... and, in a very real sense, explains why the Democrat-controlled Senate hasn't accomplished a damn thing in two years. There's really not much I can add to this.

From Third Party Watch a couple of days ago: Jeremy Lott makes his intriguing case in Politico that the Democratic Party has been captured by Ralph Nader: “It’s Nader’s party now.” Back in 2000, Lott says, Al Gore ran as a “fairly conservative Democrat — certainly far more conservative than the Nobel Prize-winning party animal he’s become”—and he was more hawkish than Bush, who was promising an “humble foreign policy.” Enter Nader, running to Gore’s left and throwing the election to the Republicans in Florida with his 100,000 votes in that state. Ever since, says Lott, the Democrats have put forward progressively more liberal nominees, partly to protect their flank from the left: ...it’s becoming ever clearer that by playing the third-party spoiler, Nader won the argument about the future of the Democratic Party. These snippets made me interested in reading the original Politico article , which includes more detailed analysis: It’s tempting to claim that Bush radicalized the Democrats...