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Indybay Feature

A vote for Gore is a vote for Bush

by Bob McChesney
Will Gore throw the election to Bush?
Will Gore Throw the Election to Bush?
By Robert W. McChesney

This past Friday a dozen former \"Nader\'s Raiders\" held a
press conference and told Ralph Nader to drop out of the
presidential race and throw his support to Vice-President Al
Gore. Concerned about Gore\'s faltering numbers in the polls,
they argued that votes for Nader might well lead to the
victory of George W. Bush.

It is not an original argument. But the problem with it is
that they are asking the wrong candidate to quite the race.
Had they thought it through, they would have demanded that
Al Gore quit the race and throw his support behind Nader.

Think about it.

Vice President Al Gore has now had three 90 minute mano a
mano debates with George W. Bush. His campaign and related
soft money groups have spent hundreds of millions of dollars
on political ads to convince Americans to support him. He
has received an overwhelming amount of press coverage, much
of it sympathetic. He is a household name across the nation.

Yet here we are less than two weeks from election day and Al
Gore still is not ahead of George W. Bush, arguably the
least impressive and most unqualified candidate for
president in U.S. history. Many polls find him trailing
Governor Bush. And there is little hope for a turnaround, as
Bush has twice the money Gore does to bombard the nation
with TV ads. Were a politician the caliber of Bill Clinton
running against W., he would mop the floor with Bush\'s
carcass, and lead him by 15 points in the polls.

Al Gore has failed. For whatever reason, people just don\'t
like the guy, and the more they see him, the less they like
him. The voters have made it clear they might not elect him
even over such a numbskull as George W. Bush.

It seems pretty clear why Gore cannot expose Bush for the
fraud he is. Bush is owned lock, stock and barrel by the
huge corporations and the wealthy. As president, Bush will
reduce the tax burden on the wealthy and eliminate those
remaining regulations that protect the environment,
consumers and workers. He will also give the green light to
anti-competitive corporate mergers and consolidation. A Bush
Administration will make the Republican administrations of
the Gilded Age and the Roaring 20s look like socialist
states.

But Gore cannot attack Bush on these obvious points. Why?
Because Gore is pretty much in hock to the same crowd, and
the Clinton-Gore administration has been pursuing similar
policies, albeit with a different grade of rhetoric to dress
it up. So the debate is a lot of insincere focus-group-tested
sound bites or a lot of mumbo jumbo on a bunch of
incomprehensible policy programs. No one is advocating
positions that tackle the extreme inequality of wealth and
power in the United States directly, and the total
corruption of our governing system by big money.

Since there is little of substance to debate between them,
those voters who haven\'t fallen asleep are making their
choice between Gore and Bush on the basis of which they
think has a better personality. On that score, whether it is
fair or not, Gore is a sure loser.

Ralph Nader is not the reason Gore\'s campaign is struggling.
Gore has had ample opportunity to make his case before the
American voters. Gore had a ten-point lead in some polls in
September. As that lead disappeared, most of the votes
shifted to Bush, not Nader. In fact, surveys show that a
significant percentage of Nader\'s supporters -- perhaps a
majority -- either would not vote or would vote for someone
other than Gore were Nader not in the race. Most of those
sympathetic to Nader but scared about a Bush presidency have
already decided to vote for Gore.

Al Gore, and Al Gore alone, has blown his golden
opportunity.

In fact, Gore is damaging Nader\'s effort to reach
the five percent threshold and earn matching funds
for the Green party in 2004. If Gore were doing as
well as he should be doing, he would win the election
handily and Nader could get 7-10 percent of the vote with
little effect on the outcome. But Gore is indeed a dud,
and party hacks are desperate to find a scapegoat.

If Democrats are truly concerned about the fate of
progressive politics, the rational solution would be for
Gore to quit and throw his support to Nader. Gore can\'t win.
Nader can.

With hardly any money and worse media coverage than
Andrei Sakharov got from Pravda in the 1970s, Nader has
drawn the six largest crowds in the campaign -- ranging from
10,000 to 15,000 people -- and these were paying audiences
no less. When people actually hear Nader\'s message they
respond, and they respond favorably. Nader can galvanize the
citizenry in a way Gore cannot. He is the smartest, most
competent, and most honest figure in public life today. He
is a national treasure.

In leaving the race, Gore should demand that George W. Bush
have three 90-minute debates mano a mano with Nader in the
final 10 days of the campaign. Without Gore\'s dreadful
semi-Republican record, Nader will easily expose Bush for
the ignoramus that he is. Let\'s see Bush serve up his
banalities about favoring \"small government\" and \"returning
power to the people\" in the face of Nader\'s command of the
real record of massive corporate welfare that Bush supports.

Those genuinely concerned about the fate of progressive
ideals should urge Vice President Gore to withdraw from the
race immediately. Only Nader can defeat Bush. All that
progressives stand for -- the Supreme Court, a woman\'s right
to choose, the environment -- is on the line. The sad truth
is that on November 7 a vote for Gore is a vote for Bush.



by raieven (raieven [at] excite.com)
i agree that gore is lame, hemakes me sad everytime i see or hear him speak. i just have one question though, if nader gets elected, he will still have to wheel anddeal with our republican and democrat congress , and thus nothing is changed! argh! ok, very nice article though
by FUCKtheLEFT
GOD BLESS THE DULY ELECTED 43RD PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THE HONORABLE GEORGE W. BUSH. MAY HE REIGN ALL OVER YOUR LEFT WING PARADE.
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