Nader's Numbers (from alternet.org)

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18828

Excerpt:

The DontVoteRalph.net study looked at every poll — since Nader entered the race this time — that measured Bush and Kerry head-to-head as well as a three-way race with Bush, Kerry and Nader. Of the 37 such polls, Nader pulls votes directly from Kerry in 32 and four show no difference. Only one, a Fox News poll, shows Nader pulling votes from Bush by 1%. These results also happen to be consistent with exit polls from 2000 which showed that Nader voters would have voted for Gore twice as often as for Bush.

There is a certain "duh" factor to the study. Who seriously believes that Nader has any strong appeal to conservatives? Sure, his platform includes positions some fiscal conservatives might support; but his Green Party background, lack of Christian credentials, liberal social agenda, anti-corporate themes and reputation as a "tree hugger" all render him an unlikely choice for conservatives. Angry at Bush or not, the idea that conservatives will storm the polls for Nader is about as silly as the idea that Democrats will defect to, say, Pat Buchanan, because he opposed the Iraq war. In any case, intuitive arguments are just that; the poll numbers speak for themselves.

Democrats and Nader have argued for nearly four years whether Nader "lost the election" in 2000 or not. They are both half-right. There are a number of reasons why Gore lost the election – from illegal tampering in the Florida election to the press's pack mentality to Gore's Republican-lite platform – but one of them is undeniably Nader. In fact, Nader's argument isn't that his presence wasn't responsible for tipping the election to Bush, it's that it wasn't the only thing that did: "Gore slipped on a dozen banana peels in 2000; I was only one of them."

The question remains: Why does Nader keep saying now that he will take away more votes from Bush than Kerry, especially when that notion is repeatedly refuted by polls?

. . .

and so are his supporters.

He won't cost Kerry the election. The fools who vote for him will.

MzPip
:dem: