Emotional Need to Blame Nader...

[Brad DeLong <delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Mark Laffey wrote:
>
> > What evidence is there that Nader voters were in fact potential Gore voters?
> > That is, is there any data to show that had Nader not been an option, the
> > people who voted for him would have voted for Gore?  Surely that is the
> > correct question to ask.  Nader voters may simply have stayed at home rather
> > than voting for Gore.
>
> This is a logical and empirical argument, to which bruised Dems are
> immune. They have an emotional need to blame Nader for the fact that
> their guy ran a dismal campaign, and blew what should have been a
> landslide.
>
> Doug

We're not so much immune, we've just seen no evidence that Nader
voters who would not otherwise have abstained were evenly drawn from
the Bush and Gore camps. The evidence I've seen suggests that at
least two-thirds of Nader voters would have voted anyway had Nader
not been on the ballot--and overwhelmingly voted for Gore.

Claims that the Nader campaign did not reduce the Gore vote total
seem to me to be based on a willful disregard of the voting-pattern
evidence--to be not analysis, but comforting lies that Naderites who
now have a guilty conscience tell themselves in the middle of the
night.

That Gore ran a dismal campaign, and blew what should have been a
landslide, is not that relevant--for Nader to complain that he played
no role is like an assassin complaining that the knife shouldn't have
gone in because the victim should have been wearing an armored vest...


Brad DeLong