redblueamerica.com

Somewhere, Al Gore rips his shirt open and howls with anguish. Ralph Nader is probably going to run for president. He'll be on "Meet the Press" on Sunday, and all signs point to run.

I'm not worried in the least.

Yes, Ralph Nader takes a lot of heat for taking votes away from Al Gore during the 2000 campaign. But the truth is that, thanks to ballot errors, Pat Buchanan probably got more votes that were actually intended for Gore. The people who voted for Nader instead of Gore in the swing state of Florida knew exactly what they were doing; they wouldn't have voted for Gore, most likely, anyway.

The same dynamic exists in 2008, only moreso. There aren't many people on the left who now argue -- as they did in 2000 -- that there aren't any real differences between a Republican and a Democratic president.

So the people who vote for Nader in 2008 are the last remaining unpragmatic true believers; they're not the kinds of folks who would've voted for Obama or Clinton anyway. Ralph Nader won't be the spoiler this time.