Bush/Kerry in Dead Heat, Nader's Impact (Ugh)

[nodehopper]

Poll Shows Bush, Kerry Locked in Dead Heat
Nader's Run Seems to Be Having Impact on Race
By WILL LESTER, AP

WASHINGTON (March 5) - John Kerry and President Bush are starting the general election campaign tied, according to an Associated Press poll, while independent Ralph Nader is drawing enough support to make Democrats squirm.
Getty ImagesBush and Kerry have kicked their campaigns into high gear since Super Tuesday.
The Republican incumbent had 46 percent support, Democrat Kerry had 45 percent and Nader, the 2000 Green Party candidate who entered the race last month, was at 6 percent in the survey conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.
Bush and the four-term Massachusetts senator, who emerged as the nominee Tuesday after a string of primary race wins over several rivals, have run close or Kerry has been ahead in most recent polls that did not include Nader.

Since Nader entered the race Feb. 22, campaign strategists and political analysts have been trying to assess the impact of another presidential bid by the consumer activist who is blamed by some Democrats for Al Gore's loss in 2000.
In the last presidential election, Nader was on the ballot in 43 states and Washington, D.C., garnering only 2.7 percent of the vote. But in Florida and New Hampshire, Bush won such narrow victories that had Gore received the bulk of Nader's votes in those states, he would have won the general election.

Exit polls from 2000 show that about half of Nader's voters would have backed Gore in a two-way race, far more than would have supported Bush. Nader dismisses the spoiler label.
While Nader's support in the AP-Ipsos poll was 6 percent, his backing in polls in 2000 fluctuated in the single digits - often at about 4 percent, but sometimes higher. This year, Nader is unlikely to get the Green Party's nomination and he faces a stiff challenge in getting his name on the ballot in the 50 states.

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more here:
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/elections/article.adp?id=20040304170009990001

[ramapo]

1. Once was enough

I don't think I could stand a repeat of 2000. I don't blame Nader for that one but this time is different.

Why would anyone throw away their vote on this guy? It's not like he spent the last four years doing something constructive that would've perhaps given him a rationale for running again.

[PATRICK]

2. Nader at 6%

shows the whole poll is very very questionable a sample and discredits its other conclusions proportionately. If you take the skew between the actual 2000 support and the poll and apply it to the Bush / Kerry sample it is time I would think to get another sampling altogether.

[zanana]

4. There's no way Nader has 6%.

That would make him more popular than Dennis Kucinich, who's been campaigning for months. This is bushit.

[seventhson]

3. Time to nail Nader. What can we do to stop him?

He is truly a Princeton Spook working for the deadly elites IMHO

[Dogmudgeon]

5. And the SPIN is IN!

They did the same thing to Gore -- the press drove it to a neck-and-neck race until Election Day.

Oopsie!

--bkl

[Tommy_Douglas]

6. Would be nice...

If the DNC could get a could of RW incumbents to take a bite out of Bush's main supporters.

[Moderator]

7. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=399694