25th Anniversary! Quarter of a Century!
[Duchess Note - When I was in Grand Central Station over the weekend [traveling to Yonkers on Saturday and CT on Sunday], I noticed banners proclaiming MetroNorth 25th anniversary. No, I am not celebrating MetroNorth's anniversary, but my own. A month late, but still, I am celebrating 25 years of living in NYC. Half of my life spent living here in the Big Apple and its been fascinating. I moved here from southern Connecticut on March 14, 1983 when the Conrail train strike was going on. What a pain in the butt that was ... train strike ... not the move to NYC! Lived on the eastside of Manhattan for two years and then moved to northern Brooklyn. So pop the champagne bottle and celebrate ... WooHoo!]

The BIG Lie: Nader Cost Gore the Presidency
John Marciano / Commentary

Ralph Nader's announcement that he will attempt another presidential run has brought predictable outrage from Democrats who blame Nader for Al Gore's loss in the 2000 election. They point to the critical Florida result where the latter lost by only 537 votes out of a total of 5,963,110.

Space limitations do not allow me to discuss many important issues surrounding the 2000 election and the ongoing 2008 campaign — such as electoral fraud and intimidation by the Republicans and the gift by the Supreme Court (5-4) of the contested election to Bush; criticism from Greens and independents about Nader's campaign and questions about why he and Cynthia McKinney (former Congresswoman from Georgia) are not running together on the Green ticket; the contention that there is not “a dime's worth of difference” between the Democrats and Republicans on fundamental issues; and whether genuine progressive change should focus on electoral politics, especially at the presidential level, rather than building a movement from below that will bring about substantive change in the nation. For a discussion of these relevant matters and presidential politics every four years, see historian Howard Zinn's article on “Election Madness” in February's Progressive magazine.

Instead, I want to focus on the “big lie” that Ralph Nader spoiled Al Gore's 2000 victory because Nader's total caused Gore to be denied Florida's electoral votes and thus the presidency. This assertion is totally untrue. It was not Nader's 97,000-plus votes in Florida that cost Gore the election, but the 900,000-plus registered Democrats there who did not support him. One can say the same of the millions of registered Democrats in other states who voted for Bush or who did not bother to vote. In November 2000, the San Francisco Chronicle estimated that 200,000 registered Florida Democrats voted for Bush. Nader himself put the figure at 250,000. Regardless of these estimates, the overall facts in Florida are indisputable: In 2000, there were approximately 3,853,000 registered Democrats, 43.4 percent of the electorate, compared to approximately 3,474,000 Republicans, or 39.1 percent. The rest were independents or registered with smaller parties. Gore received 2,912,253 votes there in 2000, 940,747 less than the total number of registered Democrats.

The facts are clear: Some 941,000 Florida Democrats did not vote for Gore, nearly 10 times the number who voted for Nader. So who is to blame for losing the election — the Democrats or the Greens and others who voted for Nader and, by implication, Nader himself? Democratic laments about the lost 2000 election in Florida and nationally obscure the truth: Democrats handed Bush the election; STOP BLAMING NADER!

John Marciano, a long-time Ithaca resident, lives in Santa Monica, CA ... to read the article, go to: http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080409/OPINION02/804090305