I would argue that many of the votes that went to Bush in 2000 by percentage of the total population were from Cuban Americans. Bush’s triumph in the southern swing state can be accounted for the 82% of Cuban-Americans voting for the him. This goes to show that a small portion of the overall population can have a momentous effect on the election outcome, especially in states with a diminutive margin between the candidates running. The reason Florida even became a battleground state in the first place was because Governor Jeb Bush’s family ties, his upsetting of black voters, and Gore’s running mate, Joe Liebermann encompassing political clout with Florida’s Jewish and senior communities. The foremost social group in the 2000 election though showed up to the polling places in large numbers, as Cuban-Americans held contempt for the Democratic decision by Janet Reno to send Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba. If the state’s 8% makeup of Cuban-Americans did not show up to vote on Election Day, Gore may have very well been declared the winner.

That being said, there were also so many factors that led to the demonization of Nader, namely the mass media. And remember the infamous butterfly ballot? On The Today Show, November 9, 2000, Pat Buchanan said,
“When I took one look at that ballot on Election Night … it’s very easy for me to see how someone could have voted for me in the belief they voted for Al Gore.”

It would be shameful not to mention Greg Palast’s analysis of the election. He stated “If Vice President Al Gore is wondering where his Florida votes went, rather than sift through a pile of chad, he might want to look at a “scrub list” of 173,000 names targeted to be knocked off the Florida voter registry by a division of the office of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris.” Most of them were historically Democratic Party voters by racial statistics.

I think a continuous dialogue is necessary to see the overall picture within our democratic failures. Instant Run-off Voting is a prime example of how we can alleviate some of these serious problems. Nader, if anything, brought that to light. He also let me vote on principle in 2004, rather than two sides of the same coin.

It is one thing to be enthusiastic for candidate or campaign but don’t take it to the level of delusion. A candidate that pulled less than 3% of the vote and was about 48 million votes behind the next candidate was not going to win regardless of whether Gore-Liberman dropped. Super-Rallies are nice but clearly they were not an indicator of Nader having mass cross sectional broad based support, they may well of being an indicator that the supporters he did have were very dedicated.

… [snip] … As a Green Party activist, I know I’ve talked to way too many Democrats who believe that Dennis Kucinich is leading internal reform of the Democratic Party, so they stay rather than switch to Green. … [snip].

Phil Sawyer responds:

Something about that statement does not seem correct to me. I think that most of the Kucinich supporters in the Democratic Party have to be cognizant of the fact that they comprise a distinct minority withing the Party. It is probable that some of them are just too fearful about leaving the comfort zone of the largest and oldest political party in our country. Others, I think, are probably just turned off by a lot of the over-the-top statements and bad decisions that come from Old Guard Leaders in the smaller parties (the prime example of this is the Peace and Freedom Party of California). If there was a new, Progressive Party (on a national level), that might be enough to get some of them. Certainly not all, though. I have been through this too many times to know just how difficult it is to start and grow a new political party in this country. We did pretty darn well with the Reform Party, though!

Perhaps the better metaphor is a magnet, not flypaper. “Attraction effects”, as the authors of the paper call it, may not keep Greens and Libertarians, just for example, stuck in the Democratic and Republicans parties, but keep them nearby, like a magnet alternately attracting and repelling as something gets moves around it. I guess the point is that social sciences are not good at proving causalities, only at illustrating tendencies. So if you’re looking for proof of why Gore lost and why people affiliate with the parties they do, I guess this is just one of the factors you have to take into account.

Thanks for the story.

“A neo liberal program that was virtually the same as the neo-cons.”

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I was wrong. Polar bears LOVE fly paper, since polar bears are virtually the same as flies.

As it turned out Gore-Lieberman won Florida and were too stupid to call for a full recount because they didn’t care what the voters wanted. To say otherwise is to rewrtie history.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/111201a.html

Al Bore ran a terrible campaign on a neo-liberal platform that was virtually the same as the neo-cons. They had to shut Nader out of the debate in order to keep his poll numbers down.

Gore and Bush were wise to shut Nader out of the debates because they would have been schooled! But keep the politcal bigotry and misinformation rolling along!

In fact many who have remained in The Libertarian Party actively backed Ron Paul last year as the most prominent public figure promoting a libertarian viewpoint.

Likewise many Greens remain in the Green Party but still campaigned for Dennis Kucinich. Nader’s running mate Matt Gonzalez campaiged for Kucinich before joining Nader’s ticket.

Third party activists in a two-party system have to be creative in supporting insurgent campaigns.