How much cash will Bushites give Nader?

How much will Ralph Nader help George Bush electorally in November 2004? And how much will Bush supporters help Nader financially?

We won't know until after the election, if ever. Or so I think, after reading a detailed analysis by Mark Simon ("Nader a threat to Kerry, polls say," San Francisco Chronicle, 1 April 2004). We know that Nader drains votes from Democrats, changing the popular vote; but it's harder to see how this affects the electoral vote. When a state goes overwhelmingly for one of the major-party candidates, then votes for minor candidates do no harm. That's why "vote-swapping", between individual Greens and Democrats living in different states, is a good idea.

Trouble arises in the 18 "battle-ground" states, where the difference between Bush and Gore votes was 6 percent or less. In some of these, the difference was less than the estimated "margin of error" for the voting system. Here the "undecided" voters, who tend to be not only moderate but also uninformed and uninterested, hold our nation's fate in their fumbling hands.

In eight of these 18 close states, Nader's vote was larger than the difference between Bush and Gore. But this didn't usually give the state to Bush. Of these eight states, six gave their electoral votes to Gore, and New Hampshire gave its votes to Bush.

The final close state was notorious Florida, where the popular vote was too close for nonpartisan observers to call fairly. (In my opinion, when the difference between the two top candidates is less than one percent in a state, then that state should hold a runoff between those two.) To end the resulting crisis, five U.S. Supreme Court justices chose Bush as our court-appointed master.

This coup d'etat SHOULD have fuelled a mass movement to reform our electoral system; but that never happened. There was plenty of name-calling, back-biting and finger-pointing; but the American people were too shallow-minded to repair our broken system. (As for professional practitioners of electoral arts, they LIKE the unfair Rube Goldberg contraption, because its complex irrationality gives paid work to experts.)

Some observers hope 2004 will be less painful than Y2K. On the optimistic side, (1) by scorning the Green Party, Nader has lost many progressive and environmentalist votes; and
(2) now voters know much more about Bush than they did last time. On the pessimistic side,
(3) Al Qaeda in 2001 forced moderates to rally round Bush, belatedly givng him a mandate; and
(4) Kerry, like Gore, lacks charisma.

Now the Nader campaign needs to convince liberals and progressives that a vote for Nader isn't necessarily a vote for Bush. Toward this aim, they claim that 25 percent of Nader's votes came from Republicans in 2000. In response, I'd like to ask Nader two questions:


***What percentage of Nader's campaign funds came from Bush supporters in 2000?


***How many millions will Bush supporters donate to Nader in 2004?


Queerly,
Tortuga Bi LIBERTY,
veep, Senior Unlimited Nudes

POB 426937-SUN
San Francisco, CA 94142-6937

Saturday morning, 3 April 2004
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