Naderites Still Rationalize Electing Bush

Dear Sirs:
   In a recent column (forwarded to me by a relative in Austin), Michael Ventura repeats the charge that Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the 2000 election, and hopes Nader will see the light before providing President Bush yet another four years to screw up the planet ["Letters @ 3AM," Aug. 8].
    While I agree with the second point (for his reason, as well as because Nader's name is becoming redundant on the ballot), Ventura has jumped on a rather unsteady bandwagon regarding 2000. Though Nader's Florida vote indeed exceeded Bush's margin of victory many times over, exit polls indicated the real culprits were Florida Democrats – 150,000 of whom crossed over to vote for Bush.
    It is also presumptuous to suggest that Nader voters (myself among them) would have leaped en masse to Gore, had the two major candidates been alone on the ballot. Surveys repeatedly showed that roughly half of us would have simply stayed at home, rather than participate in the rituals of what often seems little more than a two-party dictatorship. For whatever reason (I suspect a strong, unthinking protest vote), a poll taken shortly before the 2000 election also indicated that 34% of Nader's vote would have gone to Bush. Thus, it is far from clear that removing Nader's name from the ballot would have accomplished anything other than giving Bush a more clear-cut margin of victory.
   Ventura is correct in saying that Bush's radical style of misgovernance has defined the issues more clearly for '04. The Howard Dean candidacy has also given many Greens and erstwhile Democrats renewed hope that we will have something more to choose from next year than varying degrees of evil.