No Nader Effect this year?

[Ben.]

In actual fact Nader did not pursue a “safe state strategy” in 2000 he pushed hard in Florida towards the end of the campaign and in Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Maine where all states where Nader weakened the Dem total and denied Gore solid wins or in the case of NH and FL he cost Gore those states.

As for 2004 Nader has already said on different occasions that he has some sympathy with Kucinich, Dean and Kerry and added to this he is under strong pressure from Green party leaders to not run, instead a lot of pragmatic greens seem to want to get Bush out and run a candidate who will not threaten costing the Democrats the election, so long as the Dem nominee is pro-environmental issues and with Kerry they have a stronger environmental candidate than they would with Dean.

In 2004 the real risk is a Dean run on a Green or independent ticket as a liberal “true believer” I doubt it will happen and sincerely hope it does not…however Dean announcing he will continue on after WI have caused some speculation that perhaps he is looking to an independent run if so he is a monumental fool…

A Dean independent run would attract liberals but the majority of the 20% of Americans who consider themselves liberals would vote ABB and side with the Dem nominee…however combined with some greens he might garner a little less than nadir in 2000…less because the majority of Dems and left leaners will side with the Dem nominee to get Bush out so in the end Dean will be left with a small core vote of disaffected liberals and radicals it could be like a version of Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party from 1948 (then again Wallace eventually left the party when he realised it had been overrun by Communists) but in 1948 Truman still won despite the Dixiecrat defect in addition to Wallace’s run.

If Dean did go Ind…perhaps his fiscal conservatism and social liberalism could allow him to run with Jesse Ventura… “the ultimate tag team”…. joking