Sunday, August 01, 2004

The Nader Factor, Part II

Charlie Cook says Ralph Nader could decide the Presidential election -- again:

"But even if the Nader vote is a half, a third, or even a quarter of what it was last time, it could still cost Democrats the election. Just look at Florida in 2000. Nader received 97,488 votes in a contest that Bush won by 537 votes. Exit polls by the Voter News Service showed that if Nader had not run, 47 percent of his voters would have cast their ballots for Gore and 21 percent for Bush, while 30 percent would have either not voted at all or voted for some other independent candidate. Even if Nader had received just one-sixtieth of the vote he actually received in Florida, he still would have made the difference in the Sunshine State."