It's not just teabaggers that do this damage.

But Nader would've been unnecessary if Dems hadn't sold voters down the river in favor of corporate owners. Just as easy to find the rebranding of the party at fault.

Than George Bush did.

He had every right to run for President, as did Pat Buchanan.

One could conceivably blame those who voted for Nader, but that's also not really fair - they voted their conscience, as is their right as American citizens.

One could more accurately blame the Gore/Liberman campaign for failing to convince enough voters to cast ballots for their candidates.

Votes are earned, not granted.

jeezus, get over it.

So all it would have taken to make him even more irrelevant was registration drives and GOTV efforts. If our Party left thousands of votes on the table we really can't blame another Party for running and getting a tiny amount of votes. You know what's worse? That lesson went unlearned and we still leave votes on the table. 14 years and Florida has not made voting easier, the Democrats have not pushed for that nor have they executed sufficient voter drives.
It is our job to win. It is not other people's job to win for us.

With all that has happened since the 1980s, the nation is still pretty sleepy.

just voted to get rid of the 35' abortion provider buffer zone, right?

You make a strong case for why we need an unabashed liberal candidate who will appoint truly 'left' SCJ's, not weak-tea 'left' justices who will allow women's reproductive rights to be whittled away.

I think the non-evil side of the SJC's voted on a larger principle.

I remember at DU during the days of the Iraq War protests (and subsequent otehr protests) there was ire directed at the creation of "free speech zones" and other concepts to curb demonstrations.

The same rights that protect those we agree with have to also apply to those we disagree wtih.

if the Supreme Court didn't maintain its own 100 foot buffer zone against protesters. If we want to base the argument on 'equal rights', then the Supreme Court should likewise only have an 8 foot buffer zone.

or that there wasn't a lot of hypocrisy on the bench

All of these people who are not going to vote for this person or that person or, worse, will vote for a Nader-like candidate, and we lose, should be held personally responsible for a catastrophic supreme court.

That's why we have Primary races. Nader never got even 2% of the votes cast. Every election we have many times that number of actual registered Democrats who don't cast a vote. That's the problem, not some 3d Party candidate. If they don't show up, we don't win. What are you doing in your State to increase turnout? What was your turnout last time? Was Nader on the ballot? Did you manage to break 50%? Did the Democrats win?