ASHINGTON,
Nov. 9 — Ralph Nader may not be
feeling any regrets about his Green
Party presidential campaign, but some
visitors to the chat room on
Nader2000.org, Mr. Nader's official
campaign Web site, sounded today as if
they were recovering from a hangover.
John Ruth, for example, wrote on the
site this morning that he had voted for
Mr. Nader because he thought they
"shared a common goal" but
that he now regretted it.
"Mr. Gore (despite what you have
said) is NOT an environmental clone of
G.W. Bush. Because of your actions and
statements prior to Nov. 7th, we are on
the brink of a Bush presidency. No
money, no support, no respect for you,
Ralph, ever again!"
Or this entry, also posted this
morning, from someone identified as
"Noni Bookbinder Bell":
"I saw an interview with Ralph
Nader today and he seemed to be enjoying
what has happened! I've never seen him
smile so broadly. I regret my support.
Mr. Nader, you're a well-intending man
and I agree with most of your positions.
But the symbolic run for the White House
has destroyed our Party and our cause.
Very bad things are in our future. You
should not be smiling. And we, the
misled, should feel shame for what we've
done."
The remarks expressed fears that
votes for Mr. Nader may have put Gov.
George W. Bush in a position to defeat
Vice President Al Gore.
In Florida, where Mr. Gore trailed
Mr. Bush by only a few hundred votes, a
shift of just a fraction of the nearly
97,000 votes Mr. Nader polled could have
given the state, and the White House, to
Mr. Gore, the most likely major-party
alternative for Mr. Nader's supporters.
And in Oregon, a state that was still
too close to call today, Mr. Nader won
about 5 percent of the vote — enough
to cause some Nader voters to feel
morning-after qualms.
Julie Quastler, 28, who voted for Mr.
Nader in Portland, said on Wednesday
that she was feeling "a little
alarmed and disappointed" that Mr.
Bush seemed on the brink of winning the
presidency — suggesting that she did
not entirely accept Mr. Nader's
assertion that the two parties were
equally bad.
"I'm just so sad," Ms.
Quastler said. "Bush is probably
going to be our president, and Nader
didn't get his 5 percent. It seems like
a lose-lose end result in some
ways."
Winning 5 percent of the vote
nationwide would have qualified the
Green Party for millions of dollars in
federal campaign funds in 2004.
But Ms. Quastler, the development
director for a nonprofit café, said she
did not feel guilty about her vote.
"I voted for Nader because he
was most aligned with my values,"
she said.
Of course, there were also countless
verbal high-fives among Nader supporters
today who felt the Green Party had sent
a bracing wake-up call to the two major
parties.
"Stand tall and proud, fellow
Nader supporters," said a message
on the Nader2000 site signed GO LOOK
ELSEWHERE FOR SCAPEGOATS.
"We fought the good fight for
what we believed in. This does not make
us villains."
Such sentiments seemed particularly
strong in Florida. Dorothy Byrne, a
coordinator for the Florida Green Party,
said she had been inundated with angry
phone calls and e-mail messages from
Democrats, but has yet to receive one
regretful note from a Nader voter.
"I can see positives for the
Greens with either Bush or Gore being
president," she said. "If Gore
was in, we wouldn't have to worry about
women's reproductive rights. But his
record on the environment is so abysmal
I don't see how Bush can be any
worse."
Barbara Lange, the Everglades
chairwoman for the Florida chapter of
the Sierra Club, said she and other
environmentalists voted for Mr. Nader
because Mr. Gore had not taken a stand
against the development of an airport
near the Everglades.
"I voted my conscience,"
she said. "And I'm O.K. with
that."
Patricia Newell, an organizer for Mr.
Nader at the University of Florida in
Gainesville, said that Mr. Nader had won
far fewer votes in Florida than his
supporters had expected — due, she
said, to "scare tactics" by
the Democrats.
"Anyone who voted with Nader on
Tuesday knew exactly what they were
doing," she said. "On the
contrary to feeling guilty, they feel
very good about sticking with the
candidate that they felt was best."
