All the nader crap brings up yet again Al Gore's "loss" of the 2000 election.

[Stinky The Clown]

Al Gore didn't lose. He won. The news of the Florida recount results never made a news cycle because it hit the street after 9/11 and th media chose not to ..... uh ...... 'mention' it.

Al Gore failed to stop the theft of the US Presidency. He won, but had it stolen.

Let's keep that in mind as we listen to all the crap about asshole Ralph. Ralph made Florida close enough to steal.

[robcon]

1. Gore lost. Bush is president.

Get real.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. You missed the news of the theft allowed, aided, and abetted by the Supremes????

It was in all the papers.

[walldude]

8. While I don't agree with H2S about Nader being at fault

there is no denying that Gore actually won the election. Bush's army(The Supreme Court) stopped a recount that later proved that Gore won the state and the election. He may be president but Bush didn't win the election he stole it.

[Bright Eyes]

11. WOW

Just wow....were you paying any attention in 2000?

[cloudbase]

2. If Gore had won his own state

none of that would have mattered.

[Raster]

19. Immaterial. Gore DID WIN THE STATE THAT MATTERED!

Gore actually won in Florida. The independent news consortium found that when all the ballots in Florida were counted GORE WON! This is not a difficult concept. (S)Election 2000 was STOLEN!

[OrrenBoyle]

4. We didn't do ourselves any favors in Florida.

We argued that "every vote should count" and now we've chosen not to allow a single one to count in the Florida primary.
It makes us look like idiots and hypocrites.

[flvegan]

6. Welcome to DU!

[MilesColtrane]

12. Actually the Florida legislature chose.

The Democratic party of Florida had representatives in attendance when the primary schedule was arranged, and I believe they agreed to abide by the final version.

[Skittles]

28. define "us" and "we"

you're not fooling me

[calmblueocean]

5. Gore won, but it's not just Ralph's fault it was close enough to steal.

There were a dozen different reasons it was close enough to steal, including Clinton fatigue, butterfly ballots, Katherine Harris, the media's insane bias against him, and his own wobbly campaign skills, among others.

[tuvor]

13. Don't forget voter apathy. n/t

[Captain Angry]

7. To be fair.

Nader didn't make it close. The voters of Florida voted for him enough that it mattered.

There must have been a reason for people to choose to vote for him over other candidates.

Perhaps there was a platform there that a few people liked more than the two promoted most heavily, those of the major parties.

I wish we had a different president, but the blame goes to other sources.

[Olney Blue]

9. I will never forgive Ralph Nader.

[Jawja]

10. But if Gore had won his

home state of Tennessee, Florida and Nader and Jeb Bush and Anton Scalia would have been a non-factor.

What happened in 2000 was outright election theft and an un-Constitutional intervention by the Supreme Court into the election process of Florida (they over-ruled the Florida Supreme Court).

That, to me, was the Gore campaign's biggest failure - not winning Tennessee. Otherwise, how could have stopped the theft of the Presidency?

[Popol Vuh]

14. Why is Ralph an asshole?

Let's keep that in mind as we listen to all the crap about asshole Ralph. Ralph made Florida close enough to steal.

I think to slander someone who runs as a different party candidate because they may take away votes from one of the other candidates is nothing less than political bigotry, as well as, an affront on our country's core principles.

[Stinky The Clown]

24. Assholes:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/7/7f/20060916212621!Lyndon_LaRouche.jpg



Quixotic Assholes who continually run for president with no hope for winning ..... both have been around since the 70s doing this shit.

[jgraz]

15. To blame Nader is to miss the real lesson of 2000

Gore and the DNC allowed 90,000 black people to be scrubbed from the Florida voter roles with nary a peep. How close would the election have been had Gore and the Democrats stepped in to stop that massive disenfranchisement?

[juno jones]

16. Good point!

Just where was the rage?

[clixtox]

17. Ineptitude

World-class ineptitude cost the world the current Bush crime family reign.

Inexcusable clumsiness allowed the 2000 (and probably the 2004 also) election to be fumbled away.

Blame must be shared by the Democratic Party, Al Gore and also to every patriot who didn't take to the streets and demand that all of the Florida votes be counted accurately.

Don't discount the possibility that, despite every indication, just as in 2000 and in 2004, the wily fascists will jigger the works enough to earn the "hat-trick" in 2008.

Ralph Nader is the least of the problems facing Obama's or Clinton's election this year. The issues Nader would like to air are where the problems manifest themselves.

Removing the health insurance industry from the health care equation or breaking up the media oligopoly are not going to be discussed.

Ending the continuing war crimes in Iraq immediately will not be "on the table" along with the ancillary issues around our wasteful war economy.

What the Democrats actually fear is that their centrist Republican-lite candidates will be exposed as the willing tools of our corporate masters.

[Raster]

21. THANK YOU!!! Wow logic AND rational thinking in the same good post!

Bless your heart!:hi:

Wake up America!:kick:

[juno jones]

29. I agree.

There is not enough examination of exactly why so many voted for Nader and the greens in that election. Many were wanting to put those issues you mention on the table, as it were, and got bitch-slapped and blamed for their pains.

The lefties are like any other minority division of the dem party. You can kick us around but you can't win without us. Maybe some listening is in order.

I talk about 2000 as an observer of the process. I was homeless at the time and thus not registered to vote during that election. But, whether or not it was true, there was a perception that Gore was going to be an extention of Clinton, pretty much the same staff and policies, etc. The DLC are kinder and gentler overlords, but they are oligarchs as well. And I suspect with a repub-dominated congress we would have had pulled much of the same kinds of shit on us, ie: I do not think a Gore presidency would have prevented 9-11 or Katrina, the blow would have been softer, but we'd still be hitting the boiling point about now with the so-called patriot act, etc. Granted we might have had a different supreme court, but any of Gore's moderate choices would have been shredded and we would probably currently have a bunch of pro-corporate stooges installed (minus the irritating religiosity, granted, but ultimately no friendlier to the common man) (at least the repubs would have filibustered, eh?)

I actually was more enthused about a possible Gore run in this cycle because he has evolved, become more activist, left the DLC and apparently become his own man.

edit to add, welcome to DU!

[FlyingSquirrel]

18. I have a slightly different take...

Gore listened to the people surrounding him who told him that he needed to change his image drastically. It happened right after the whole "lockbox" skit on SNL. Al listened to them and tried to completely change his image in a short period of time. What happened then is that he looked fake. He looked like he was not being himself. People prefer reality, and he was giving them something else and they knew it. The stodgy, stiff "lockbox" guy would have won. The fake "guy with a different image every day" lost. I myself had to hold my nose in order to vote for him after his antics. He looked desperate, he looked like he was focus-group driven, it was just a big turn-off and was EXACTLY what people did NOT want after Bill's second term. That's why he lost.

Sure, the Repugs disenfranchised thousands in FL and stole the election. But Gore could easily have won NH (Nader notwithstanding), and should not have lost his own home state. Several other states were also winnable (MO, OH, NV). Considering that MO is a bellweather state it should certainly have been contested to the maximum possible ability (and should be this year as well). Furthermore his choice of a running mate (Lieberman).. well, even at the time before he showed his true colors I did not like him.

[jgraz]

20. All very good points

The high-level message is that blaming Nader for 2000 ignores a lot of absolutely critical lessons for Democrats. Nader Derangement Syndrome caused us to ignore those lessons and led directly to the failures of 2004.

[Raster]

22. Neither Gore's image nor "antics" nor Lieberman's odor change the fact that GORE WON!!!

(S)Election 2000 was stolen, and by a variety of methods. But the indisputable fact of the matter is that in reality, if all votes were counted, GORE WON!

[FlyingSquirrel]

23. Yes, he won. Happy?

[Stinky The Clown]

25. We can cite a brazillian various and sundry reasons .....

There's plenty of blame to go around. None of that changes my view (likely shared by millions of others) that Ralph is an egotistical asshole.

[jgraz]

27. Funny how Nader is the only one of those reasons that Duers complain about...

[Lilith Velkor]

26. If you repeat the lie enough times, people will believe it

This includes contaminating the truth (that the 2K election was stolen) with the Big Lie (that Ralph made it close enough to steal, and all other candidates--including Bush!--are totally innocent).

[lunatica]

30. Nader's tactic is divide and conquer

As usual he no sooner announces his intentions than everyone starts fighting among ourselves. Forget the stolen election in 2000 for a minute and the fact that Nader had so many convinced that the Republicans and Democrats were no different from each other (thus dividing the Democrats and Independents). What I want to know is why people don't see that he only shows up for the highest contest in the country to be a spoiler. Can anyone think of another way of describing what his intentions are?

And for those who keep claiming that Gore lost his own state. After all the facts that have come out in the last 8 years doesn't it occur to them that Tennessee was also stolen? And hasn't it already been pretty well established that Rove's tactic has always been to win 'by a slim margin' so it's more believable? The only reason we voted a majority of Democrats into office in 2006 was because of the massive turnout of the Democrats to vote. Rove wasn't able to manipulate that one, to his surprise. Remember Bush publicly admonishing him for assuring him that the Republicans would keep the majority?