Simple question about Nader.

[trumad]

If Ralph Nader did not run for President in 2000, would Al Gore have won the Presidency?

11 votes, 2 passes | Time left: Time expired
	Yes
	7 (64%)
	No
	4 (36%)
	2 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[B Calm]

1. I can honestly say I don't know. A lot of dirty shenanigans went on in Florida!

[morningfog]

3. Exactly. We have no way of knowing how far bush

Was prepared to go to steal it.

[AngryOldDem]

17. That's my impression as well.

The fix was long in.

I will never forget watching the coverage on Election Night when Florida was first coming into play. Somebody asked Bush if losing Florida was a fatal blow. He got this really, really shifty look in his eyes and said, "It's not over." Like he knew something the rest of us didn't.

We need to get past Nader and 2000, the way things are going NOW. Dwelling on what happened 14 years ago isn't doing a damned thing to help.

[City Lights]

37. True, and we will never know whether the people that voted Nader

would have voted Gore or chose to stay home had Nader not run.

[morningfog]

2. Poorly designed poll. Al Gore did win the Presidency.

So the answer REMAINS yes.

The better question would be, was bush going to steal the election despite Nader's constitutionally valid campaign?

[el_bryanto]

4. If Nadar's constitutionally valid campaign hadn't occurred, would Florida have been close enough to

steal?

Bryant

[morningfog]

6. I don't accept your question. It suggests that we

should accept that elections may be stolen. I flatly reject that.

There is no distinction between stealing a PRESIDENTIAL election by a little or a lot.

[el_bryanto]

7. Fair enough - If you aren't going to accept my question, I won't accept your answer

Because of course we both know that regardless of what should have happened in regard to Bush v Gore, we both also know what would have happened if Nader had seen the threat of Bush for what it was, and hadn't gone around pretending there was no difference between Bush and Gore.

Bryant

[morningfog]

9. No we do not. We have no way of knowing what

bush would have done if Nader hadn't run. This shit is so pedantic. It is really tellin the lengths of that those with this 14-year obsession go to. Focusing on Nader and giving short shrift to the theft show the fear many have of expanding our democracy.

When "loyal Democrats" focus on Nader rather than the theft, they are lending support to Nader's charge of "little difference" between the two. It promotes the idea that there should be two and only two choices. Third parties are "spoilers" and to be blamed when one of the duopoly steals the highest stakes election from te other.

[el_bryanto]

10. Except that this is the real world, and we saw what happened when we listened to Nadar

I voted for Nadar in 2000 - I bought the lie that Bush and Gore were fundamentally the same; how many people died in Iraq because people like me didn't see through that shit.

Bryant

[morningfog]

11. No people died in Iraq due to your voting for the candidate that better represented your views.

Don't shame yourself like that.

People died in Iraq because Bush illegally stole the election and illegally invaded Iraq.

[el_bryanto]

12. Did Nadar and Nadar supporter argue that there was no difference between Bush and Gore? Yes.

Was there a substantial difference between the two? Yes.

Bryant

[morningfog]

14. Did Bush STEAL the fucking White House? Fucking Yes.

[el_bryanto]

16. Yep - Bush is an asshole. So why did Nadar try and paint Gore as basically the same as him? nt

[morningfog]

18. WHo fucking cares? Bush stole the White House.

Bush is much more than an asshole.

[el_bryanto]

19. Because actions have consequences. Yes we should hold Bush responsible

But he wouldn't have been able to steal Florida without the assist from Nader. And because some of Naders former followers still go around painting both parties as basically the same.

Bryant

[morningfog]

21. Bullshit.

[Bluenorthwest]

24. If we don't want people to see similarities in the two Parties, you know what we should not do?

We should not have VP nominees like Lieberman who in 2008 stood on the stage at the Republican National Convention to endorse McCain and Palin. That suggests a bit of similarity, no? Then there are all those appointments of Republicans to the administration, including Chuck Hagel. Hagel along with Democratic current power folks Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, were Senators who refused to allow the recount to continue, any one of them could have forced a recount. The House was ready, the Senators said no.
What do YOU think of Senators who do not want the votes counted? To the extent that they'd rather see W as President than see the votes tallied?

[el_bryanto]

25. This poll wasn't bout Lieberman (asshole) or Hagel, Biden, or Clinton

It was about Nader.

So my opinions on those folks doesn't really matter; but yes, I think they made the wrong call in this case, and they should have required a recount.

Bryant

[Bluenorthwest]

30. It's about election 2000.

And the point is that while Nader is an 80 year old whose last outing was 14 years ago, many of the people who halted the recount are still wanting more power. Some are VP, Sec of Defense, a bunch of people who did not want the votes counted. Do I want to vote for someone who does not respect the ballot? Do you?
What they did that year did not make me feel good about our Party at all. To me it is always about our Party, not some other Party. It is about what we could do better.
A boatload of 'Democrats' voted for Bush in Florida. Why? There were as many eligible voters who did not vote as those who did. We left votes on the table. There were plenty of unregistered voters we did not register there. Why?
We can not stop other Parties from running, but we can make our Party capable of winning. Blaming others is a waste of time even when it is accurate, but looking for areas of improvement at home is never a waste of time. Time's a wasting.
We have an election in November. Already got the candidates. So electing them is more important than blaming some political footnote in his dotage.

Since the 2000 election, Florida has not improved their voting systems and each election they always have problems, long lines, scant polling places etc. Why has that not been addressed? Is the Florida Democratic Party too busy blaming Nader for 14 years ago to fix the damn problems?

[el_bryanto]

32. Let's go back and look at the poll again

Simple question about Nader.

If Ralph Nader did not run for President in 2000, would Al Gore have won the Presidency?

Yeah that looks like it's about Nader.

Bryant

[Javaman]

15. +1000 nt

[liberal N proud]

5. Al Gore still would have won and still would not have been President

The fix was in and there was nothing Al Gore or voters could do about it. It was a set up from the start.

[onehandle]

22. Nope. The margin would not nearly have been so close.

Gore would have come out with a plurality of hundreds, if not thousands of votes.

Instead, Bush came out a few hundred ahead.

Giving the public the perception that Bush won.

Bush's legal team ran with that.

SCOTUS froze the numbers to support them.


Nader diverted thousands of votes from Gore.

[quinnox]

8. Pass - Al Gore did win the presidency, but it was stolen

[Javaman]

13. +1 nt

[City Lights]

38. !

[Bluenorthwest]

20. If one Senator had stood with the House Black Caucus to continue the recount would that have allowed

Gore to actually take the office he won? Would it have harmed anyone or anything to count the votes? Was the Black Caucus wrong? Why wouldn't Biden, Clinton and the rest of that body count the votes? Hagel. All these people now in power said 'do not count those votes'.

I wonder if that's more pertinent than some 80 year old with no power who ran for office and got less than 2% of the vote on his best shot?

I think the focus on Nader distracts from far more culpable people, Bush, SCOTUS, Cheney, the Senate, Harris, Jeb, all of them took part. Add Ralph to the list, but don't try to distill the whole thing down to a asterisk like him. That's dishonest. It just is.

[stevenleser]

29. History suggests it wouldnt help. In 2004 we had a senator concur with a Pres election challenge

No additional counting took place. All that happened is that people spoke up as to why they had an issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2004#Election_controversy

It did not require Ohio, which was the question in 2004, to provide any additional documentation at all let alone perform a recount.

Ultimately, all congress can do is refuse to permit the election to stand which throws the entire results into the House of Representatives for the President, and the Senate for the Vice President.

The result of that would have been George W. Bush as President, since Republicans controlled the House delegations, and Joe Lieberman would have been selected by the Senate since the Democrats would have controlled the senate.

[Bluenorthwest]

33. So you agree with Chris Dodd that the Black Caucus was show boating?

They were unable to understand the law?

[stevenleser]

35. No, just like we anti-war protesters were not showboating about Iraq. Just because you cannot

fix something, doesnt mean you shouldnt register a protest if it is wrong. There was little chance that our protesting could have stopped the Iraq war. But I don't regret doing it at all.

Aside from the US Supreme Court Bush v. Gore decision, on around the same date as that decision, the Republican florida state legislature voted to give Florida's electors to Bush no matter what happened with the recount. That ensured that even if the recount continued and Gore was shown to be the winner, Bush's slate of Florida electors would have shown up to vote in the electoral college. That would have created an issue that would have resulted in Florida's electors not being counted at all and since no one would have had 270 Electoral votes without them, the issue, the Presidential election would have been thrown into the House of Representatives even if the SCOTUS had allowed the recount to continue.

[rock]

23. The question as asked does not imply whether he did or not

He did. So yes he still would have.

[B Calm]

26. I know, that's why I didn't play along and went with option 3!

[rock]

36. So if the question been

"If Ralph Nader did not run for President in 2000, would Al Gore still have won the Presidency?" so there was no possible trap, would you have chosen "yes"?

[B Calm]

42. Seeing how Gore had the most votes even with Nader in the race, the outcome is still the same. If

they want to point fingers at who is to blame, they need to point them at the Supreme Court, Jeb Bush, etc etc.

[bemildred]

27. It is obvious that, if Gore won with Nader in the race, and he did, barely,

then he would have won bigger without Nader in the race.

[Rex]

28. Well he did win the Presidency, even with Nader running so the question is moot imo.

I think some shouting the loudest about Nader...are feeling guilty cuz they voted for Bush in 2000 and of course since they are never wrong - yep, all Nader's fault.

[DanTex]

31. Yes. Period.

[CrispyQ]

34. Nader or no Nader, they were going to steal it.

After 8 years of incredible prosperity, the BFEE was going to install one of their own, so the looting could begin.

I recall an interview with Bush & he was just so damned sure that he was going to win. It was more than confidence or bravado. Nader may have made it easier, but the fix was in. They didn't get the title BFEE for nothing.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

39. Gore failed to win because he didn't convince enough voters to vote for him.

He tried moving to the right to get the votes of "moderate" Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. He failed. He didn't convince enough voters on the left to vote for him.

It wasn't up to Nader to win the election for Al, it was up to Al.

[JEB]

40. Gore did win. Even with Lieberman.

[Orsino]

41. No one knows.

I believe so, but pretending that we have data on that parallel Earth is silly.

Would Bush and Gore have been our only choices? Would the Nader votes have gone to someone else? Would Florida have fielded the same butterfly ballots? Would the corporate media have propped up a different candidate? Would the Florida vote have been as close? Would the Brooks Brothers Rioters still have been dispatched? Would the Supreme Court still have selected Bush?

Too many questions for any one simple answer.

[trumad]

43. Kick

[riderinthestorm]

44. Al Gore did win the election. That he didn't take the office is not Nader's fault. nt

[frylock]

46. Al Gore won. Full stop. Also GOLDSTEIN!!!12

[winter is coming]

47. I chose "pass" because I don't know. You might want to add that as an option. n/t

[frylock]

48. but that would defeat the purpose of the poll, which is just a "cleverly" disguised..

two-minute hate.