Anti-Climacus

WELL: My thoughts on the Nader run:

The smartest thing the eventual Democratic nominee can do is just completely ignore him. Sure, it's true that if a relatively small number of people had not voted for Ralph in Florida or New Hampshire, Bush would not be president now (God help us all). But presuming that the Dem nominee needs to protect his left flank is based on two fallacious assumptions:

1. That the people who voted for Nader would have voted for Gore otherwise... it seems like you could believe that these people would collect around some or another fringe candidate... also, there is the non-trivial possibility that 3% of the country are actually Green Party supporters, and wouldn't transfer their votes even had the Green candidate been someone less likeable (to them).
2. That the people who voted for Nader would've voted at all otherwise

And, anyway, had Gore turned a similarly small number of moderate voters over to him (from Bush), the same result would obtain. In fact, there's reason to believe this is a much easier outcome to facilitate: people on the edges, idologically speaking, tend to be a lot harder to appease (what concessions would the Ds have to make to appeal to the average Green voter? I shudder to think), whereas centrist voters tend to be swayable by much easier means: personal appeal or a broadly designed policy goal ("let's save the environment!") will pull in a potentially larger number of votes with the smallest of outlays of resources (and without being forced to take on positions that scare off other voters).