It's sad but true, fellow Deaniacs.
And it will be impossible to avoid our fate.
George Bush stole the 2000 election, and it's practically an article of faith among the Dem party faithful that Ralph Nader pulled enough votes to make the election close enough to steal.
Not one Dem who believes this ever looks at the numbers of Dems who voted for George W Bush in 2000. There were many, many more of them than there were people like my father, who cast his first D presidential vote ever for Gore, because my boys are draft age.
There was an air of luxury about the 2000 election --- huge swathes of Americans, both D and R, thought we could afford GW Bush as President. Small pockets of Americans thought they could afford to vote Green.
No matter. Loyalists need The Other to demonize, and Unrepentant Ralph is tailor-made for the role.
We've watched the procession of Dems here demanding loyalty oaths to the Dem party from the Deaniacs. We've had to write in cyber-blood, time and again, our promise to vote Dem in November, and we've done so. We understood that the D was all that mattered.
Now, however, we cannot protect ourselves with the blood-oath, because the generic D demand is now 2 specific ones. And they're diametrically opposed: Get behind the frontrunner and vote for Kerry, because he'll surely win in the general!!!! Stop Kerry by voting for Edwards, because Kerry will surely lose in the general!!!!
I see a rather tidy herd of ... scapegoats! If the Dem candidate goes down to defeat in November, those same Dems who have been demanding our loyalty, the very ones who still vilify Nader, will be able to blame it on the Deaniacs. If we had only done what we were supposed to do in the spring, Edwards, or Kerry, would have beat Bush!
We are stuck, Deaniacs, on the horns of a dilemma in the form of a hidebound, spooked, and increasingly vicious Dem party. Ouch.
