Michael Tomasky, soon to be the Editor-in-Chief of American Prospect, has some advice for the Democratic candidates on how to deal with their Ralph Nader problem:

So here's a thought for an enterprising Democratic candidate: Attack Nader right now, and with lupine ferocity. Say he's a madman for thinking of running again. Blast him especially hard on foreign policy, saying that if it were up to the Greens, America would give no aid to Israel and it would cease to exist, and if it were up to the Greens, America would not have even defended itself against a barbarous attack by going into Afghanistan. Have at him, and hard, from the right. Then nail him from the left on certain social issues, on abortion rights and other things that he's often pooh-poohed and dismissed as irrelevant. Cause an uproar. Be dramatic. Don't balance it with praise about what he's done for consumers. To the contrary, talk about how much he's damaging consumers today by not caring who's in charge of the Food and Drug Administration or the Federal Communications Commission.

We think it's sound advice. So does Eric Alterman.

Update: Hessiod at Counterspin has more news, of which he says:

Yet more evidence that many 2000 Nader Voters [especially in a State like Michigan] were more ANTI-GORE than Pro-Nader. Anyone who thinks that sucking up to the Green party will convince them to do the right thing and work with the Democrats to topple Bush next fall...are smoking the same thing many of the Green Party voters are smoking.

Update: Here's the other side, from Kerim at Keywords.

For the record, we don't hate the Greens. But we do think Nader cost Gore the election. We also agree with the commenter who said Clinton and Gore were both bad on criminal justice issues. We've written articles about it. They were awful. But there's no comparison between them and Bush and Ashcroft. We have long been saying we don't want to end up with a Democratic candidate who is nothing more than Bush Lite after you've scratched the surface--we want the party to take a left turn. But we'll support whichever Dem gets the nomination because it will be a vast improvement over Bush, Ashcroft and Rumsfeld.