I'm confused about the American Republican party

[Jester]

The Nader effect might seem bigger than it was, or maybe smaller to me than it was. When it came down to it, Nader never really had much of a chance to be president. Around here, he was a punchline, instead of a candidate.

He's a punchline to a pretty dark joke, in most Democratic circles. He absorbed enough of the Democratic-leaning idealistic youth vote to wreck Al Gore's chances at the presidency, and instead delivered up the utter disaster that was George W. Bush. If even 1 in 10 Nader voters had voted Gore, and the rest had stayed home, the election would have gone the other way.

That's the Nader effect. Not that he had any chance of winning, but that, in running, he changed the outcome. Ross Perot has much the same reputation on the right, although he was at least slightly more credible as a bipartisan spoiler.

-Jester