Unelectable at any Speed

Nader is back.  Did he cost Gore the 2000 election?  In a narrow sense, I suppose this is true.  There is no doubt that the people who defected to him were not former Bush voters.  But let's face it.  Gore ran a horrible campaign and is a very hard person to like.  And let's also face it, he was running against a guy who didn't really have very impressive credentials, which makes his loss even more appalling.  So, yeah, Nader cost him some votes, but Gore did the real damage. 

(I also don't think the case is that strong that Perot, with 19% of the vote, cost Bush the 1992 election.  If Perot hadn't run, it would have been a closer race, but Clinton still drubbed Bush in the Electoral College 370 to 168.  Even if you flip some of the larger states (e.g., New Jersey, Colorado) that went Bush in 1988 back to his column, you don't get a win.  Perot's main effect seems to have been to ensure that people could forever point out that Clinton was not elected President by a majority of American voters.)

Nader polled only 0.3% of the vote in 2004 and wasn't even on the ballot in several states. Given the way Obama is likely to run away with New York and California, where I suspect most of the hard core Naderites can be found, he isn't nearly a match.  In fact, he will probably drop out before polling day.

Also, Obama is not Kerry or Gore.  While I may decry the national silliness and swooning over Obama, I do not in any way make the mistake of assuming that he is an empty suit.  Whatever his policies, Obama has been running a near perfect campaign and has shown himself to be very shrewd.  Despite a maddening reliance on rallies and slogans, he is a formidable candidate.  Voters go to guys like Nader and Perot when they are frustrated with their own main party candidate.  I suspect that people who chose Nader over Kerry or Gore are not going to be as frustrated with Obama.

One Crazyland thought that popped into my head was a campaign where Bloomberg also throws his hat into the ring.  That would open the door for a Hillary independent run.  And Huckabee could stay in as well.  It'll never happen, but it would be massively entertaining to watch Obama versus McCain versus Hillary versus Huckabee versus Nader versus Bloomberg.