Perpetually hopeless candidate Ralph Nader is entering the presidential election. All the Democrats still smarting from having the Florida vote stolen from them in 2000 are pissed. With some reason.

But the presidential election is months away; we still have a primary to finish. And I'm thinking Nader's threat may help Obama. If Clinton gets the nomination, a lot of hard-core liberals are going to be tempted to vote for Nader. By contrast, I think Obama is progressive enough that left-leaning Democrats will not be tempted by Nader.

The threat of a Nader spoiler becomes particularly strong if Clinton wins the nomination via backroom politicking and dirty tricks. Maybe the threat of a split liberal vote will be enough to keep the Clinton people from doing something awful like getting Michigan and Florida's improper elections to count.

politics
  2008-02-25 22:13 Z