Gore, Nader, Bush...and Obama: What was the lesson of 2000? (POLL)

Mark makes some pretty good points below. This one jogged my memory:

We won't stay home, know better than to get burned by the Nader protest vote again in this lifetime, and don't have enough clout to bring about real change.

Ah, Nader. Let me ask you a question, Mark: Why did Al Gore not gain the White House in 2000? Was it that Bush stole Florida?

Or was it that Gore did not talk more about (for example) climate change, thereby drawing the Nader vote more decisively?

Or was Gore's problem something else: that he lost Tennessee, his own home state, because the voters there thought he was too liberal?

When you have the answers to these questions, then we can talk some more about Obama's conduct in this campaign.

In the meantime, I don't have any easy answers here. At best, I guess I could say that things would have been different had Gore v. Bush been run in the context of today's Blogville. So maybe we have more power now than we think.

On the other hand, campaigns are always about winning elections, not leading movements. The time to lead a movement is after you get elected -- otherwise it ends up meaning a whole lot less than we all hoped it would.

UPDATE: If you choose "Other" below, be aware that you can (and should) enter some explanatory text in the text box directly below the radio button.