Sometimes your edgy demeanor can leave me a little irritated, but in this case, you don't go far enough.

Michael Moore is a shady, double-dealing, phoney, self-promoting huckster in the same class as Alex Jones.
 

On one side there's Nader's haters, and on the other side there's the Florida evidence: Had Nader never run, Bush still would have become POTUS.

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/
19/2007/2857

Summary of (the above URL article) "Will the GOP election theft machine do it again in 2008?" by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman:

Yes, if the current POTUS allows an election to take place.

Gore won 2000, Kerry won 2004, and Pat Buchanan was elected rabbi for a month.

Nader had nothing to do with the outright thefts, except for his not making a big enough issue of the voting machine riggings that had been exposed and documented even before 1988. It used to be his mission until he got marginalized for not being cool enough, hip enough, or vulgar in the least. Nineteen Eighty-Eight. Fuckn politicians, they show off their tattoos in the cloak rooms: "Radix malorum est cupiditas hahaha!"

Which Democratic candidate would you have confidence in to make sure the election won't be rigged?
 

I'll not be lectured on vote fraud. And I'm getting a little sick of those who use election-rigging (which is real) as an excuse for the Naderites.

Let me remind you:

Number of people who voted for "purist" candidate Ralph Nader in Florida in 2000: 97,421

"Official" difference between the Bush vote and the Gore vote in 2000: 537.

97 thou is a LOT, not the kind of number one can easily hide with vote fraud. There were a lot of people who said that the Dems would never win in 2006 because of vote fraud.

More to the point, if Nader's vote was insignificant -- if vote-rigging makes all other factors irrelevant -- then why did Republicans lead drives to put Nader's name on the ballot? Why did the GOP fund him?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/07/09/MNGQQ7J31K1.DTL

http://www.spitfirelist.com/f264.html

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041004/alterman

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200409/littlefield2

http://www.neilgod.com/news/articles/2004101711.html

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=7960

The Republican dirty tricksters would not have used Ralph as one of their tricks if they had no need to do so.

Nader supporters should stop making excuses and take responsibility. Election fraud is a serious issue, not a catch-all excuse for self-indulgent behavior.

A couple of quotes from the afore-cited 2004 Nation article:

"When I debated Cornel West and Frances Fox Piven before a large audience at NYU, our introductions were preceded by a plea from graduate student union organizers to support their efforts to elicit decent pay and conditions. I tried to point out that those students who supported both Nader and the union might wish to concern themselves with the makeup of the presidentially appointed National Labor Relations Board. Well, in July of this year, the graduate students who stuck with Nader got what they apparently wanted. The Bush-controlled NLRB voted to reverse an earlier decision and deny all American graduate students the right to bargain collectively."

and:

"What in God's name will convince Nader's remaining supporters to abandon his lemminglike march? It's hard to imagine what kind of logic will resonate with people who define themselves as leftists and yet remain unmoved by the sight of George Bush and Dick Cheney lying us into war, John Ashcroft attempting to criminalize dissent and Donald Rumsfeld rationalizing rape and torture."
 

I'm not lecturing anyone or defending anyone. What makes you think Nader got 97K votes in Florida? Who knows how many votes he got? No one. Since before 1988 the evil bastards knew they could get away with stealing elections, by changing my vote, your vote, as many votes as they needed, which your genteel locution calls "election fraud". They weren't the old-time 'voting irregularities' or dirty tricks. Or do you think they are? Can you name a worse crime against the people of the United States than changing their votes?

The "election fraud" as you call it had rendered your blogging for a Democratic victory in 2004 a waste of your time, in case you don't know it, since John Kerry won the Ohio vote. And unless you call it the crime it is, unless it's prevented in 2008, you're still wasting your time. I don't want that.

Why wasn't John Kerry the winner in 2004?
 

You're engaging in pure casuistry. Look, the evil bastards had to fight tooth and nail for every stolen vote in Ohio in 2004. It weren't no easy thing. Just look at the lines. Look at imported vote challengers from Texas. Look at the smarmy tactics such as making sure registration forms were on the correctly-weighted paper.

It wasn't just a matter of punching a few buttons at Computer Central. It was a battle waged on numerous fronts, and every single stolen vote took real effort. They pulled it off, yes, but just barely -- it was NOT easy.

That kind of fraud was even tougher to accomplish in 2000 than in 2004.

The Nader vote figure I gave is the official one, and I know of know one, right or left or whatever, who has ever challenged it. And you can't argue your way out of the fact that nearly a hundred thousand votes is a large number. Far too large for the "fudge factor" to overcome.

Our political landscape is now strewn with citizens who refuse to own up to their own irresponsibility. The Republicans don't want to admit that their vote for Bush saddled us with an unwinnable war and a nearly unpayable national debt. "That's someone else's fault; not mine." The Progressive Purists don't want to confess that they helped bring about those same disasters every time they claimed that there was no difference between Gore and Dubya in 2000. "It's someone else's fault, not mine."
 

Nader voters should just admit they elected George W. Bush. We all make mistakes. They are every bit as responsible as Republican voters who voted for Bush and still like him.

I think at this point we all know the truth of their line about there being no difference between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Ralph led us to where we are now every bit as much as Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh, and it was about nothing more than his aging ego. He knew and his voters knew he had no chance to win.

Gore would not only have won Florida if Nader had not been on the ballot, but probably New Hampshire as well.
 

I've long admired my fellow alum Ralph Nader, and it was a bitter pill indeed to be so disillusioned by his ruinous run in '00.

While I continue to blame him for hubris or whatever else motivated him, I now no longer think he had much to do with Gore's loss. Gore had to lose, whatever it took, so that Bush the Lesser could be installed. And the Nader candidacy was only one of the alternate slates upon which Gore's vote count was spread around.

Without Nader on the ballot, other, more obscure parties would have been given 'stunning' vote totals well beyond their wildest hopes, in sufficient numbers that the final result would have been the same, IMO. Perhaps slightly less credible than a big number for Nader, but they already knew and planned for a certain degree of electoral incredibility.

But it's a little funny to think that the election was stolen, and yet grant Nader's numbers some solid credibility, as if HIS total, at least, was legitimate. I cannot recall if his numbers were close matches to what his polling numbers would have indicated or not, but that doesn't matter. We should not assume Nader wasn't gifted votes beyond what were cast for him, as vote shifting was one of the key methods used to fix the election for Bush.

...sofla
 

While hypertext ought to have become the lingua franca of the blogosphere, the reliance on "casuistry" instead makes the place an earless talk-radio forum.

I can't find a link to the New Yorker article or even a reference to it today, but the article helped me grasp the technology behind stealing elections much easier than you believe it's possible. The article described two computer chess programs actually playing against each other. One of the software developers altered his chess player's program on the fly from his laptop according to the new position on the board. When I read that, I thought about the media 'lockdown' (from lack of information) after the Ohio exit polls had Kerry way ahead; the subsequent, but much later, reportage of the frantic email exchanges between Rove's office and Ohio's Secretary of State Blackwell; and you know the rest.

I figure The New Yorker published that story only for casuists like me, so I could try to annoy guys who would impersonate ostriches. Others figure it was published to scare our enemies who might not believe that the military have Mensa-smart weapons.

I figure "The Mind of Adolf Hitler" By Walter C. Langer was published in 1972 so the electorate could see the implicit comparisons the book made between its subject and Nixon -- not so George McGovern could use it to make more explicit comparisons and shoot himself in the foot by doing so.

I figure Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News on the Monday before the 1972 election concluded his program with a long presentation of 'never-before-seen' home movies of Hitler only to make a non-verbal explicit comparison between Hitler and Nixon. I remember Walter's tease at the top, his baritone emphasis on "in color", and the same emphasis as he introduced the Hitler movies.

Do you think Walter wasn't comparing a documented psychopathic dictator to a not-yet documented imperialist POTUS?

Someone maybe wonders what makes me think that the White House in 2004 had access to the kind of software that could monitor election results on the fly, and then alter the actual voting on the fly. Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

You know of no one who has ever challenged the 'official' Florida vote tally for Nader. Was there ever a legal and official challenge to the notorious (because numerous) 'Jewish vote' for Pat Buchanan in Florida?

It doesn't matter: you believe Nader caused Bush to become POTUS, I believe the voting machine hijackings made Bush president and got him re-elected.

It's also apparent that you believe without Nader's candidacy, Gore would have been president; and you believe it despite the evidence to the contrary, i.e., outlaws hijacked the votes wherever they needed to because no one would ever be permitted to audit the voting machines. You know, we're a nation of laws and proprietary rights.

Good night, good luck, and gefilte fish.
 

This is tired and old. Joe, you look more and more like the people you rant against every day. I'm tired of it being anyone else's fault that Gore lost the damn campaign, outside of those implicated in a cheating scandal. While you felt it polite to accuse me of all kinds of crap the last time I brought it up, I'll say again that Gore lost not because "he was no different than Bush" but because he simply was giving into backward policies in an effort to distance himself from Clinton. As I said in my last post here, if he'd given on just a handful of issues which are important to liberals, such as the death penalty, he probably would have gotten my vote. But, he didn't. Thus, I voted for someone who had ideas I liked better, not Gore. After all, in a Democracy, that's what were supposed to be able to do, no matter how much "party purists" like you might whine about otherwise. And guess what? If Gore were to secure the nomination this time around and speak the exact same plans and promises as he did
last time, I wouldn't vote for him this time aorund either, no matter how much it might irk people like you.

The Republicans, it seemed, figured out long ago that they can't afford to completely alienate their base or even their fringe. Somewhere along the way, Democrats lost sight of this and, for whatever reasons, got more concerned with the Republican base and fringe. That's fine with me. However, when a candidate makes the choice to walk away from people who would otherwise vote for them by almost entirely ignoring us. I'll be further alienated if they start lying. For example, using the Death Penalty again, Gore came out and said one of the reasons he supported it was because it deters crime. This was during a televised debate. I'm not going to apologise for being someone who prefers intellectual and political honesty. It was issues like this that turned me off to Gore. And, no surprise, he lost by a small margin. I wonder if he'd have lost if he'd just changed his stance on a couple issues that were important to others he basically blew off, and who you have accused of being responsible for his
loss. Rather than acting like abusive spouses, some of you "party purists" should have figured out that you needed to change your policy proposals up a bit. Have you? Not really. And look where we are.

It won't be people like myself to shoulder the blame for a war with Iran, Iraq, or any other spook story you want to scare up. It will be the people who implement and carry out those programs, and those who sell themselves short in an attempt to play politics. I feel no guilt for Gore's loss just as I feel no guilt for Bush's victory. The only people who should be feeling guilt, or perhaps a bit of humility, are those who pretend it's anyone but Gore's fault for his loss.

Get over Gore and get off your unearned high-horse. You sound like a bitter abusive ex-lover who is still angry over the fact that your better half walked away from you when you became over-baring and unappealing.

Best regards,
John
 

Forget Florida- if Nader hadn't entered the race, New Hampshire would have been a done deal for Gore-and the presidency would have gone to Gore in absolute terms.
This has been my argument for 7 years now, but for whatever reason, all those purists want to ignore the obvious home plate advantage Nader had in New Hampshire. You do the math and you will see -----it is all Nader's fault. As for those who want to state that Bush would have been allowed to steal the election one way or another- I say =----Nader gave them an easy alibi--and did it knowingly!
Furthermore--it was blaringly obvious that Nader knew he helped Bush gain New Hampshire in 2000, when later in '04, he disputed the vote count there-stating that he should have had New Hampshire-not Bush.
 

I support drafting Gore, and I proudly voted for him in 2000 and if he announces, proudly vote for him again in 2008, primary and general.

The two parties are not alike. Just look at the religious right for a moment. Their obsession: your personal life and a desire to make it conform to their religious doctrine by the force of law if necessary. The religious left: war, peace, poverty and general good-doing. The left suggests, the religious right demands.

Nader is worse than useless, because he cannot even get his ideas enacted into law. Gore, on the other hand has, and god willing, will. Gore has helped America go green, go interactive, think globally. Nader has nothing to match in accomplishments or reach. For those who were not even alive when he had battles with the car companies, it's Nader who?