Ralph Nader in My Life, by Bill Clinton

On Principles & Values: OpEd: Liberal trap: perfect is the enemy of the good

[In 1990], the AFL-CIO refused to endorse me [but] 18 local unions defied [the national office] and endorsed me anyway. They didn't fall into the classic liberal trap of making the perfect the enemy of the good. If the people who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 hadn't made the same mistake, Al Gore would have been elected President.

Al was going to win big states by large margins, but Bush was going to win more small rural states, and they had an advantage in the electoral college.

Gore did win [the popular vote], but the electoral college was in doubt. The race came down to Florida, after Gore won a narrow victory in New Mexico, one of several states that were closer than they would have been had Ralph Nader not been on the ballot.

New Hampshire went for Bush by a margin of just over 7,000 because Nader got 22,198 votes. Even worse, Nader received more than 90,000 votes in Florida, where Bush was hanging by a thread in an election contest that would drag on for more than a month.

Source: My Life, by Bill Clinton, p.357-8&928-9 Jun 21, 2004

The above quotations are from My Life, by Bill Clinton. Click here for other excerpts from My Life, by Bill Clinton. Click here for other excerpts by Ralph Nader. Click here for a profile of Ralph Nader.
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