There are conservatives who are furious with Bush over the deficit, over corporate subsidies, over corporate pornography directed toward children, over the Patriot Act, over many other issues. And they may be looking for an Independent candidacy. There are liberal Republicans who see their party taken away from them. They may be looking for an Independent candidacy. There are a hundred million non- voters that no one has figured out how to bring back into the electoral system, which I want to try to do.

Right. Conservative Republicans are going to be voting in droves for Ralph Nader. Libertarian Conservatives are clamouring to vote for Ralph Nader. Pat Buchannan-esque anti-free traders are ready in line to vote for Ralph Nader.

According to the exit polls conducted by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, fully 25% of his votes came from Republicans, 38% from Democrats, and the remainder from people who would not have voted. No other American leader can be credited with such broad appeal across the divides of our polarized nation.

Okay. Let’s test out the Nader effect in the state of Florida based upon this somewhat specious poll. (Other polls exist that come to a less incredulous conclusion.)

As is:

Bush 2,912,790 ………… 48.85% …… 25
Gore 2,912,253 ………… 48.84% ……. 0
Nader 97,488 ………….. 1.63% …… 0

Hypothetical
Bush 2,937,162 …………. 0
Gore 2,949,298 …………. 25

Hm. Gore wins in Nader’s “Republicans voted for me too” calculations. Imagine that.

Actually, this is counter-intuitive, but I hold the theory that Nader helped Gore in the end. Forced Gore to define himself as something… anything. Stare at the polls throughout 2000, and Gore was consistently behind from the summer of 1999 right up until the Democratic convention, when he unveiled his “People versus the Powerful” campaign line. Say what you want about the campaign, whether it was meaningful or not, but until that point in time, the campaign message of where he was going was non-existant.

I heard him here in Portland, Oregon. His stump speech clearly had the “Please don’t vote Nader” undertone with it — focus strongly on the environment. Nader forced his campaign-stylings to the left. The swing voter is largely non-existant these days, (and the current theory on swing voters is that they’re politically conflicted, and see good with both limited government and responsive government) so we have the current theory of “The Base is where it’s at.”

Also, Nader may well have brought in voters who wouldn’t have voted, and at the last minute decided that Gore, the lesser of two evils, was preferrable to Bush.

Anyway, I’m not entirely sold on my theory, but I do think it’s a reasonable and highly likely conclusion.

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