Well, the problem, Kevin, is that in the country overall, the margin is not that wide. I've heard various figures for the margin of popular votes that Gore won by (reversed, of course, by Katherine Harris, Jeb Bush, and a conservative-leaning Supreme Court), but from all the figures I have heard, the margin was pretty thin, making it easy for hanky-panky to prevail. A percent or two of voters going one way or the other--or a third way--can swing the election. The margin is close enough so that if the progressives vote for one candidate and the liberals vote for another candidate, the conservative candidate wins. Unless, of course the conservative vote is split, and it doesn't appear that that is going to happen this time. In 2000, the conservative vote was split. Pat Buchanan was running. That's why is especially important this time that those who want the neo-conservative agenda out stick together.

GUEST, the ferocity of your arguments, your dogged persistence in your Nader crusade (which, under different circumstances, would be admirable), and your penchant for impugning the motives and intelligence of those who don't agree with you, remind me very much of some of the more militant Deaniacs that I ran into when I went to my precinct caucus. Because of their fanaticism--yes, fanaticism!--they went beyond well reason, and in the opinion of many people, cost Dean some delegates. I'm sure that Dean himself wouldn't have approved of their behavior. Your attitude is much the same: "Dean (or, in your case, Nader) or nobody! Everybody else stinks, and if I don't get my way, I won't vote at all!" That's pretty damned childish.

And it's also so counter-productive that it really makes me wonder about your motives.

Don Firth