Posted 8:46 AM by Robert

Angry - Really, Really Angry

It seems to be true. Democrats all over are angry. They're energized. They're committed. They're red faced and screaming and their men are willing to run an increased risk of stroke! They don't seem to like Senator Kerry all that much personally - but they're mad as hell and they want that other guy out, out, OUT!

"That other guy" being Ralph Nader (from the Los Angeles Times):

You could practically hear the fractious left, newly unified under the anyone-but-Bush standard, coming unglued: The chairman of Florida's Democratic Party told a local newspaper that Nader is a "Benedict Arnold of modern democracy."

Why are so many Democrats newly obsessed with Benedict Arnold? But I digress. The LA Times continues its catalogue of "unglued" Naderhater Democrats:

"Outside of Jerry Falwell, I can't think of anybody I have greater contempt for than Ralph Nader," said James Carville on CNN's "Crossfire."

The columnist Robert Scheer compared Nader to a "faded chanteuse in a dingy nightclub." ....

Jason Salzman ... vot[ed] for Nader in 2000. ... But he soon started having second thoughts, and not just because anonymous correspondents were slipping "Nader is evil" notes under his windshield wipers. ....

To many Democrats, Nader represents an election-stealing evil just this side of the anti-Christ. Cynthia Yorkin ... practically started shouting on the phone the other day when [Nader's] name came up. ....

Rob Reiner [said to] Van Jones ... who was Northern California political director for Arianna Huffington's gubernatorial campaign ... something that he has said often in public and in private: that when Nader said there was no difference between Bush and Gore, he was telling "the biggest lie that any politician in this country has ever told." Jones disagreed ... Reiner ... was not pleased. "His face turned beet red, he started literally screaming at me," said Jones. Jones said he thinks "that there is a level of irrational anger and hostility toward Ralph Nader. You can't call yourself a Democratic Party and when people exercise their democratic right to a candidacy you don't like break out your nuclear weapons." ... But people do. ...

Koryne Horbal, a longtime Minnesota Democratic activist, said she didn't speak for a whole year to a friend who voted for Nader in 2000.

Bush? They hate 'im. Just hate 'im. Passionate about it. Committed. Unified. Energized. TICKED OFF!

Nader? Same.

It's getting to the point that an ordinary American - right or left - doesn't want to be alone in a dark alley with a committed Democrat.

"That other guy" is currently polling at about 6%.