According to the final tally, I see that the Libertarian Party candidate Michael Bednarik got almost as many votes nationwide as Nader. Curious that the media nonetheless covered Nader throughout the race, while ignoring Bednarik (for instance, on the Washington Post web site with the tally, you can link to background stories on Nader, but not Bednarik). Of course, the number was quite trivial for both, but the difference in attention garnered by each also-ran is striking.
Another perennial libertarian favorite, “None of These Candidates”, finished a strong 11th nationwide with 3,646 votes.
Update:
A reader alerts me to an additional layer of irony, which is that I managed to misspell Badnarik’s name in my initial post. Hey, I didn’t say I voted for the guy, and not because I couldn’t recognize his properly-spelled name on the ballot.
Update:
Even better, I’ll adopt the observation of another reader: “You can blame the media: ‘Had they covered this guy as much as they did Nader, I’d know how to spell his name!'” I wish I could have been that clever on the last update.
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