Defining Nadir
I can tell you exactly what the polls will show by the end of the week: Nader doesn't matter. His own people don't even want him to run. I can tell you that I was actually considering voting for him last time around. I don't mind making a vote strictly on principle sometimes - and that's what I planned to do. I changed my mind when Nader royally botched a question from Matt Welch (one of the only reporters who actually covered the Nader campaign) a few days before the election. Matt asked him to reconcile his position as an anti-corporate outsider with the fact that he personally made loads of money with his Fidelity investments -- which were in those same companies he said were so bad for so many years. There were plenty of answers I could have bought, but instead he basically told Matt to mind his own business and acted as if it was an unfair attack. That's where Nader lost me -- I wanted to vote for the man on principle, but what his answer said to me was that he couldn't reconcile his own actions and he refused to be challenged on them. So I voted for Gore.

But what's important about this story is that people like me -- who actually considered voting for Nader last time -- would never, ever consider voting for him this time around now that it's clear he may have been a leading reason for Gore's loss. Most Dems who checked out Nader last time would never think of doing it again. And I would think Nader's bid this time will actually do several years of damage to third-party registration and action.
- posted by Amy @ 2/22/2004 10:15:00 AM