Nader campaigned hard in the swing states in 2000, even though many people asked him to endorse vote swapping instead. If he had swung his support to the Democrats in the waning days of the campaign, only a small fraction of his 97,000 Florida voters would have been enough to swing the election. But he wanted to punish the Democrats, not help them.
http://www.hereinstead.com/Ralph-Nader-As-Mad-Bomber.htmlBy Harry Levine, Dept. of Sociology, Queens College, City University of New York
In the year 2000, Ralph Nader strapped political dynamite onto himself and walked into one of the closest elections in American history hoping to blow it up. He wanted to punish the Clinton-Gore Democrats for having betrayed him and the causes he believes in. His primary campaign mission was defeating Al Gore, but Nader concealed this from his supporters, even as he went after votes in swing states like Florida. On the day after election day, when everyone else was grim, and many Democrats were furious at him, Ralph Nader was a happy man.
The following essay presents evidence for this large claim and describes how I first learned this in the fall of 2000. Since the election, political discussions about Nader's campaign have often focused on its electoral effect. Did Nader's 97,000 votes in Florida defeat Al Gore making George W. Bush president? Most observers seem to agree that they did, but others insist that many factors defeated Gore. However, independent of the effect of the Nader campaign on the election results, one can ask about what Nader wanted to have happen. Now that he has decided to run again, in what promises to be another very close election, it is worth examining what Ralph Nader intended the last time.
The Nader Campaign
Before October 2000, I regarded Ralph Nader as a heroic public figure. . . .Eventually I was introduced to Tarek Milleron, Ralph Nader's nephew, the single person closest to him in the whole campaign. Over the years, Nader had alienated many of the people who worked with him, but as family Tarek could be trusted.
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I then turned to my favorite argument. . . . . Tarek did not disagree with that at all. Instead, leaning toward me, with a bit of extra steel in his voice and body, but without changing his cool tone and demeanor, he simply said:
"We are not going to do that."
"Why not?" I said.
With just a flicker of smile, Tarek said: "Because we want to punish the Democrats, we want to hurt them, wound them."
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