A lot of nonsense has been spoken in the last few years about Nader having "taken votes from Gore" and having "handed the Whitehouse to Bush". It's all coming out again now that Nader has said he will stand again. Let's think about what it's really saying, though.

First, let's look at the minor assumptions that are sometimes brought up to counter the argument. I say minor, because whether they are true or not is fundamentally irrelevant.

Assumption 1: Those who voted for Nader would have voted if he hadn't stood.
Assumption 2: Those who voted for Nader would have voted for Gore if Nader hadn't stood.

There is no real evidence to back up either of these assumptions. Relatively little research has been done, but the research that I've seen seems to suggest:

1. Most of those who voted for Nader would have stayed at home if they hadn't voted for him. In other words, they weren't "democrat voters" or "republican voters", they were Nader/Green voters.
2. Of those who would have voted for another party, they were roughly equally split between those who would vote Democrat and those who would vote Republican.

But as I've said, these things aren't really relevant at all. It doesn't matter if they are true or not.

Let's look at what is being said (mainly by Democrats) about Nader's candidacy:

1. They are saying: Nader took votes that belonged to Gore.

This is the single most iniquitous and undemocratic argument I've heard in many years. It's also one of the most common. Here's the truth: votes do not belong to political parties. They do not belong to candidates. They belong to the voter. He or she is totally free to cast them for whoever he or she wishes, or to withold that vote. That is democracy. What the Democrats are attempting with the argument is to lay claim to the votes, to take possession of the vote from the voter. That is not their right.

2. They are saying: A vote for Nader equates to a vote for Bush.

Again, this is arrant nonsense. The voter, in a democratic society, chooses to vote for the candidate who the voter wishes to see elected. The Democrats, and the Republicans, don't want to see positive voting. They put vast efforts into ensuring that voters feel pressurised into voting for the least worst option rather than for the best (from the voter's point of view). You can see it happening in the Democratic primary. You saw it in the last presidential election. It's not "vote for Gore because he's the best candidate" it's "vote for Gore because Bush would be worse" or "vote for Kerry because Bush would be worse". What a terribly depressing way of looking at politics. It's no wonder turnouts are so low. Of course, it's a strategy that works. Nader's votes plunged a few days before the last presidential election because the Democrats succeeded in scaring a lot of voters into this "least worst" vote for Gore. Some good it did them.

3. They are saying: It was Nader's fault that Gore lost.

This is a painfully transparent excuse. Gore lost because he did not convince sufficient numbers of people that he was the best candidate for president. If he wanted the votes of those who voted for Nader, then he should have convinced them that he would address the issues that were important to them. He didn't, so they didn't vote for him. That's his failure, no one else's. Let's also forget all the nonsense about rigged votes in Florida. Again, had the American voters been sufficiently convinced that Gore was the man, then no amount of fiddling with electoral roles, ballots and so on would have stopped him winning. The Florida vote was so close because Gore was such a bad candidate.

The Democrats are already laying the same excuses down and trying to blame Nader before his campaign has even started. It's all a little pathetic. They've learnt nothing at all from last time around. They are busy selecting a less radical version of Al Gore, therefore ensuring that those who supported Nader last time around will have even less reason to support Kerry this time around.