Somewhere else to go

US Democrats and British Labour leaders are having to learn they have no entitlement to left-leaning voters

Gary Younge
Monday June 14, 2004
The Guardian

Hell hath no fury like an American Democrat scorned. Given the pious mendacity of the current administration, anger is currently the Democrats' regular emotion of choice. Just the mention of defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, attorney general John Ashcroft or vice-president Dick Cheney will set diatribes in motion. But if you really want to see them in a rage wait until the Bushwhacking stops and someone admits that they voted for Ralph Nader, the anti-corporate crusader, in the 2000 presidential elections.

The N-word should not be spoken in polite liberal company. Once his name has been uttered all camaraderie and bonhomie evaporate as readily as if the miscreant had confessed to relieving himself in the host's sink. There is a ready-made vocabulary Democrats use to describe how they feel about George Bush. When it comes to Nader, and by association those who voted for him, words fail them.

Backing Nader in 2000 was to them not just a poor electoral choice: it represented a moral flaw. But to bottle up all that bile for four years does not just make for bad karma - it is bad politics. To repeat the arguments for and against Nader's candidacy in 2000 is not the point here. Not just because it has been exhaustively examined in this column and elsewhere, but because to do so would simply compound the Democrats' fundamental problem: they have not moved on. And if they don't find closure soon, they could end up making the same mistakes they made last time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1238206,00.html

Cherish those words!