Democrats fight like Republicans

I've been called cynical for so long that I'd begun to believe it. But this year's election campaign made me realize how naive I really am. Something in me (the inner child who once believed in John F. Kennedy?) still expects liberal Democrats to be more rational than conservative Republicans. Another illusion bites the dust.\nBack in 1992 when Clinton was first elected, a wave of hysteria washed over the American Right, especially young Republicans who remembered nothing but twelve years of Reagan-Bush. They accused Clinton of having stolen the election, as if Bush the Elder should have won because he got fewer votes. So began the epic tantrum Republicans have been throwing for eight years, ultimately leading to Ken Starr's multimillion-dollar fishing expedition.\nBut this year, I got to watch Democrats spraying the body politic with spittle. I'd mention Gore's support for NAFTA, the Defense of Marriage Act, environmental destruction, the death penalty, and they'd shrug irritably: "So he's not perfect -- at least he's for gay rights." Of course, no one likes to hear his candidate called the lesser evil, but it was almost as if they didn't want me to vote for Gore unless I adored him abjectly.\nThen the abuse would begin: Voting for Nader would waste my vote on a candidate who couldn't win. One local partisan spoke derisively of the "seduction" of Nader. (Ah, yes, Ralph led me down a primrose path with his big bankroll, his Cadillac, his smooth-talking city-slicker ways... and now my reputation is ruined.)\nIn Newsweek, Anna Quindlen relegated Nader and the Greens to the dustbin of history. Describing the Democratic Convention as if it were a meeting of the Soviet Politburo, Quindlen pictured the Old Guard of the New Deal and the Great Society giving way gracefully to the Democratic Leadership Council of Clinton and Gore, while Nader's counterrevolutionary lackeys raged impotently in the streets.\nWhen some of us persisted in our heresy, the righteous wrath escalated. Nader (or "Mr. Superior", as another Gore loyalist called him with attempted sarcasm) was an extremist! He was like Hitler! His rallies (but not Gore's) were like Nuremberg rallies! Bush would be elected and abortion would be abolished! Gays would be cast back into the Dark Ages! In one breath, the Gore partisans would concede that Bush would certainly take Indiana's electoral votes so a vote for Nader here made no difference. But in the next, they would switch back and insist that a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush!\nPerhaps in fantasy, they were delivering a speech to an audience of undecided voters in a contested state, or maybe, reverting to canned sloganeering was just easier than addressing issues. With such supporters, it's not surprising Gore failed to win the easy victory that, as the vice president to a popular incumbent during a fabulous economic boom, should have been his.\nSince Election Day the New York Times printed an article based on postings from Nader's Web site quoting supposed repentant Nader voters who now feel all dirty inside. On MSNBC, Clinton's longtime attack dog James Carville provided the Frother Seal of Approval for Nader: "... If he walks up to me, I'm just going to turn my back on him. I'm going to shun him. And any good Democrat, any good progressive, ought to do the same thing. Don't be rude to him, don't do anything. Don't do -- he's an egomaniac. He's self-absorbed. He obviously cost us the presidency. I will not speak this egomaniac's name. Not for the next four years."\nWow, I really feel put in my place. To return to my point: Watching Democrats behaving like Republicans hasn't been pretty, but it has been educational. And if I had it to do over again, I'd still vote for Nader.