Not Again!

Ralph Nader cannot see past his own ego, much to the detriment of the causes he wants to support:

Nader to Run Again, NY Times: ...“Meet the Press” played a video clip of Mr. Obama answering a question about a possible Nader candidacy on Friday:

You know, he had called me and I think reached out to my campaign — my   sense is is that Mr. Nader is somebody who, if you don’t listen and adopt all   of his policies, thinks you’re not substantive. He seems to have a pretty high   opinion of his own work. Now — and by the way, I have to say that,   historically, he is a singular figure in American politics and has done as   much as just about anybody on behalf of consumers. So in many ways he is a   heroic figure and I don’t mean to diminish him. But I do think there is a   sense now that if somebody is not hewing to the Ralph Nader agenda, then you   must be lacking in some way.

Mr. Nader’s constituency appears to have eroded somewhat...

Long ago, when Oregon State would visit to play basketball, the students would chant "Sit down Ralph" every time the coach, Ralph Miller, would get out of his chair. I can hear that chant very clearly right now.

Comments

[Organic George]

I don't fear Ralph any more.

Most liberals know a vote for Ralph is a vote for the Right.

What he is now is an embarassment to himself.

[chriss1519]

I'm voting for Nader. No more support from me for the Neo-Liberal establishment. A lot of Barack's advisors are Neo-liberals. I also don't sense there will be much substantive action on Global Warming under an Obama administration. Not to mention that I read most of his "bipartisan" rhetoric as sell-out compromise with Republicans.

If voting for Nader puts another dumb Republican in office, so be it. Might as well speed up the dissolution of the American Empire.

[pgl]

"I'm voting for Nader." Of course, Nader will not get a single Electoral College vote. If enough liberals do vote for Nader, there's a chance that will steal enough Electoral College votes from the Democrat that we will get McCain as President. Of course, that would mean four more years of awful Presidential leadership. Go ahead and waste your vote this way but I hope enough liberals get the math here.

[James Killus]

Most of Nader's campaign money comes from Republican sources, and he knows it. So who says that Nader's campaigns are "to the detriment of the causes he wants to support?"

I see no reason to give somebody a free ride simply because he once wrote a book on car safety and talks a lot about consumerism. George Bush talks a lot about democracy, too.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Like a bad penny Ralph rolls back into town. He was always overrated by the media and the trendy left.

I suspect he will only get a fraction of 1% this time, there are only so many aging hippies and burned out Woodstockers out there. Add a few whacked out college kids and it still doesn't add to much.

Like Dan Rather, he does not understand the concept of graceful retirement.

[RW]

Voting for Nader not only seems insufficient to the task of self-righteousness but is clearly innefficient on its face: Why not just vote directly for the Republican candidate and cut out the middle man?

But I'm probably biased; I don't think I've ever really forgiven Nader for helping wreck any future for a US developed rear-engine car. Yeah I know it was mostly GM's fault for being too quick to use dirty tricks on Nader and being too slow to replace the Corvair's original swing axle with an independent suspension but there's that facilitation masking itself as antagonism business again and again with Nader; just bugs me I guess.

Hard to blame a man for the way he's chosen to make a living though, particularly if there are still those willing to pony up for the goods he's selling; adding Republicans to that revenue mix as seems to be the case these days doesn't change the basic equation much.

[Jay]

Glad to see we have a 3rd party candidate stepping up. Even if I disagree with him, it gives us a choice between voting for a 'turd sandwich' and a 'giant douche' (Anne this is not meant to demean, it is a cultural South Park reference).

We've had one party pretending to be two for some time. We should just cancel the Oscar's tonight and give all the acting awards to those in the Executive/Legislative/Judicial branches.

[ken melvin]

Lot of the 'progressives' are ex-naderites, so losing doesn't bother them one whit. With this lot it is my way or the highway (don't get the democracy bit not the one about politics being the art of the possible). Somebody in the democratic party best remember that the working class make up the core of the democratic party afore it's President McCain.

[Jay]

correction:

it gives us an alternative to choosing between voting for...

[donna]

Might be fun to see McBush elected. Then we could have "McCainvilles"!

Seriously, if you guys really want another depression, elect McCain, he'll take you straight there. And a vote for Nader is a vote for McCain, no matter how you slice it.

[ken melvin]

Donna - some have yet to figure out the arithmetic.

[esb]

Nader is smart enough to realize that his impact this year will be directly proportional to the appeal of his running "mate."

Look for a woman, one of unimpeachable credentials who is adamantly opposed to Barak.

Someone who can bring a high vote count in a specific critical "high-electoral-vote" battleground state.

I'll leave it to someone else to supply the name.

[esb]

This is a nasty little man with a nasty litttle mission.

[pgl]

"Look for a woman, one of unimpeachable credentials who is adamantly opposed to Barak."

Ann Coulter doesn't like Obama but you did have to throw in that credentials thing.

[Jay]

The most enjoyable part of this will be watching the anti-democratic side of Maher and Moore come out again(which leads one to believe they only like democracy when it benefits them).

Funny video of these two fools trying to protect the establishment from competition....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RysZy331YK0

[Jay]

"Most of Nader's campaign money comes from Republican sources, and he knows it."

Please document sources of Nader's funding, if possible.

*Copyright Anne

[Todd]

Nader didn't cost Gore the election, Gore has said this on several occasions. The guy couldn't win his own state against very weak competition. If anyone is to blame it would be Bill Clinton and his shenanigans or the Supreme Court.

Hopefully the democrats will destroy themselves when Hillary takes the election from Barak at the convention.

Nader is an American hero, and has every right to run for the presidency. A vote for the Democrats is a vote for McCain when they cost Nader the election.

[Andrew]

Please document sources of Nader's funding, if possible.

Only about 4% of Nader's donors also Republican donors.

If Nader wants to build a third party coalition, he needs to start in Congress. What on earth does he think he is going to accomplish from the White House with not a single ally on Capitol Hill? I like Nader, but he doesn't have an ounce of sense as a politician.

[gordon]

If I were an American I would vote for Nader. I don't see any hope for "progressive" policies in either of the major parties.

[btg]

a number of things cost Gore the 2000 election, such as not using Bill Clinton to win Arkansas and not choosing a running mate from a swing state instead of Lieberman. Even so, had Nader not been in the running, the results would have been different, because even a few hundres voteswould have made a difference.

I never understood why Nader would not have consdered a Senate run - arrogance I guess that nothing less than the White House is good enough for him.

If Gore had had an imagination, he would have required as a condition of the VP spot that Lieberman not run for re-election, and that Nader would have been given the chance to be Senator from his old home state of Connecticut...

The world would have been quite a different place with Gore in the White House, and Nader in the Senate!

[EZ]

To Mr. Nader:

Please, do not do this again! The only difference your candidacy can make is tip the scale in the Republicans' favor--exactly as it did in 2000.

To all those thinking of voting for Nader:

Do not be fooled! You will just be helping McCain.

[Devang]

Is it any wonder the Democrats get what they deserve with supporters like these? I don't think the proto-fascists among us need to worry about Nader doing any real damage, the man will have enough trouble just getting on the ballot in most states if 2004 is any indicator. The lawyers need to be put to good use ya know.

[Patricia Shannon]

If the Republicans had not deliberately subverted democracy, with the support of the supreme court, Gore would have won in 2000.

The next president will almost certainly be able to nominate one or more supreme court justices. McCain has stated that if he is elected, he will appoint supreme court justices in the mold of Alito and Roberts. And members of the supreme court usually are in office far longer than presidents. (I have stopped capitalizing "supreme court" because the current occupants have shamed the office.)

[Todd]

Again, Gore cost Nader the election in 2000; so Democrats don't be fooled, a vote for Obama is a vote for McCain.

If you decide to support the Democrats be sure and sue Nader off every ballot since he has no right to challenge your misguided policies. Send out people to sign fake names for his signature drives and then sue him for it. How do you people live with yourselves?

[reason]

Nobody seems willing to point out that the real problem is "first past the post" voting. Look up preferential voting. Or if that is too complicated for your innumerates, you could always have a run off (like they do in say France). America needs political reform. Stop trying to pretend that good late 18th Century ideas are also good early 21st Century ideas.

[reason]

It is another version of Murphy's law - what can go wrong will. If the system can be made to look daft, it will be.

[messels]

i'm not sure i get all the bashing on nader. it's funny to read some of the comments on here actually.
i mean, seriously? a vote for nader is a vote for mccain? gimmie a break. a vote for barack, mccain, hilary is a vote for more war and probably more debt and little move on fixing social security.
i like barack as a democratic candidate because he's a step closer to what a real president should be doing: cleaning up washington. but i know what he stands for: more of the same.

nader doesn't have enough political sense? good. that's who we should elect. why should we elect people who are good at politic-ing and not good at governing?

sheesh, i expected more from an economics blog...

such as, "nasty little man with a nasty agenda agenda". wtf? gtfoh. lol.

as jay pointed out, we've had a one-party system disguised as a two-party dichotomy for some time. and the supposed LIBERALS of the bunch are the ones most fearful of nader!

as nader himself said, "if the democrats can't keep a republican out of office this time around, they should just close the doors and re-emerge as a new party."

the democrats problems all come down to one thing: they act like liberals--meaning everything they say and maybe even believe is with a "left-wing" tilt but they really can't reconcile that paradigm with being just as money-hungry, power-grubbing as republicans. essentially, the democratic party is a bunch of rich, elites who like to parade blacks and other disadvantaged minorities around so they can show the people that they have "their" best interests in mind. if they were just honest and real, they may actually be a party but this fissure in their political ideology and it's foundation is too great to maintain a consistent party...so they keep losing to dough-doughs (like the pun?) remember, they don't have the civil rights movement (among many other politically charging events) to ride the wave into office.

all people who *really* believe in equal rights, better standards of living, limitations on corp. power (and influence in washington) wouldn't be democrats, they'd be nader voters.

i mean, common-people, are you really that attached to a stupid "party"? it's meaningless. it's powerless (unless we believe in it and give it power). sheesh. it's like loving jesus simply because you're a self-identified christian (as opposed to believing in his message).

what ever happened to voting for people because of their goals rather than stigmas? for some reason i get the impression that people are just as prejudice as always...meaning ignorant and comfortably self-justified.

[messels]

add it to the RSS people! ;-)
http://www.votenader.org/blog/

[James Killus]

Andrew,

That's 4% of the individual donors who are not being sneaky about it.

[Jay]

James:

You still have not provided a source. You say "Most of Nader's campaign money". I generally accept that as meaning greater than 50%. Where is your evidence? Some hit piece from a leftist mud slinging site that at least properly puts "illegal" in quotation marks, because the laws it thinks are broken directly violate our personal freedoms.

[esb]

messels:

Here is the Nader agenda as it is widely understood ...

1. Contact the Democratic nominee and deliver a set of policy ultimata.

2. When politely rebuffed (in part) appear on Meet the Press (or Larry King Live) and announce a Green Party candidacy.

3. Work to swing a high-electoral-vote "swing state" D to R in the general election with the intent to swing the election.

4. If successful, repeat the process four or eight years later.

Now this agenda could not be any more nasty had it sprung from the nasty fertile mind of the one, the only, Karl Rove.

And for you Dean Koonts aficionados, it sort of seems as though Nader has been "remoted" by Rove.

So yes, "my friends," this is indeed a nasty little agenda.

And should he successfully swing another election, I submit that "nasty" will be one of the least nasty epithets expectorated in his direction.

[baileyman]

esb said:

"3. Work to swing a high-electoral-vote "swing state" D to R in the general election with the intent to swing the election."

Were this true, it would seem we could easily point to some goodies Nader has harvested from the Rs. Lacking those...

Listening to 'bama's foreign policy advisor Ms. Powers, it's clear this is a lady who would grieve while advocating humanitarian bombing. I guess that's an improvement.

[Patricia Shannon]

Messels,
We common people know from experience that we usually have to make compromises in life. We may hate our boss, but until we find a new job, we're not going quit our job and risk losing our house. (Luckily, right now, I love my job.)

[Patricia Shannon]

I've been around enough to know that there are people like Messels, but I also would bet that the RNC is encouraging the idea among liberals/progressives that both parties are the same, so it doesn't matter which gets elected. This is the kind of thing they've been doing for years, and their not going to stop.

The Democratic party is certainly not what it should be, but I can't imagine any of the leading Democratic candidates, since I started voting in 1967, nominating the same people to the supreme court as Reagan and Bush did.
The next president will probably get to nominate one or more supreme court justices. McCain has promised he would nominate people in the mold of Alito and Roberts. The Democratic candidates wouldn't do that, for sure.