Echoes of Ralph Nader’s Attacks on Al Gore in the 2008 Campaign

Seeing Al Gore collect his Nobel Prize the other day reminded thoughtful people around the globe of the debacle in Florida and subsequent Supreme Court decision that gave the American presidency to George W. Bush in 2000. Most are in agreement that Al Gore would have been the wiser choice.

In an article first published yesterday in the Huffington Post, historian and Princeton professor Sean Wilentz compares attacks by Obama supporter R. J. Eskow on Hillary Clinton to Ralph Nader’s criticism of Al Gore in the 2000 campaign. Wilentz argues:

“The politics of perfectionism on the left also succeeded in creating a splinter movement that wound up electing an even more right-wing Republican president -- the Ralph Nader campaign in 2000. Eskow's attacks on Hillary Clinton read almost word-for-word like those Nader delivered against Al Gore.”

Wilentz offers an excellent discussion of the difference between the messianic perfectionist idealism of Obama and his disciples (Oprah’s “He is the one!”) to the pragmatic idealism of Hillary Clinton that has been tried and tested in her many years of experience.
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