Looks like the right is making a concerted

[Jim Lane]

63. You're very charitable toward Nader's folly.

One might also say that Bush's scaremongering about Iraq's WMD's "was not in complete congruence with objective reality."

Your description of Nader is technically accurate, but it would also be accurate, and more informative, to say that the whole fundamental rationale for his campaign was totally misguided.

As for Lieberman, I share your disdain for him, but he doesn't factor into this discussion. Nader decided to make his third-party run long before Gore picked Lieberman. Nader can't point to Lieberman as justifying his choice.

If anything, the causation ran the other way. Gore, being a practical politician, wanted to expand his support. With Nader, a well-known and popular figure, running on his left, he could reasonably conclude that an appeal to progressives would be less effective than if Nader were on the sidelines. The logical response would be to look to his right, and to name a running mate who had more appeal to centrists (who might otherwise vote for Bush).

You also seem to imply that Gore's selection of Lieberman hurt the ticket's electoral prospects. That's far from clear. Lieberman was indeed highly regarded by many conservative Democrats. Gore was campaigning in the shadow of Clinton's adultery, and Lieberman, who had an image of rectitude and had been stronger in condemning Clinton than had most other Dems, probably helped the ticket with a lot of people who knew more about blue dresses and cigars than about privatizing Social Security.

Then there's Florida itself. In early 2000, IIRC, the consensus was that the four biggest states were locked up -- California and New York for the Democrats, Texas and Florida for the Republicans. It was something of a surprise that Florida was in play. Lieberman probably had something to do with that -- he struck a chord among the Jewish population as well as among the social conservatives who had trouble getting past Lewinsky. It's quite possible that, with any other running mate, and with the loss of several thousand net votes to the Nader candidacy, Gore would have lost Florida honestly.

If the "any other running mate" had been Kerry, though, would his over-the-border strength in New Hampshire have brought the ticket the few extra votes it needed there? Gore-Kerry might lose Florida by 20,000 votes but win the election by flipping New Hampshire. Even now, with the benefit of hindsight, we don't know if that would've happened.

What we do know is that none of this is relevant to assessing whether Nader acted rightly or wrongly. The same is true of "Gore didn't even carry his home state." (You left that one out but Nader defenders often bring it up.) Nader's decision carried the foreseeable risk of splitting the anti-Bush vote and helping Bush become President, and that's what happened.

You seem upset that "Here we are talking about Nader's fault in the election...." One reason to talk about it is that the third-party silliness is still with us. Progressives should learn from 2000 that, on this subject, the boring old conventional wisdom happens to be correct, and the bold, daring, we'll-create-a-new-kind-of-politics romance of the third-party approach is wrong.

We talk about Nader's fault so that it won't be repeated.