The fact is that Gore would have won Florida with a large
enough margin that the Republican mafia couldn’t have stolen the election without Nader’s help.

Bullfuckingshit.

First of all, let me head off the knee-jerk response: I didn’t vote for Nader. But this fanatical obsession with the myth that he cost Gore the election is ridiculous.

1) Gore couldn’t win his own state of Tennessee.

2) Think about it - the idealistic Green party types who voted for Nader didn’t do it because they thought he had a chance to be president, they did it to try and build a third party for the future. They weren’t happy with the status quo. They would most likely have stayed home and not voted at all if Nader hadn’t run! They weren’t going to vote for Gore in any event! Come on, Bart, you get mail from people you consider left-fringe all the time. Does that not sound like a more accurate assessment of their mindset? You really think they were planning on doing the safe thing and voting for the Democrat, but they just got swept off their feet by this charismatic outsider?

3) 13% of registered Democrats in Florida voted for George W. Bush. Registered fucking Democrats. Over 200,000 of them. Now tell me why you’re so obsessed with Nader voters again? Wouldn’t you kind of, you know, expect people who registered as Democrats to support the Democratic candidate? Why does this never get a mention, but people are still frothing at the mouth over Ralph, despite him having nothing to do with Bush’s reelection in ‘04? It seems Democrats are just as prey to herd mentality as Republicans are.