Reply #19: Gore's record on the environment was mixed

[karynnj]

He was, of course, the leader in the fight against global warning. He held the first hearings and wrote a book on it. However, likely because he represented Tennessee, he voted against many environmental bills for clean water and clean air that impacted coal. If the environment was your top cause and your voting issue, Gore would not have been your first choice. (In fact, as recently as the early 1990s, this was not an issue that was polarized by the parties. Senator Heinz was incredibly good on both global warming and other environmental issues and President GHWB implemented the cap and trade system to deal with acid rain, while Bill Clinton had a horrible record in Arkansas.)

I do agree with you that articles, like the op's, were incredibly unhelpful and beyond stupid. I guess the underlying idea is that it has to get so bad that the majority of Americans would rebel and move radically to the left. The stupidity of this is that it welcomes the pain of things getting really bad -- I suspect for really bad for the poorest among us, not the far left intelligentsia. Additionally, in hard times, there is at least as much precedent for people moving to the right - ieHitler in Germany or Father Conklin, the depression era Rush Limbaugh or the tea party.

I actually found Nader's 2004 run, where he was less successful, more troubling - he said that Kerry was much better than Bush, even expressing an admiration for him AND, even more important, he saw the result of his 2000 run. There seemed no coherent reason he was running.

This kind of is like the writer here mentioning the fear of Bradley winning the nomination and making a far left challenge unsuccessful. This - and the 2004 run - show that they are not interested in moving the party left, but still within the mainstream. Just as, say, Michelle Backmann is too extreme to win -so is anyone that this person would be happy with.