still mad at nader, #2

From CNN.com: "Consumer advocate Ralph Nader said Thursday he is leaning toward another independent run for the presidency and will make his decision public in January... Nader was in Princeton Thursday for a strategy session with Green Party activists to consider the pros and cons of another race. He said his decision will be twofold: whether to run for the presidency at all, and whether to run again on the Green Party ticket. Meanwhile, the party is divided on another Nader candidacy."

Wow, so maybe this time Nader cannot sink whatever slim hope the Democrats have of winning, but he can also divide and implode the Green Party in the process. I wonder if Michael Moore, whom I still begrudge for his campaigning for Nader last time, will be backing Nader again.

You would probably not believe how angry I get about the entire Nader thing. I cannot even have a rational conversation about it. If Nader runs, I'm probably going to be fired in the fall after I scream my head off at some student with a bunch of Nader buttons on her/his backpack. Scream, I will.

I wonder if I would get in trouble if I put a giant sign that said **** NADER (with the appropriate substitution for the asterisks) on my office door. I want to print it out right now. This is how irrational and angry I am on the matter.

(There are, btw, some Nader 2000 voters that I know and adore and who sometimes read this weblog. You know who you are. Forgive me, but you know how I am on this issue. I recognize that it is irrational that I am so much infinitely more annoyed by the idea of someone saying they would have voted Democratic but voted for Nader instead than I am by the idea of someone saying they would have voted Democratic but didn't go to the trouble of voting.)

Where I will really lose it is the first time somebody tries to tell me they are voting for Nader because they feel like they should "vote their conscience."

Or, I might really really lose it if someone says they are voting for Nader in 2004, but they really wish there were Instant Runoff Voting. And I'm even a big fan of the idea of Instant Runoff Voting; we even used IRV for deciding on the T-shirt design for the SPAM* t-shirts this year. But I can freaking guarantee that there isn't going to be anything remotely like progress toward Instant Runoff Voting as long as Republicans are in charge. I wonder why.

* Social Psychology And Microsociology, my main specialty area here at Wisconsin