August 21, 2008 9:48 PM
Lessons of 2000
Today we present chapter nine of the Rocky Mountain News' "Unconventional Wisdom" series, featuring some notable characters of past Democratic National Conventions offering their advice for Sen. Barack Obama, convention organizers, the city of Denver and average voters watching at home.
To follow the entire series, bookmark this link HERE. And keep checking back.
Part 9 of 10
Ralph Nader, Los Angeles 1996
The story by M.E. Sprengelmeyer is HERE.
The video by Judy DeHaas is HERE.
The transcript of the Jackson interview is HERE.
Portraits are by Chris Schneider.
Below is a bit of the back story on the making of the 2000 chapter.
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Call him the uninvited.
Democrats didn't exactly welcome Ralph Nader to the 2000 Democratic National Convention.
His third-party presidential bid had gained some attention before Al Gore took the stage in Los Angeles. Polls suggested Nader had pockets of support that could take away from the Democratic coalition.
Still, as The Associated Press reported at the time: "Gore advisers say Nader's appeal will dim as the election draws closer." And besides, Pat Buchanan's bid was supposed to hurt Republican George
So it would be a wash. Right?
The rest is history. Bush beat Gore. It was so close, especially in Florida, that the political analysts rushed to anoint Nader as the ultimate spoiler.
"Score one for the Raider," Newsweek's headline said, alluding to the Green Party candidate's past leading "Nader's Raiders" on Capitol Hill.
To this day, the debate goes on.
And it is worth considering whether there's anything Democrats could have said or done at the 2000 convention (or beyond) that would have blunted any Nader effect on the November outcome.
Nader rejects the blame for Bush's victory and all the history that has unfolded as a result. But he can't get very far into an interview before arguing about his own legacy - whether it was to clear the way for a Republican victory or to show Democrats a path to pull their party back to its progressive roots.
Making yet another run for president in 2008, Nader might seem like an odd choice to offer advice to Sen. Barack Obama. But we wanted to ask him how he might advise Democrats to use their national conventions to make dissident movements like his less relevant.
We had no idea that such questions would lead to national headlines earlier this summer. But when we asked a follow-up question about whether Sen. Obama was any different than other Democrats he had criticized, he launched into controversial comments about Obama's race that we couldn't keep buried in our notebooks for long.
With this story and the related transcript, you can get a better idea of the full conversation that sparked a 48-hour media firestorm.
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