There is a Matt Welch review up at the Reason site of Ralph Nader's book about the 2000 election. A good review -- Welch takes apart Nader, particularly on truthfulness:
We?ve come to expect this kind of professional dishonesty from the two
major political parties, which is one of the reasons many of us find them
repellent. But coming from a "purity" candidate who wants to lecture us on
"how to tell the truth," it suggests a certain self-delusion.
What I find fascinating about what Nader says in the book, is that he is still denying the idea that he cost the Democrats the election. The greens were trying to downplay the possibility before the election, too, but now there is plenty of hard evidence that Nader did in fact spoil the election.
Now, if I were the Greens I would be making that fact known widely, loudly, and clearly. This is how they can achieve their goals. The Greens themselves, like their intellectual forbears, the Socialists, will never get elected to anything substantial in America. Our winner-takes-all elections are not stable with more than two parties. But clearly outsiders can influence the process; the way they do it (among other means) is to get their ideas adopted by the big parties.
But the big parties don't need to bother with the idea of little parties -- unless those little parties credibly threaten them. To threaten them you need to cost them elections, or at least show possibilities of it. But the actual deed of costing them an election is the best threat.
So the fact that Nader beat Gore is something he should be proud of. Instead he is lying about it. How like a politician, yes. I expect that. But how stupid of him not to make their case to his supporters!
Now Nader is not a stupid man. He has to know what he has wrought; so the only possibly explanation for lying about it is that he is trying to have it both ways. He knows that the Democratic establishment knows that he cost them the election. But he thinks the sort of people that might vote Green are too stupid or uneducated to understand strategic behavior in politics. Perhaps he is warranted in his contempt, but then it makes you wonder why he wants to lead a group of imbeciles.
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