Nader, Gore and a Bush

To those that "assign' the blame for Al Gore's defeat in the 2000 election on Ralph Nader and Florida, a bit of mathematics to create this misleading thought:

Gore would have won regardless of the outcome of Florida if he could have won HIS OWN STATE. Gore lost Tennessee, by 80,000 votes, to Bush not to mention other traditionally Democratic states like West Virginia. Gore was the first major party presidential candidate to have lost his home state since George McGovern lost South Dakota in 1972. Had he won his own state, Florida would not have mattered.
He lost the people that knew him best and therefore he lost the election.

As for Florida, I would argue that Gore suffered lost votes in Florida more due to his association with the Clinton administration's handling of the Elian Gonzales affair. Ultimately, Gore even tried to pander to the Cuban community in an obvious ploy that even his supporters recognized as pandering, thus costing him more votes. In the end, many Cuban-Americans were committed to getting back at the Clinton administration by voting against Gore. The vice president got 70,000 fewer votes in Miami-Dade than Clinton did in 1996.

And finally let's not forget that the Gore campaign made a strategic blunder from the onset by distancing himself from the popular Bill Clinton, a person universally known as being one of the best campaigners ever.

Nader was a factor in Gore's election loss, but not the factor.

In summary, Nader didn't get Bush elected, Gore did.