kendall, apparently you haven't seen the film footage of Dean after the Iowa caucus--the so called "Scream" speech.

The news media routinely cuts out the sound of the crowd on video feeds, so the person on the microphone can be heard. ABC News, a week after the Iowa caucus, actually came clean about it, and broadcast the speech without the sound of the crowd removed. Dean was completely inaudible, due to crowd noise. You couldn't hear him at all.

Dean wasn't angry at all in that speech, but he was fired up and so was the crowd cheering him on. He was yelling to be heard in the room, where the sound of the cheering crowd was deafening. But by cutting out the sound, and making Dean appear as if he was going off the deep end, the media effectively nailed the coffin shut for Dean.

Nader is now running at 6% in the polls, with Bush and Kerry in a statistical tie at 45%. It seems that no matter how the Democrats rant about third party spoilers, independent and disgruntled voters will only hear it as so much whining because they aren't getting their way--a temper tantrum if you will.

I'm prepared for four more years of Bush, if that is what it takes to get the Democratic party to recognize it's progressive and grassroots constituencies, and act like an opposition party to the Republicans.

I will vote for the candidate that best represents my interests in the upcoming election. If Nader is that candidate, which looks quite likely from these months out, then I will vote for Nader, even if that means Bush wins. I will vote for Nader with a clear conscience, knowing that if Bush wins, Nader was no spoiler, but the supposedly "most electable" Democratic nominee, in fact wasn't electable at all. That isn't Nader's fault, it is the fault of people whose voting pattern for decades has been to settle for the lesser of two evils. You get what you vote for, when you vote for "anybody but the other guy".