Should Nader receive anymore attention at all?

[IowaLibert]

The reason you're going to hear for keeping Nader in the polling is this - In a really close election he's still liable to be a factor. And people will want to know and measure that.

Now the above provides no reason at all to keep him in national polls since, as we all know, this is really 51 separate concurrent elections.  But reason doesn't always prevail.

The above obviously isn't a reason to include him in state polls where he's not on the ballot.  But polling organizations have shown some remarkable reluctance to tailor their polls to reflect the actual ballot status of candidates state-by-state.

There is a very decent rationale for the above reluctance: Who actually knows at this stage?  Some deadlines haven't yet passed.  Some situations are in court.  Some are just plain weird (Nader & the Reform Party's ballot spots in a handful of states).

So there are enough precieved "need to know" and enough uncertainties that pollsters can easily get away with sticking to what they've been doing.  And of course what they've been doing is self-fullfilling prophecy - who they choose to poll is de facto the media's annointed "alternative candidate".