Last night I watched most of the documentary, Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man. There are some people out there that are still really mad at him. A guy in the movie blamed Nader for the war in Iraq. Because he took votes from Al Gore in Florida. If Nader had not been on the ballot in Florida, Gore would have likely won that state and the presidency. But if Pat Buchanan had not been on the ballot in Florida, George Bush might have won by a wider margin.
None of it would have mattered if Gore had won his home state of Tennessee.
This morning I did a little research on the presidential elections of the last 50 years, and here's what I found out:
Since 1952 three presidential candidates have failed to carry their home state:
Adlai Stevenson (D-Illinois) 1952 and 1956
George McGovern (D-South Dakota) 1972
Al Gore (D-Tennessee) 2000
Barry Goldwater, Jimmy Carter in 1980, and Walter Mondale all got it handed to them in the general election, but they won their home states.
No winning candidate, going back to 1948, has lost the state they claimed as their own.
Bill Clinton won Arkansas and Tennesse in 1992 and 1996. But when Al Gore took his turn he couldn't win either of them.
A professor and a journalist who were featured in the movie rejected the "home state" argument and placed the blame squarely on Nader. But I have a hard time discounting it.
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4 comments:
Are you trying to piss me off? Is that what you want? You want to hurt the only person that comments here?
Fine, I'll bite. First of all, an argument could be made that if Buchanan wasn't on the ballot Gore would have won. The butterfly ballot caused an abnormally large number of votes for Pat in Palm Beach.
Second, if Al would have won a lot of states he would have won. I personally didn't think he had a chance in Tennessee. In 2000 the state was swinging pretty hard to the right. We came a lot closer in New Hampshire than in Tennessee, and that would have put us over the top.
I don't hate Ralph Nader though, and I certainly don't blame him for the war in Iraq. I think that most people that voted for him would not have voted for Gore anyway. I think they would have stayed home.
Sorry, Evil. I guess that's kind of bringing up old stuff. It's a good documentary tho. With some points that merit discussion. Thanks for your comments.
Good to see you Saturday. You missed out some good tomfoolery later.
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