will continue to have rippling deleterious impact on this Country for decades to come. And many of those damages can NEVER be made whole again.

Sam

[AgingAmerican]

44. Yeah, right

Republicans jumping up and down crying = revolution. If that were the case there would have been a revolution during the 90s when they were up in arms saying stupid stuff the whole decade.

[winter is coming]

57. Open revolution, my ass. There was never any real chance of that.

I saw more of that clusterfuck unfolding on TV than I care to remember. The pundits were flapping their arms about a "Constitutional crisis" while ordinary people were going about their business and assuming it would all get straightened out sooner or later.

[Agnosticsherbet]

7. There was no single culprit.

SCOTUS, Republicans rioting to stop the recount, A Florida ballot deisgend to confuse, Nader'd claim that there is no difference between the parties, and so many more. electoral college, etc., etc,.

[winter is coming]

8. You might want to edit your post. There's a part in the middle where you appear to be

speaking in tongues.

[Electric Monk]

12. Translating...... "rim c;ao,omg tjat tjere os mpt dofferemce betweem"

translation: "him saying that there's no difference between"

?

[winter is coming]

16. Thanks; that makes more sense. It was kind of like autocorrect on acid there for a while. n/t

[Agnosticsherbet]

20. yes sorry for the confusion. I'm posting from my hospital bed and my fingers no work so good.

[winter is coming]

23. Oh! Sorry; I didn't realize you were in the hospital.

Hope things get better.

[Agnosticsherbet]

41. Tomorrow or the day after, depending on the pain. Thanks.

[Uncle Joe]

9. I chose other because you didn't have the "corporate media" as a choice.

Had it not been for the corporate media's one sided coverage, literally giving Bush a free pass while slandering and libeling Al Gore relentessly, the Supreme Court would never had never had the opportunity.

Gore would've won in a landslide too large for the Republicans to steal.

Thanks for the thread, MannyGoldstein.

[Art_from_Ark]

27. Yeah, the corporate media certainly stunk to high heaven

And that includes everything from ramblings about "Clinton fatigue" to Maureen Dowd's Gore-bashing diatribes in the New York Times

[Uncle Joe]

34. "Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet" Which I believe truly explains their vitriol toward

him.

The corporate media came to see the growing Internet as a threat against their business model, ability to use propaganda power unchecked and brainwash the masses and it threatened their commercial dollars.

That's why they relentlessly slandered and libeled Gore so much because he was the preeminent political champion for opening up the Internet to the people.

[Punkingal]

90. Al did NOT claim to invent the internet.

That is another slanderous lie told about him and you are on a website started because of the 2000 election debacle repeating it.

[winter is coming]

91. You should read the post you just replied to.

That's why they relentlessly slandered and libeled Gore so much because he was the preeminent political champion for opening up the Internet to the people.

[Uncle Joe]

94. Precisely, that's the point of my post. n/t

[LondonReign2]

101. +1000

Corporate Whore Media kept it close enough for the Supreme Court to steal

[Uncle Joe]

103. Thanks, LondonReign, I view the corporate media as the

preeminent cause for the coup of 2000.

Had they been honest brokers instead of acting as an institution bent on giving Bush a free pass while slandering and libeling Al Gore, none of the rest would've mattered, Gore would've won in a landslide.

CNN held a poll as to the most revolutionary invention or creation of the 20th century and the Internet won hands down, despite this, the corporate media as an institution could never bring themselves to give actually give Gore credit for his visionary legislation in opening the Information Superhighway to the people.

All they could do was ridicule him, and I have no doubt it was because they saw the growing Internet as a potential threat to their propaganda power and commercial cash cow, so they didn't want the strongest political champion of the Internet in the White House.

The Internet has been under attack by them ever since, specifically in trying to eliminate Net Neutrality while turning the net in to the equivalent of cable television.

Whatever it takes to keep the American People under their thumb.

[Spider Jerusalem]

10. Not Nader's fault.

Blaming Nader is sour grapes, and fundamentally wrong anyway as it presumes that Nader voters would have instead voted for Gore (rather than not voting at all, or voting for some other third-party candidate), which is not a reasonable supposition.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

18. You're right.

It's not a reasonable supposition. But it's easier than growing a spine and blaming Bush and the Supreme Court.


The blaming Nader argument is hilarious.

A) Without Nader, Gore would have won.

B) Gore did win.

A) But he would have won more.....

[hrmjustin]

108. I think a reasonable case could be made Gore would have won NM, WI, IA, and OR by bigger margins

without Nader in the race. He could have spent more time on other states. FL and NH could have gone to Gore without Nader.


Nader had a part in the loss.

[HooptieWagon]

134. FAR more Dems voted for Bush than Nader.

It was conservative Dems voting Bush that cost the election for Gore, not Liberals voting Nader.

[hrmjustin]

135. And republicans voted for Gore. This is normal and happens every election.

People never change their registration.

Nader was a contributing factor to the loss.

[Marie Marie]

13. I voted Supreme Court but let us not forget that freak of nature,

Katherine Harris. She was as vile as Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin.

[Art_from_Ark]

28. She was the bu$h campaign's co-chair in Florida

and she was in charge of counting the Florida votes.

[Stargleamer]

14. It was a number of things. . .

not just one thing. I voted for the USSC, because it was more of a factor than the other reasons. Thomas and Scalia should have recused themselves, but that would require having a conscience, which they do not.

One other thing, is that we have an Electoral College System, which fundamentally goes against the fair principle of "One person, One vote".

[winter is coming]

21. +1. n/t

[leftstreet]

22. Al Gore. Shitty campaign n/t

[BlueStreak]

54. Al Gore, decided to play lap dog

or if a person wants to take a more cynical view, they could observe how much money he was able to make after lying down and rolling over for the plutocrats.

This site pegs his wealth at about $200M
http://www.businessinsider.com/al-gore-wealth-money-current-sale-al-jazeera-2013-5

[LeftyMom]

26. I'm amazed that nobody's clicked "Gore" yet. He wasn't a good campaigner.

He ran away from a popular incumbent. He lost his own damn state. When he was pandering (PDAs with Tipper, pounding talking points into the ground) it was very obvious and awkward.

He can be personable. We're talking about a guy who managed to get people to pay good money for a movie that was essentially him giving a powerpoint presentation. But in 2000 he was very carefully saying very little, and not managing Bill Clinton's amazing skill at saying very little with great charm and charisma.

Gore was running against an Epsilon Minus Semi-Moron, it should not have been close enough to lose, spoil or steal.

[Art_from_Ark]

55. He ran away from a "popular incumbent"

because he was tired of being tarred with the Lewinsky mess and "Clinton fatigue".

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/clinton-fatigue-hurting-gore/

[LeftyMom]

56. That was stupid at the time and still seems stupid in retrospect.

Gore had nothing to do with Clinton being a horndog and nobody sane connected the two. Further people were tired of the scandal, not of Clinton.

Gore should have run on the Clinton economy. Instead he ran defensively and we all know how well that worked.

[Art_from_Ark]

59. Gore won the popular vote

He "lost" a key state that was controlled by the brother of his opponent, and where the votes were being "counted" by his opponent's campaign co-chair.

[LeftyMom]

63. The economy was flying. It shouldn't have been close enough to steal, lose or fuck up in any way.

FL wouldn't have mattered if Gore had won TN.

Need I remind you that Bush was a fucking idiot? Go watch a video of any of his speeches if you've blocked that out. He was a complete moron. It should not have been close.

[Art_from_Ark]

64. Reagan was a moron, too

Last edited Tue Jul 1, 2014, 01:55 AM - Edit history (1)

Moron candidates have attracted voters for a long time, as evidenced by H.L. Mencken's musings in the 1920s, and Adlai Stevenson's famous reply in the 1950s to the comment that he had "every thinking person's vote": "Ma'am, I'll need more than that to win".

And before the 2000 election, the economy was starting to slow down as the tech stock bubble was beginning to burst.

[JI7]

69. Bush being a fucking idiot was seen as a positive at that time

remember the crap about voting for "someone like me". and gore was seen as elitist . one lady said she was offended by gore's knowledge.

[moondust]

31. Voters?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

32. I didn't mean to vote three times for the Supreme Court

[Mz Pip]

33. The voters

This shouldn't have even been close. Yeah, Nader got 90,000 votes in Florida but I suspect there were 90,000 people who didn't bother to vote and not just in Florida. What was the turnout in 2000?

I don't blame Nader. I blame the people who through their vote away on a candidate who had no chance in hell of being elected. Elections have consequences. Don't throw your vote away.

[Maedhros]

107. Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone,

and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."

John Quincy Adams

em.

[G_j]

35. 1, 2 & 3

[McCamy Taylor]

36. Supreme Court because they are supposed to uphold the law. Brother Jeb second

along with SOS What's her name for disenfranchising Blacks. Nader third for being math challenged ("Hey, Gore's gotta win no matter what I do.&quot Gore fourth for not letting Bill campaign for him----pride goeth before the fall, Big Guy. You let your ego get in the way of your service to your country. Hillary will not make that mistake.

I was in DC Jan 2001. There were more people there to witness the "Inauguration of the Fraudulent" than to celebrate. It was a very sad day.

[LWolf]

43. 4 and 5. nt

[TheKentuckian]

45. USSC, BushCo. cronies, conservative Democrats, Gore, yellow, mealy mouth Democrats in that order.

[morningfog]

46. If you blame Nader, you legitmize Bush.

[Jim Lane]

113. Would you extend that principle?

I wonder which of the following statements you'd agree with:

"If you blame Gore for picking Lieberman, you legitimize Bush."
"If you blame Gore for being a bad campaigner, you legitimize Bush."
"If you blame Gore for losing his home state, you legitimize Bush."
"If you blame Gore for not using Clinton more in the campaign, you legitimize Bush."

The reason I ask is that there's a pronounced double standard going on. People quite freely criticize Gore for choices he made. When someone criticizes Nader for the key choice he made, however, suddenly that line of argument is inadmissible. Nader critics are accused (falsely) of contending that Nader didn't have the right to run, or, as in your post, are accused of legitimizing Bush, by pointing to some factor other than the illegalities. Gore, by contrast, seems to be a free-fire zone -- people who criticize Gore for, e.g., picking Lieberman are never accused of arguing that Gore didn't have the legal right to pick Lieberman, nor are they ever accused of legitimizing Bush. That argument is trotted out only in defense of Nader.

[morningfog]

116. All of those things are irrelevant when the critical point is aknowledged: Gore won.

Gore rightfully won the popular vote. Gore rightfully won the electoral vote. Gore rightfully won the 2000 election.

There were hundreds of thousands of variables that could have widened Gore's margins or legitimately flipped the election. None of those actually matter, because Gore actually won.

For example, the butterfly ballots in Palm Beach County gave Buchanan an inordinate number of votes that clearly were meant to be for Gore. Nobody blames that, which is much more problematic to democracy than a third party candidate running a legal campaign.

I have no problem with conceding that Gore ran a poor campaign. I have a big problem when anyone suggests that the theft of a United States Presidency was due in part to the legal exercise of democracy. It is about focusing on the illegality that occurred.

I was and am a Gore supporter. I voted for Gore. He won, Bush stole it with held from his co-conspirators, Harris and five justices. It is that simple. Nader was not a spoiler, because Gore didn't actually lose.

[Jim Lane]

117. I try to pre-empt the "but Gore won!" response

I don't think I've said (at least not recently) that Nader was partly responsible for Bush winning. What I've said is that Nader was partly responsible for Bush becoming President.

Frankly, it seems sterile to me to say "Gore won" because it depends on a dodgy definition. I see no benefit in debating whether "won" means "became President" or "rightfully won". Instead, I state the undeniable fact -- Bush became President. That still leaves me perfectly free to criticize Harris and Nader and the butterfly ballot and SCOTUS and anyone else.

Why I blame Nader (among others): Nader had a right to decide to run and a right to decide not to run. He chose to exercise his undisputed right to run. It was foreseeable that that decision would help Bush and might even result in his election. What in fact happened was that Nader's decision was (in legal terms) a but-for cause of the Bush presidency, because if Nader had instead exercised his right to not run, Gore would have become President.

Nothing in the foregoing paragraph requires me to approve of Harris's purge or anything else. An event can have more than one cause. And I continue to maintain that plenty of DUers understand this principle when they're criticizing Gore about something, but suddenly abandon it when the issue is criticism of Nader. That's a double standard and is intellectually dishonest.

[morningfog]

121. I don't think I can say but-for Nader, Gore would have won.

First, Gore recieves more votes. Despite that fact, Bush stole the presidency and became president. I'm not confident that what happened in Florida was simply spontaneous and opportunistic or if bush was going to do whatever it takes, and the scenario that played out was the FL debacle.

If bush had rightfully won, I would agree that Nader was, one of many causes. But he he didn't. The blocked recount was an intervening, and illegal, cause. In the legal sense, the causation rests with Harris and the justices. They are solely liable.

A criminal act broke the chain of events. All the preceding legal acts are irrelevant of the causation. People are free to dislike Nader for his decision and his comments, and if bush were legitimately elected, he would share the blame for the aftermath.

But, the presidency was stolen and that is all that matters. To focus on Nader now does two things I disagree with. One, it legitimizes theft of elections. It suggests that if the margins are close enough, we must accept stolen elections in our system. Second, it discourages democracy and supports the duopoly.

[reddread]

48. the American sheeple

who quietly allowed justice to wither and die in a few short weeks.
And it will never come back.

[damnedifIknow]

49. Gore may not have became president but he did win

The myth that Bush would have won had the recount proceeded dates back to a recount conducted by a consortium of newspapers that examined the ballots. The consortium found that “If all the ballots had been reviewed under any of seven single standards, and combined with the results of an examination of overvotes, Mr. Gore would have won"

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/06/yes-bush-v-gore-did-steal-the-election.html

[whatchamacallit]

50. Fuck Ralph Nader

Last edited Thu Jul 3, 2014, 04:40 PM - Edit history (1)

and Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning and Ratfuckers... Fuck everyone who have nothing to do with our real problems!

[Tony_FLADEM]

51. Katharine Harris and Jeb Bush paying Diebold $4 million to cleanse the voter rolls of minorties

[Jenoch]

52. If Democrats keep focusing on the past

we won't keep the senate and will also lose the Whitehouse.

[Warpy]

53. Jeb Bush, who refused a state wide recount

which led to the Felonious Five appointing Stupid our pResident.

[BillZBubb]

60. In the end, it was Gore's fault

He ran a terrible campaign. He ran away from Clinton and failed to use him in key states. Gore failed to work his home state and lost it. Gore simply wasn't a good campaigner.

That being said, Nader and those naïve enough to vote for him inflicted permanent damage on the United States by enabling bush to steal the White House.

The Democrats didn't have a strong candidate, so any third party that siphoned off potential Democratic votes was going to be fatal. Nader knew that, but went ahead anyway. Gore gets the loss, bush gets the win and Nader gets the assist.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

61. It's the politicians job to convince voters to vote for him/her.

Gore went after the "moderate" voters and ignored the left. He didn't convince enough moderates or the left.

[Electric Monk]

67. After re-watching George Carlin: Jammin' in New York, I wonder if he voted Nader in 2000?

and this was from his 1992 Jammin' In New York show.

1992

Watch the whole thing if you have a few minutes, or if you're in a hurry you can jump to 4:51

4:51 "I love bad news. I love bad news. Hey! The more bad news there is, the faster this system collapses. Fine by me. Fine by me. Don't bother my ass. Don't bother my ass none. I'm glad the water sucks. I'm glad it sucks. You know what I do about it? I drink it."

R.I.P.

[pnwmom]

68. While other people had an effect, Nader was the single progressive with the greatest

impact on tossing the win to Bush. No other progressive, other than Gore, controlled 95,000 votes.

[pansypoo53219]

70. i blame bill bradley. the gnewz media, AND nader.

and gore for picking lieberfuckenputz.

[mattclearing]

71. It was Bush.

They stole Florida. The Court was wrong, but Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris rigged the state with voter purges and Gore still carried it.

[beerandjesus]

73. Am I the only person on this forum who remembers the PMRC?

Because I guaran-fucking-tee, among people of my generation, the PMRC cost Gore far more votes than Nader.

[lame54]

74. Where's Choicepoint?

[Bluenorthwest]

75. SCOTUS and all the Republican voters who stacked that court.

Also the US Senate Democrats who refused to stand with the Black Caucus and continue the recount. Biden. Clinton. The lot of them. Not one Senator would stand. Not one.
Among our potential candidates for President we have one who voted for all the Republicans who appointed those nuts, another who refused to count the votes then swiftly voted for war while they all worried about flag burning and the threat of gay marriages. What a crappy history they have.

[unblock]

76. how about the damn media? ragging on gore's sighs and sweaters and supposed "lies"?

when al gore was pushing every federal agency to pour loads of immensely important information onto the "information superhighway", the press laughed at him.

this was the single most effective contribution to making the internet as popular and useful as it is today (well, after porn, of course).


then, when gore touted his achievement, they twisted his words and meaning to make it sound like he was claiming to have been the engineers behind the technical invention of the internet. the press covered the "lie" relentlessly, and virtually never acknowledged what a huge contribution gore made to building the internet.


the media has become hugely right-wing and odious, and that almost seems normal now. but their behavior in the election of 2000 was abominable.

[MannyGoldstein]

77. That's a good point

They certainly tended to go after Gore, not Bush.

[unblock]

80. oh, they were so tough on shrub. the teetotaler you'd love to have a beer with!

[Punkingal]

92. Thank you!

eom

[noiretextatique]

124. the media was complicit

In the judicial coup.

[B Calm]

78. Seeing how Gore really won Florida, the Supreme Court is the only logical answer!

[LonePirate]

79. I blame the Democratic reviewers who approved the wonky design of the Palm Beach ballot

Listing Gore in the second position on the left but associating him with the third hole punch cost him at least 25,000 or more of the 30,000 votes Pat Buchanan received in that county alone. There are no controversies or court cases if Democratic reviewers had objected to that awful ballot design.

[B Calm]

82. but even with all the dirty shenanigans that went on in Florida, Gore still had more votes.

So SC overturning the election is the one to point your finger at.

[LonePirate]

83. The SC would never had intervened as there would have been no month long recount

If that ballot had Gore's name and hole punch on the same line, there would have been no Supreme Court case. Any recount would have been completed, had one even occurred if Gore had led by 25,000 after the election.

[B Calm]

85. There are a lot of different angles and reasons to blame, but

it still all comes down to the Supreme Court deciding the election.

[truth2power]

81. Supreme Court. It was not Nader...

Chris Hedges explained it clearly in his book, "The Death of the Liberal Class".

I will have to, fercrissakes, re-borrow that book from the public library and copy those paragraphs from the book so I can have it available when people say it was all Nader's fault.

Of course that would ensure that Hedges gets stuffed under the bus, here. Unless he's there already; I can't keep up.

> > > >

Oh, and every time someone mentions Ralph Nader I can't help but think of the two little girls in my neighborhood, the same ages as my children, who were killed in a horrible auto accident at a nearby intersection, many years ago. Thrown from the car.

Buried in their Easter dresses, they were.

That was before seat-belts. Yeah.

[joeybee12]

84. You should have also included the spinless Dems in Congress as an option...nt

[Aerows]

87. Florida cronies

all the way.

[mia]

95. Diebold Indicted: Its spectre still haunts Ohio elections

http://freepress.org/article/diebold-indicted-its-spectre-still-haunts-ohio-elections-0

October 31, 2013

Diebold: the controversial manufacturer of voting and ATM machines, whose name conjures up the demons of Ohio’s 2004 presidential election irregularities, is now finally under indictment for a “worldwide pattern of criminal conduct.” Federal prosecutors filed charges against Diebold, Inc. on Tuesday, October 22, 2013 alleging that the North Canton, Ohio-based security and manufacturing company bribed government officials and falsified documents to obtain business in China, Indonesia and Russia....

This is not the first time Diebold’s been accused of bribery. In 2005, the Free Press exposed that Matt Damschroder, Republican chair of the Franklin County of Elections in 2004, reported that a key Diebold operative told Damschroder he made a $50,000 contribution to then-Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell's “political interests” while Blackwell was evaluating Diebold's bids for state purchasing contracts. Damschroder admitted to personally accepting a $10,000 check from former Diebold contractor Pasquale “Patsy” Gallina made out to the Franklin County Republican Party. That contribution was made while Damschroder was involved in evaluating Diebold bids for county contracts. Damschroder was suspended for a month without pay for the incident. Despite the scandal, he was later appointed as Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted's Director of Elections.

Diebold was at the center of Ohio’s 2004 election debacle, much of this captured in an article by Free Press Senior Editor Harvey Wasserman and this author, entitled, “Diebold’s Political Machine.” Walden "Wally" O'Dell, chairman of the board and chief executive of Diebold, was a long-time funder of Republican candidates. In September 2003, he held a packed $1,000-per-head GOP fundraiser at his 10,800-square-foot mansion Cotswold Manor in Upper Arlington, Ohio. He was feted as a guest at then-President George W. Bush's Texas ranch, joining a cadre of “Pioneers and Rangers” who pledged to raise more than $100,000 for the Bush reelection campaign.


Most memorably, in 2003 O'Dell penned a letter pledging his commitment “to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President.” O'Dell defended his actions, telling the Cleveland Plain Dealer “I'm not doing anything wrong or complicated.” But he also promised to lower his political profile and “try to be more sensitive.” But the Diebold boss' partisan cards were squarely on the table.....

[NM_Birder]

96. climate change ?

[MisterP]

98. Jeb and Harris--but the people blaming Nader KNOW that, as much as Rummy and Cheneybeast

knew Iraq didn't "do" 9-11

the only analogous situation I can think of is if half the people on the internet insisted the Egyptian pharaohs were all in the 9th c. AD, or believed Giordano Bruno was a science martyr

[hrmjustin]

99. Nader , theft, and the Gore campaign.

Nader took more votes from Gore. If he didn't run Gore would not have had to spend as much time in NM, OR, WI, and IA. With that extra time he could have spent more time in other states. Nader cost gore NH and FL plain and simple. Nader deserves a large amount of the blame.


Theft is a big part and the Gore Campaign was not run well.

[MineralMan]

100. It was your fault, Manny.

Just as it will be your fault if a Republican becomes President in 2016. It will be the fault of all of those who discouraged voting and reduced turnout. And that's the bottom line, really. If every Democrat actually went to the polls, there would be no question about the results. If someone discourages voters from participating or convinces them to vote for third parties, we all lose.

It is that simple, my friend.

GOTV 2014 and Beyond!

Election Activism-way MineralManny

[KamaAina]

104. When did the OP ever do that?

If someone discourages voters from participating or convinces them to vote for third parties, we all lose.

[MannyGoldstein]

109. It's obvious to anyone who *really* pays attention

What, you can't see the Emperor's new clothes?

[HangOnKids]

111. The Mineral Manny sig is creepy

But hey you know he is always right!

[MannyGoldstein]

110. Is this my fault, too?

http://www.iop.harvard.edu/Spring-2014-HarvardIOP-Survey

[El Supremo]

106. Sandra Day O'Connor in particular

She regretted her vote later.

[bigtree]

114. chad, nader, then Peggy Noonan and Tweety

. . . for going on and on about the sighing during the debate.

Oh, yeah, then nader again, just because chad.

[Jim Lane]

115. I refused to select because trying to name one is comparing apples and oranges.

Katherine Harris's ballot purge was illegal. Nader's decision to run was legal but stupid. The SCOTUS decision was in between -- the Court has the legal power to resolve appeals but is supposed to resolve them on the basis of the law, not politics. Its decision was a dereliction of duty but wasn't a clear-cut illegality the way Harris's purge was. As for Gore, how do you evaluate decisions when you have the benefit of hindsight, and he didn't? All the people screaming about the Lieberman pick should consider that maybe Lieberman on the ticket helped make Florida close in the first place.

[Oakenshield]

122. Just so no one gets confused...

I do believe the Supreme Court is foremost to blame, but I voted for Gore instead...because it's bullshit Nader gets more blame than Gore's shitty campaign.

[noiretextatique]

123. SCOTUS deserves ALL the blame

Eom

[yurbud]

125. You need a Jeb AND Supreme Court option

Jeb made it close enough for the Supreme Court to be in play.

[kentuck]

126. It was my fault...

I take full responsibility.

[yurbud]

128. three words tip it Jeb: FELON VOTER PURGE of 82,389 mostly black voters

oddly, those who like to blame Nader glide over this.

[RandySF]

129. I will never forgive Nader

I'll never forget him going around the country and telling the press that W was too dumb to be a danger to the country.

[lumberjack_jeff]

131. Plenty of blame to go around.

but the court has the lions share.

[HooptieWagon]

132. Many reasons, but ultimately Al Gore.

Had he run a better campaign, none of the other shit mattered or would have happened.

[joshcryer]

136. Wow, more blame for Gore than Nader.

We are lost.

[socialist_n_TN]

137. Why is this a surprise? I expected this outcome....

DU, as a whole, is a WHOLE lot more to the left than the cheerleaders are. And EVERY POLL TAKEN PROVES IT!

There are several very prolific posters on here that are "centrist" or "conservative" Dems (?), but they are just noisy and prolific. They're not the majority of the posters on this site.

[joshcryer]

138. DU was created due to Gore being sabotaged!

Those who place most of the blame on Gore are either ignorant or forgetful of the theft.

[socialist_n_TN]

139. Who's placing most of the blame on Gore? Not this poll......

This poll places the blame where it belongs, on the SCOTUS.

Actually as I recall, Gore DID deserve some blame by the type of campaign he ran. Not the majority blame just like Nader shouldn't get majority blame. But yes, Al Gore should get some blame.