Let me start out by saying, there are two distinct groups of “they”, each with their own reasons and agendas for claiming that Ralph Nader lost the election for Al Gore in 2000.
The most visible and virulent, of course, are the sour puss Democrats. I understand how they feel. Which is why I have no respect for them anymore.
Disclosure: I was raised working class in Detroit, when unions were strong. I don’t think I even met a Republican for my first eighteen years. Certainly my parents, their friends, and everyone within 50 miles of the trailer park we lived in was Democrat. Until 1996, I voted as a knee-jerk Democrat.
So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.
The presidential election of 2000 was decided in Florida. Almost 6,000,000 people voted. Al Gore lost to George W. by 537 votes. There were massive irregularities in the election, including 54,000 alleged felons who were disenfranchised of the right to vote. Most turned out to not be felons at all, and 54% of them were African-American, a demographic highly likely to have voted for Al Gore. Also, there were all sorts of problems with chads and double-voting, usually attributable to weirdness with vote tallying and the ballots themselves.
Having said that . . .
97,421 people voted for Ralph Nader. It is assumed that had these 97,421 people not voted for Nader, they would have voted for Al Gore and he would have swept the election.
Wrong!
But even before I get into that, why don’t they rail against the 538 registered Democrats who were too lazy, too drunk, too preoccupied, too busy shacking up with some honey, too hooked on some soap opera or sitcom, or maybe too stoned, to get off their lard asses and vote for Al? Why pick on people who made a considered, deeply principled decision to take a stand against the rabid conservatism of the right — aka the Republicans — AND against the sell-out and betrayal of the progressive left by the Democrats?
It’s no secret. Bill Clinton and Al Gore were responsible for tilting so far to the political right they gutted the Democratic Party of its core values. True progressives — the kind of people who responded to Nader’s message — comprising the 97,421 and voted for him in Florida, were finally fed up with the Democratic Party, its pandering to big business, its pathetic cowering to bubble heads like Newt Gingrich.
If Ralph Nader had not been on the ticket, most of those 97,421 would have stayed home. Because they — like yours truly — had had it up to their widow’s peak with the Beltway’s business-as-usual, resented Clinton’s pivot to the right, and were stunned if not horrified by the corporate takeover of the Democratic Party.
I admit I was charmed by Clinton. I loved his humor, his persona, his sax playing. He was — and still is — a brilliant speaker, a real charmer. But remember, this is the man who led the charge for deregulating Wall Street and the abolition of Glass-Steagall, initiated the subversion of the social safety net with his aggressive attack on welfare, and foisted on a gullible nation the horrible trade agreement known as NAFTA .
Yes … NAFTA!
I remember watching the debate between Al Gore — who by then I found both articulate and in his robotic way extremely mesmerizing — and Ross Perot. I recall my reflexive and now embarrassing rooting for Al, wanting him to put that ugly little jerk in his place. But guess what? Al was wrong! I was wrong! Ross Perot was dead on the money. NAFTA has turned out to be, just as Mr. Perot predicted, a very bad deal for America.
That was just the tip of the iceberg. Much of the Clinton-Gore agenda — Mr. Gore’s commitment to the environment being the commendable exception — turned this country completely around. But in the wrong direction!
When the 2000 campaign got underway, many of us were getting wise to this. Growing numbers of voters were becoming restless, disenchanted. I sat in the huge coliseum in Portland, Oregon where 10,000 people paid to hear Ralph Nader speak. That’s right, we paid for tickets like we were going to a Sting concert. That’s how desperate people were becoming for a presidential candidate who talked straight and made sense.
So let me take this a step further. Instead of blaming principled voters who used the ballot to make a genuine cry for real change, why not blame the Democratic Party for making a challenge from Mr. Nader a necessity? Why not blame all of the knee-jerk Democrats who maintained their steadfast, unprincipled and unthinking loyalty, despite the fact that the party was moving further and further to the right, abandoning the unions, abandoning their core working and middle class constituencies? The country then deserved and still deserves a real alternative, a choice which aligns with the vast majority of the voting public on most key issues. The Nader phenomenon was created by the gaping void left when the Democratic Party become the Republican Party Lite.
Let me add the clincher now. The record shows that 24,000 Democratic voters defected and voted for Ralph Nader. Wow! 24,000? That’s a lot!
But guess what? It pales next to the 308,000 Democrats who voted for Bush! Yes, you read that right. 308,000 Democrats crossed party lines and voted Republican. Do you still want to blame good, decent citizens who voted their conscience in an attempt to save America from the selling out of the Democratic Party to corporate interests and Wall Street?
So, misinformed, misguided Democrats: Blame yourselves for Al Gore losing the 2000 election! Don’t scapegoat a man who has given forty years of his life to unselfish public service, has been a model of integrity, has always been open and honest about his views, never sold out, and has been rewarded with ridicule, mockery and every vile form of abuse our shallow and snide media clowns could whip up between games of Foosball and sniffing celebrity panties.
At the beginning of this article, I said there were two “they” factions who propagate the Spoiler Nader myth. The second set of “theys” is a little more stealthy. Please pay close attention, folks.
I’ll tell you who else benefits from this false narrative. The conservatives! The right wing! Because if the public can be convinced that the choice is only between Tweedledee and Tweedledum — as Nader characterized the Democrat-Republican option — there will never be a credible threat to their agenda.
The only occasion Democratic candidates — generally fairly privileged and connected individuals who live more in the stratospheric upper reaches of society — give notice to the needs of the working and middle classes are when they are challenged from the left. That’s why the New Deal became the agenda of the Democratic Party. The country was in turmoil and socialists and even communists were viewed as a legitimate threat at the polls. Same thing at the end of the 19th Century with the rise of the Progressives. When there is what is perceived as a real alternative to oligarchic, monopolistic, and corporate control, the Democratic Party must embrace progressive policies or get their butts kicked at election time. It’s pure politics.
But . . . if everyone can be convinced that voting for a third party is throwing away their votes, voila! No threat from the left. The Democratic Party makes its gradual but certain migration to the comfort and safety of Daddy Warbucks. Big money talks and politicians walk. But with their backs to ordinary citizens like us. With Citizens United and the recent McCutcheon decision by the Supreme Court, that is truer than ever before in our history.
So the other they — the right wing of this country — also want you to think there has never been or never will be a progressive option. “See what happens. You vote for those kooks and you end up throwing the election!”
I’d really like to think we’re smarter than this. But it’s not encouraging. Third-party voting is a tough way to go. I voted Green the last three presidential elections. As a result I suffer the constant taunts about throwing my vote away and being an air-headed chump. But I don’t for one second believe that I in any way furthered the evil juggernaut of the right wing in this country. I like to think — perhaps too idealistically — I’m just part of an awakening, a vanguard for what will turn politics in America around and restore something resembling the ideal of democracy to our nation.
There’s one other benefit . . .
I can sleep at night.
