"we want to punish the Democrats, we want to hurt them, wound them"

[joshcryer]

85. I had a very different experience.

I was in a marginally red state, Nader never came up on anybody's radar I knew. I was a huge Nader admirer, and I appreciated what he brought to the table. I was extremely pissed off he was not allowed to be at the debates. I was completely disgusted by the Lieberman pick. Lieberman's debate performance was atrocious.

At the time I had access to cable (it was provided for free by the apartment I lived in). I was absolutely glued to CNN the whole time. Watched every debate. Punched my pillow whenever there would be some stupid ass crap about how Gore invented the internet, or how Gore was dressed, or how bland he was, or how he was very aggressive against Bush (getting all up in that poor down to earth guys' face, how dare he!).

So when I started to see that the polls were showing that it was very close I became extremely resentful over Nader's actions. Here I was in a red state (at the time, Colorado has since gone blue; and will stay that way for the indeterminate future), my vote meant basically nothing. I saw Nader campaigning in FL literally the day before the elections. I'm sitting there, wondering why the hell he would do that, when he had zero chance of winning.

Later I've come to realize that for Nader it wasn't about winning, it wasn't about supporting his party, it was about taking the Democrats down a notch. He even used the term "cold shower" to refer to why he was acting that way.

The big thing is though that he didn't really win over Democrats. He won over independents the most. The independent left, probably, we don't have the ideological exit poll data, or at least I can't find it. The exit poll up thread said independents were the deciding factor, not Democrats. I personally think the electoral map of FL would've looked a lot different if he didn't campaign so hard there.

So it's OK that you call me "another simplistic thinker." I obviously was a lot younger then and obviously couldn't influence anything. But to say that Nader didn't act aggressively against Gore's campaign I is think wrong. You didn't say that, you seem more focused on the fact that Liberman was a shitty pick. But Gore is alive so Lieberman would've never been President, and we would not have had half the shit hit the fan as it did (I do think the mortgage crisis would've happened though because the Democrats did pass legislation that attempted to get more renters into houses; a noble goal, if the loans weren't junk as by design by the elites).

One thing is for sure I have become much more active over that time, I singlehandedly got out 10% of the votes necessary to keep Colorado blue in 2010. I campaigned vigorously for marijuana legalization in 2012. And Colorado's GOTV and registering efforts have been an enormous success. Around election time you cannot go into any store without having a GOTV person trying to get you to register. While I have not been personally involved in registering people (I just took people to polls), I did help elect the guys that have got the ball rolling.

I think you will find going forward Colorado is going to be a shining example of our Democracy.