Nader

It looks like the consumer crusader is back in the race again. I really don't see what he thinks he's going to accomplish this time. I don't hold him ultimately responsible for 2000. The argument that the Dems really weren't all that different from the GOP was wrong in hindsight (even if we're only talking degrees of difference in political philosophy, funding, etc., those few degrees from Gore to Bush would have made a BIG difference in governing) but not so unreasonable at the time, after 8 years of Clinton's New Democracy. I like the metaphor, which I heard sometime back in 2001, that Nader was like the place kicker who went wide-left to cost the Democrats the game. Had he made it (i.e. not run) Gore would have been in the white house. But one can never pin all the blame on the kicker - the rest of the team had the whole game to grab the lead.
Anyway, Nader in 2004 made little difference either way, and I can't imagine that the public is going to pay him much attention this year (though he could grab a few anti-Clinton Democrats if Hillary wins the nomination, I suppose). Nader said "that he was running to draw attention to issues ignored by the major candidates in both parties: corporate crime, worker rights, military spending and foreign policy," according to the Washington Post. It seems more might be done to push these issues in the long run by making the Green party into an actual political force at the grass-roots level, instead of emerging from the Wilderness every four years to shoot wildly for the White House.

ps - check out the comments to that Post piece linked above. It seems the voters do consider Nader the 2000 villain, and haven't forgiven him yet.