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Ralph Nader Might Announce Run For President
SonicSpike writes "According to the AP, Ralph Nader could be poised for another presidential campaign. Nader will appear on NBC's 'Meet the Press' tomorrow to announce whether he will launch another White House bid. Nader kicked off his 2004 presidential run on the show. Kevin Zeese, who was Nader's spokesman during the 2004 presidential race said, 'Obviously, I don't think Meet the Press host Tim Russert would have him on for no reason.'"
Oi, assuming he gets anywhere,how many times would this be that this guy has tried running for president? I think he's a wee bit too late in the running to make much of a difference.
The problem with the US being that if their economy folds, so does a lot of others. Huzzah!
Is it too likely that a Democrat might win this time?
Hey, remember when he stood in 2000, with the full support of the Green movement, because, wait for it, Al Gore wasn't an environmentalist?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
if nader runs, watch out -- more republican madness.
Yup - don't blame me, I voted for Ron Paul. :-)
Libertas in infinitum
I can't be the only European to ask my self who the hell Ralph Nader is.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
This could get VERY interesting (as if it hasn't been already) if both Nader and Bloomberg both run as separate 3rd parties. Since both are liberals it might divide up the Democrat vote enough to give a win to McCain (who is also a liberal).
:-(
For those of us who want smaller government, lower spending, less taxes, individual rights, personal liberties and freedoms, etc we don't have a choice anymore
Libertas in infinitum
i hope he chokes on it.
Someday I hope we can get beyond the "I belong to this party" mentality. To me there should only be one party, American Citizens. Candidates step up and state what they actually believe and what direction they want to take the government, and are judged by the voting public on those merits alone. Hell, we can even do it American Idol style and text our votes each week.
Though I have noticed in the last few years the lines between the parties blurring quite a bit (excepting the childish displays during the State of the Union). I wonder if we could find someone who's never been exposed to any of the contenders and see if they can guess the party affiliation and what they stand for.
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Is Ross Perot going to run again too? I miss that guy.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
If Obama gets it, Nader probably won't get much support anyway, but if Clinton gets it, he'll probably get enough support to hurt the DNP in the general election, and frankly, the DNP needs a massive smack upside the head. They need to learn to stop fielding candidates the people can't get behind. Gore was too robotic, Kerry was too wishywashy, and Clinton is too ambitious and unscrupulous. Maybe, just maybe, if Clinton runs and Nader "steals her votes" the party might just get a frigging clue.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
so are you saying that the politics section of slashdot is for US politics only? guess the countries that make up rest of the world don't have any political processes worthy of comment and analysis then :)
This is discussed numerous places. A quick google pops up this article from the San Francisco Chronicle during the 2004 race. It's really one of the sad things about Nader. He has some good ideas but he often undermines his goals with his actions.
He has an Iconoclastic view of the world,
He pulls obscure facts out of nowhere to make trivial debating points,
He thinks ThePowerStructure is out to ruin everything,
He knows how everyone else should run their lives,
And he's a total Karma Whore.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Is Ross Perot going to run again too? I miss that guy.
less likely after realizing last month that obama is not a muslim: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Perot_pleasantly_surprised.html
whether he likes it or not. He won in California, the state with the most delegates, by 60%. They have over 100 while all other states have 4 to 16. In states where he can't be on the ballot in the Green primaries, they have someone from the Draft Nader committee, who will presumably tell his delegates to all vote for Nader. What happens if he wins, but doesn't run? He essentially gets to single-handedly pick the Green nominee. In second place is Cynthia McKinney, a former Democrat member of the House of Representative and the Green running with the most political experience, but nearly all media attention she's received is for striking a security guard with her first after being caught running through the halls without the badge identifying her as a Congresswoman, and also saying "Al Gore's Negro tolerance level isn't very high. He only has one Negro around him at maximum at all times." As someone earlier mentioned, the Green Party weirdly doesn't seem fond of Al Gore. In third place is Kat Swift, whose main political experience is being co-chair of the Texas Green Party and coming in 2nd place for city council. Get this---while running for president, she's also running for city council! Just because it's a third party, doesn't mean it's better than the two in power. The Green Party seems to be the only third party tracking how many delegates each candidate has, but I saw while researching third parties that in Minnesota, all Constitution Party candidates available in their caucuses were Republicans or Democrats, minus one guy I'd never heard of with 2.5% of the vote, and Ron Paul won with over 80%, despite saying he would not run on a third party ticket. The Constitution Party, from their website, looks like the Republican Party without support for the Iraq War or warrantless wiretapping or anti-drug laws, but they mention Jesus in the preamble of their platform. It's pitiful that 2 out of 3 of the third parties the media ever talks about seem to be in favor of people that are not running. Also, I'm new here, so be nice.
Bloomberg's not getting into this race. Unlike Nader, who's motivated by a kind of principled idealism that places the outcome as a secondary consideration, Bloomberg's interest in running for president is calculated, to win. If the GOP were nominating a religious fanatic, he'd be able to draw enough secular conservatives to do well, but with McCain getting the GOP nomination, the constituency just isn't there for him. So he'll sit it out.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I'm all for him running - he can throw the election to the Republicans like he did last time.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
"If the GOP were nominating a religious fanatic, he'd be able to draw enough secular conservatives to do well, but with McCain getting the GOP nomination, the constituency just isn't there for him."
Are you kidding? Every conservative I know views Bloomberg as a sneaking, dishonest limousine liberal who posed as a Republican to get the NY Mayoralty and then did absolutely zero to live up to the moniker. He's basically Corzine, only less honest.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
That's the sound of John McCain's campaign staff high-fiving each other.
In other news, Lyndon LaRouche launched a lawsuit against Ralph Nader in federal court today, claiming that a 2008 Nader presidential campaign infringes on his trademark to "crackpot candidate."
"I'M the nutjob who always runs for President, no that tree-hugger!" rages LaRouche in a strong-worded press released issued earlier today. "The American public looks to ME as their butt of wisecracks and snide remarks come election time, and I'll be damned if some Ralphie-come-lately takes that away. I ruined Ross Perot; I'll ruin him, too!"
A Nader spokesperson refused to comment on the lawsuit except to say that the 'Unsafe at any Speed' plans to summon George Wallace from the grave as an expert witness should LaRouche's petition go to trial.
Nadar way back before the 2000 election cycle always said that the Democrats and the Republicans were exactly the same. Then for the next 7 years the Democrats have proved him right.
Before he ran for president the first time, all I really knew about Ralph Nader was that he appeared on Sesame Street once long ago.
During his run for president (both in 2000 and 2004), I learned a little more about him here on Slashdot. 90% of what I read here was negative.
I was deceived -- the reality was that 90% of the comments I read here on Slashdot were just gross oversimplifications and instances of senseless finger-pointing.
What changed my point of view? Just one thing: an Independent Lens documentary, "An Unreasonable Man".
After watching that documentary, I still don't know if Ralph Nader would have made (or would make) a good president. Instead, what I do know is that I'm sorry I took most of the Slashdot comments back in 2000 and 2004 as a good source of information. Ralph Nader has been unfairly dragged through the mud by many, and by some has been blamed for everything they care to believe went wrong with American leadership over the last 8 years. From some of the comments I'm reading here, it seems there's still a lot of unfair hostility aimed at him.
If you have the opportunity to watch that documentary, do so. It might create a more complete picture of the man for you, as it did for me.
Whoever designed level 61 in Frozen Bubble is a sadistic bastard.
"Slashdot is U.S.-centric. We readily admit this, and really don't see it as a problem. Slashdot is run by Americans, after all, and the vast majority of our readership is in the U.S. We're certainly not opposed to doing more international stories, but we don't have any formal plans for making that happen. All we can really tell you is that if you're outside the U.S. and you have news, submit it, and if it looks interesting, we'll post it."
maybe you need to meet more non-fundy conservatives
Alternate response: "Sorry, if you can't find your own shift key, you're not allowed to vote. Thank you, and God bless."
When you say "two molds", do you mean "Democrat and Republican", or "Republicrat and loser"?
I know plenty of "non-fundy" conservatives. NO ONE believes Bloomberg is a conservative, except liberal reactionaries who automatically equate "rich" with "conservative". Every commentator who brings up the subject opines on how a Bloomberg run would affect the Democrats, not the Republicans.
Really, what are his conservative credentials?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Charisma without specific details is much more attractive to the cult-leader-seeking American public than dullness filled to overflowing with specific details about proposed changes.
If Nader enters the race, he will bring media focus to bear on the vagueness of speeches by Barack Hussein Obama.
maybe you need to listen to more commentators
if the republicans nominated a religious nutjob like huckabee, bloomberg would appeal to non-fundy conservatives and moderate republicans, whod see him as the least dangerous option. but the gop picked mccain so they have a candadate of their own to vote for, so bloomberg would have to count on ONLY liberals which he knows wouldnt be enough
This is the man who put George Bush in the White House, by getting a small number of votes in the closest Presidential election in American history. Nader needs to give it up.
In 2004 I listened to an interview with Ralph Nader and why he was running. It was very apparent by the end that he does not give a damn what happens if he runs, he is only concerned with feeding his ego. In fact he seems to think that the disaster of the last eight years is a validation of why he must run. He does not have a clue, nor does he want one.
Ralph needs to wake up and figure out just how much damage his running would cause.
A vote for Nader is a vote for McCain.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
I want John McCain in the white house and I would love to see him tip it again.
:-)
You go Ralph.
http://saveie6.com/
I'm sorry, but as a geek I'm only going to vote for someone with an ounce of intelligence and common sense, not the one who needs the votes to beat the greater of two evils. Nothing is ever going to change unless the greater population of the US realizes that professional politicians, regardless of party, are all the same. If you don't vote for who you actually want to win what is the point of living in a democracy, why not move to China?
--Drive carefully. 90% of people are caused by accidents.
I believe that the quality of the U.S. national debate emanating from the so-called 2 party system benefits from the participation Ralph Nader and his ilk. The efforts of his constituency, a loyal political opposition to the status quo, serves to highlight the slim difference in the social agendas offered by the Democratic and Republican national parties.
I am hopeful the the last 8 years speak undeniable volumes about conservative right-wing politics and its true nature. The good ol' boys have brought us such ill-conceived administrative efforts as a completely failed foreign policy in the mid-east, from the status quo in Israel to an arguably illegal war in Iraq, promoted by fear mongering and deceit, as well as the laizze-faire economic policy in the financial sector that resulted in the mortgage market collapse. (Arguably, this was facilitated by Alan Greenspan with the tacit approval of both Clinton and Bush but George sat there with his thumb in his navel while all gains were erased without so much as a sneeze.) One of my favorite jibes at the neo-cons is over the thinly veiled religious tenets behind compassionate conservatism masquerading as public health policy. The result is a the denial of objective education on the benefits of birth control or the simplest and most effective form of AIDs prevention. It's called a condom... not a Con-Dumb. The arrogance allowing religious belief to substitute for critical thinking resulted in avoidable suffering and death. Stupidity currently reigns down upon us from the elliptical office.
Howover, I am hopeful that Nader and the Green's focus on the benefits of a progressive rational approach to the development of federal policy could enhance the debate over health care systems and their economics, consumer protection and advocacy for public health and that of the environment as sourced from best science and a strong EPA/FDA, as well as a forward thinking approach to global warming and the scaling back the influence and effects of the military/imperial agenda for National Security.
The best way to achieve this, IMHO, would be for Hillary and Barak to welcome Ralph and his cadre into the debate schedule and deal with Ralph as more of an equal based on his political agenda and years of public service. The tried and true method of dealing with Greens has been to ignore their effort or attempt to discredit their messages rather than allowing for a free and open debate and discussion. Encouraging the inclusion of the Greens' participation would be wise move that might deflect some the inevitable misdirection of the press, many of whom find it easier to focus on the analogy between horses and candidates than to engage in analysis of underlying arguments or principles.
Moreover and also IMHO, reporters who address the 'Spoiler' question should, as Stephen Colbert suggested, should shut-up, go home and write the great American novel about the journalist with the integrity to live up to the ideal to which they are all supposed to be encouraged to aspire, even if they happen to work for editors who owe their allegiance to Rupert Murdoch. Oh, and reconnect with your family, if you have one.
After all Rick Santorum's campaign directly funded putting a Green party candidate on the ballot in 2006 to try to take votes away from the Democratic front-runner, Casey. It didn't work out for him in the end, but it shows just how little principle was involved with either side of that cold-blooded, strategic transaction.
I'll bet we see a lot of Republican money flowing into Nader's coffers if he announces a run.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The two-headed beast known as Tweedledeeum has something like a 101% chance of winning. Truly, if you don't like the beast, nothing can be a greater waste of your vote than to give it to either of its heads, Dee or Dum. The Iraq War, for instance, is a lost cause and will be given up soon, no matter which branch of rhetoric the president subscribes to. Don't forget that the Vietnam war began under a Democratic president and ended under a Republican one. Despite the common, status-quo-serving wisdom, I insist that the only way for your vote to mean a goddamn thing is to vote for a third party.
(Personally, I'm hoping Cynthia McKinney wins the Green Party nomination. She's the one I'd most like to campaign for, though I'm a big Nader fan too.)
Property is theft.
Right now, the primary obstacle to building a strong progressive 3rd party is Ralph Nader. There's going to be no building of 3rd parties as long as they remain focused only on Presidential candidates and campaigns. There will be no strong 3rd party movement without a heck of a lot of hard work building a real grassroots party structure down at the local and state levels, and getting new methods of voting like instant runoff voting in place.
Nader disappears most of the time when it's time to do the hard work of party building, and then parachutes in again when the cameras arrive.
Standard Nader stuff, though. Nader has a decades long history of letting others bust their ass on projects for years/decades, then Nader arrives just at the moment that the work begins to produce results, and then kick the other activists that did the work out of the way of his camera time.
Nader also has a long history of treating people who work for him like crud. Nader has a bad rep around DC because of all the lower level people he's treated like crud through the years.
Green Party isn't going anywhere until they free themselves of Nader.
Its not like he doesn't have name recognition, and he already has enough money that he doesn't have to steal more for his friends, like BushCheneyHalliburton.
I know what you mean. In fact, it pisses me off that the Democrats steal votes from the Republicans. We should have just one political party. Obviously since the Republican side seems to be the more united one of the two, that should be the one we keep. I am sick of vote stealing and view it on the level of baby eating.
The range of bills the Republicans and Democrats will vote on is a mere fraction of bills third parties would offer for a vote.
The Democrats and Republican work in the committees that get bills onto the floor. So we only see their minor differences.
It really only looks like they are widely disagreeing, but it's all a show. They all support uncontrolled capitalism, the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, and corporate control.
Do you not see the fallacy you're making? It's pure selection bias.
Which essentially means he wants to create a trading scheme on top of carbon, and the only way they can have value is that somebody would trade their right to call a generation mechanism carbon-free, so that carbon-consumption is something they are ok with -- they are ok selling it out.
So, you see, Gore isn't an environmentalist. He's a capitalist that wants to make money off of guilt -- guilt is the only way in which carbon credits have any meaning without real limits on carbon output (which don't exist). Moreover, carbon credits are fundamentally unfair. The rich get to buy their way out of carbon guilt!
Gore's a politician -- a salesman. He's sold the public, with his movie, carbon credits. After all of his speeches, he tells people they can all be carbon neutral if they just buy his promoted carbon credits!
I'm sorry, but the Greens were right to criticize him. He's just at the same old political lying.
Wow, those grapes are *really* sour, huh?
Nader is not only responsible for making Gore look bad to a significant fraction of the left (an impressive feat on its own) but is somehow responsible for Bush's Iraq war and the abuse of signing statements and Gitmo and the DHS and the Patriot Act 1&2 and wiretapping.
I especially like how you link to a page showing the popular vote, despite it being completely irrelevant. You seem to indicate that it was an attempt to show that Gore + Nader > Bush, even though the Supreme Court declared the winner in Florida, and not the popular vote.
If you're looking for somebody to blame for the election fiasco, blame the 5 Supreme Court justices who decided to throw away all 6 million Florida votes and arbitrarily declare Bush the winner. Nader was just a citizen running for office, as he has every right to. The Justices are civil servants assuming a power they had no right to.
Since the Florida votes were never completely counted, there's no way to say if Nader would have mattered or not, if the Supreme Court justices hadn't abused their position.
The claim that continued war in the midEast and a McCain presidency would harm the economy is unclear at best. Short term, of course, the war drains the economy, but the long-term danger of a successful militant Islam could do the economy, and our lives, horrific damage. McCain has a reputation as a budget-cutter and if he holds true to that, he will do tremendous good. Both Obama and Clinton want to tax and spend us into oblivion. Nader hates capitalism and would destroy the economy out of spite.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I hear that Mike Gravel is looking for a Vice Presidency.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Party discipline as the European understands it does not exist in the American system.
The national political party does not exist as the European understands it.
Coalitions are forged internally within the Democratic and Republican parties. They are built from the ground up and can be remarkably stable once forged.
But when they collapse they "go all at once and nothing first, just like bubbles when they burst."
I'm not a Nader voter, but I've voted for a third party before. As a third party voter I can tell you that I wouldn't vote for a democrat if I didn't have the option. Or a republican.
Since people who vote for third-party candidates know that there's no chance their candidate will win but end up voting for them anyway, have you ever considered the possibility they would just stay home if they didn't get the option? That's what I'm planning on doing this election. I refuse to vote for the "lesser of two evils." When someone tells you to pick whether to get hit on the head with a wood or metal baseball bat, you don't choose wood because it's softer. You try to get away so you won't get hit with either, even if you're pretty sure your chances of escaping are slim.
While I'm on the subject of staying home on election day. For everyone out there who does not intend doing proper research on every candidate on the ballot, please ignore the "get out and vote" bullshit and stay home. Voting is NOT your civic duty. Informed voting (or informed not voting) is your civic duty. If you're going to fail to do that, at least don't get in the way of those who did do their research by casting a vote potentially in opposition to theirs. Whatever opinion you have on issues are fine, but please make sure that you're voting for a candidate that truly agrees with you on those issues, don't just assume they do (or don't) because of their party affiliation or because of one or two quotes they have made or their opponents have made. Look at their political record.
Don't stop there either. Evaluate your own beliefs once in a while and consider the possibility that you're wrong. Whether you're for or against universal health care, take a look at how it's working out in countries that have it, look at the arguments for and against, check to see if they actually have merit, and then make a decision whether to change your mind or not. Again, I don't care what you eventually decide on, that's up to you. But please make informed decisions based on more than your gut feelings.
... let me point out several things you appear to have overlooked.
1. Gore won. There is no question that Gore won the popular vote. It was our outdated (and I question whether it was ever in date) Electoral College for the highly improbably but all-too-real situation where the candidate who came in second might actually win.
2. Gore won. The Supreme Court cut off recounts at a very convenient time for the son of the man who put several of them there. So much for the balance of powers.
3. Voter disefranchisement. African Americans were presented with many obstacles to voting, as has been well-documented in Florida in 2000, and in Ohio in 2004. As much as I'd personally like to think they were there to vote for Nader, the fact is, they overwhelmingly supported Gore (Kerry). And I'll just mention the difficulties people had with the ballots in passing. All these are, of course, merely emblematic of systemic problems in all 50 states, plus our assorted territories.
4. Gore lost Florida fair and square.
4a. There were a string of other third parties on the ballot, mostly on the left, who presumably "took votes from Gore." Can you name them? Did you know they added up to more than 534 votes?
4b. Vastly more registered Democrats voted for Bush than total people voted for Nader. Reread that sentence as many times as it takes.
4c. There is no -- I want to make this very clear -- no reason to presume had Nader not been on the ballot in 2000, his would-be voters would hae automatically gone to Gore. That's sheer arrogance. A handful would have, yes, but a lot would have gone to other leftist parties, a number would have gone Libertarian, and an awful lot would have abstained. Notice: please do not respond merely to the word "handful" outside the larger context of this message. Thank you.
5. Gore lost Tennessee and Arkansas. His own home state. Clinton's home state. 'Nuff said.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
are the reason that Nader can sap votes. It's not obvious that all republicans and democrats are "in the pockets of lobbyists". http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN00192: and http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN00230: There are two major bills for lobbying ethics reform passed by Congress and sponsored by McCain and Obama, respectively.
I absolutely agree that the Democrats have been little more than enablers. However, that is because of the people in the party, not some magical aspect of the party itself.
A party does not magically cause someone to become something they are not. Ron Paul is not a typical Republican. Kucinich is not a typical Democrat. Voting your conscience in the general election may make you feel better, but it's guaranteed to be a wasted vote. You can chide people for not voting their conscience in the general election all you like, but a 3rd party candidate cannot win unless they are wildly popular personalities. Arnold could possibly pull it off (if it were constitutional for him to be president).
Also, keep in mind we're talking about the presidency here. That is a single person with tremendous power. Only a lunatic would think that the choice between Gore and Bush was a vote for the same sort of person. That vote made one hell of a difference in the course of events in the world. If more people had voted their conscience then perhaps the gap would have been even wider with Bush winning.
There is one corner case that I hadn't thought of until just now. What would happen if there was an even number of parties? What if, instead of one Republican and two Democratish people running, we had two Republicanish people and two Democratish people? What if in the next election we had Obama, McCain, Nader, and Paul all running with Nader and Paul being the 3rd and 4th parties? That might still be tricky if one of the two extras was more popular and thus screwed things up. But, what if we then added a 5th who had cross party appeal like Arnold (again, assuming a modification of the constitution).
I'll bet that a race like that truly would be up in the air.
Perhaps that's one way to do it. If we want another party to win then we'll need at least 3 popular candidates spread out across the ideological spectrum.
Cow Cube
I'm voting for Jack Bauer.
Salute to you; you're absolutely right. People who can't think strategically need to grow the fuck up before they do something dangerous, like, leave the house. To vote.
G. Ratte'/cDc "I don't know what your problem is, but I bet it's hard to pronounce."
Yah just like the DMCA, Defense of Marriage Act, Telecom Reform Act, and Communications Decency Act (Source) would never have been enacted had Bob Dole or Bush I been President?
It's too easy to speculate now since hindsight is 20/20, but remember that the majority of the PATRIOT Act power grab provisions were enacted on recommendation of the Justice Department, and had been provisions which the DOJ had been trying to get enacted for years.
Let us also not forget that the Clinton Administration signed into law the Iraq Liberation Act, which established "regime change" in Iraq as the official US position, and pretty much gave George W. Bush the legitimacy he needed to start a serious dialog on invading. In fact, that law was enacted to provide cover for the Clinton Administration to engage in Operation Desert Fox in Iraq (a very popular move a the time).
The point of the story here is not so much to lay blame on any particular person here, but remind everybody that politicians whose horizons really only stretch as far as the next election will do really stupid things if they think it can score them some brownie points with their constituents.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
i owned a 63 powerslide corvair...spun the fucker 2x braking in corners, so i know what the problem was.
but by the time uaas came out, the corvair had replaced the swing axles with a fully independent design which afforded better handling than the corvette. but nadir's book led to the end of an innovative car (they did finally solve the oil leaks on the aluminum engine;-)
the vw beetle had the same swing-axle rear suspension, so why didn't nadir attack it, too, hmmm?
i guess it's true: nobody's ever gone broke underestimating the public's intellegence;-}
Bernie Sanders was supposedly further left than whole damn Green Party combined, but Bernie Sanders has rolled over for the neo-cons just like the all the Democrats.
Not one Bernie Sanders filibuster since he was elected to the Senate. Not to stop torture. Not to stop the telecom immunity bill. Nothin'.
It is about time I actually find someone else on slashdot who has the same idea about going nowhere and needing the lower levels of support in a sort of bottom up campaign in order to get a strong third party in American politics.
I have never said anything about Nader himself in my explanations but I have often echoed your sentiment. You wouldn't even need a new election system either. The more offices occupied next to real voters (levels of local and state governments), the more apt they will be to let the third party occupy higher offices like congress and the presidency. I don't have the link to it, but states that have active third parties in local races do proportionally better in votes in national races with third part candidates like the green party. It would just be a matter of time to get a third or even a fourth party going strong if they took the bottom up approach.
Perhaps Ralph Nader doesn't think the Democrats would be any better or worse than the Republicans. If this is the case, why should he or his supporters care in the slightest what Democrat supporters and Republican haters think?
Besides, if Nader continues to draw votes from one particular side of a two-party system, it might actually motivate that side to realise that the system is quite screwed up, and push for changes to fix it.
I'm not a US citizen and it doesn't bother me a lot what happens except to the extent where the US stamps its foot over the rest of the world, but I find watching things from the outside quite interesting.
Read the Supreme Court decision, fool. The Bush v. Gore decision says that Bush won Florida even if Gore got more votes. It does not matter how many votes Gore got in Florida, and we'll never know, anyway, because the vote count was stopped.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/nader
I've written about it in a very short piece called The Key Issue Suspiciously Missing from Ralph Nader's "Table".
This is an issue that Nader often tries to sidestep, but which really challenges him to back up his claim that his campaign is about opening up the doors to more voices and parties. I really hope the press and voters will pick up on this issue and push Nader consistently to address it head-on during this campaign.
And... what if you don't agree with the two major parties? What if you agree with Nader's position that the two major parties *have sold out our government* to the corporations? There *is* -- and always has been -- a reason for the existence of third (and fourth) parties: the two major parties *fail* to represent an alternative point of view.
In fact the status quo already fails us in two separate ways, which gives rise to the two major third parties: the governement fails to grant us the freedom guaranteed to us by our own Constitution (thus the Libertarians), yet it fails to protect us from the excess of business *and* fails to adequately reflect the myriad points of view outside of its own self-satisfied viewpoint (thus the Green Party).
I suppose, if you only possess the intelligence of an average American, you see nothing wrong with letting someone else decide how your life should be. Don't the 'governing experts' already know better? This 'docile vote' is exactly why we keep getting people into power who promise change and then cannot deliver it. Their hands are tied by the compromises they made to get into power. Even *if* Obama -- say -- becomes President, you will quickly discover the compromises that *he* made, by noting the areas in which he avoids taking significant action.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
Yes, Nader did some great things for the consumers back in the 60's. But O.J. Simpson also had a great football career and made some funny movies before 1994. Just because you had some great accomplishments in the pass doesn't mean you get a free pass today.
Let's do a little comparison contrast between Ralph Nader and Howard Dean: in 2004 Dean ran a populist campaign as a Democrat against the DLC establishment and for "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." And he was promptly lynched by the DLC establishment and the mass market media. After he lost the primary, he ran for chair of the Democratic National Committee and won. His big contribution has been the "50 state strategy", where the DNC started spending money at the local level, giving money to places that had been seeded to the Republicans for decades, with the goal of fielding a good challenger for every seat in every race in the country. The Democratic Leadership Council sneered at Dean, wanting to continue spending money on "battleground states" and on their "50 + 1" strategy, or going for just over 50% of the vote. You know, the strategy that cost Dems control of Congress for 14 years and a couple presidential elections.
But when waves of Republicans were hit with scandal, there were Democratic challengers already in the bullpen thanks to Dean; a large part of the credit for retaking Congress in 2006 belongs to him. You further see validation of the 50 state strategy in the Democratic primary this year: Obama spends his money on local field offices and get-out-the-vote efforts in every state, and Hillary spends her money on consultants ($4 million a month for Mark Penn alone) and focusing on the big states. And since Super Tuesday, Obama has crushed her in every state by 20 points or more.
Whereas Nader ran under the Green Party in 2000 claiming that there was no difference between Gore and Bush. Really? A man who spent his entire adult life in public service vs a man who was a drunken frat boy until age 40. A Democrat who lined up with most of the Green Party's platform, vs a Republican that was the polar opposite of just about everything they believed in. No one knew what a fascist Bush would turn out to be, but it should have been obvious to everyone in 2000 that he was an uninterested, incompetent tool.
And he apparently clings to this delusion to this day. You think so Ralph? Gore would have pulled troops out of Afghanistan to launch a bogus invasion into Iraq? Gore would have argued that he was above the law, had the right to hold American citizens in jail without charges indefinitely, would have used torture on detainees?
And unlike Dean, who is leading a long term effort to reform the Democratic Party, Nader seems to think his job is to run as a spoiler every four years in the presidential race, and he hasn't even picked a party yet this time! Why didn't he run for Congress against a corrupt Democrat, like Ned Lamont did in Connecticut? If he lived in San Francisco and ran against Nancy "impeachment is off the table" Pelosi, I'd vote for him over that sellout bitch in a heartbeat.
Nader doesn't challenge the corrupt DLC establishment, he just throws the race to the GOP. And if this election came down to McCain vs Hillary, he would have a real chance of putting another warmonger up to his eyeballs in special interests into the Oval Office, again.
Nader needs to take a lesson from Ron Paul on how to stand up for your beliefs and challenge the status quo without fucking over the country with an ego trip.
The DLC hasn't learned their lesson a single iota from 2000 or 2004: they still triangulate, sell out the middle class, act as Bud Lite Republicans, and concentrate on "battleground states" while ceeding the rest to Republicans.
And the reason why it hasn't worked is that the DLC doesn't actually care about winning more elections, only enough to keep them in power. Kerry might have lost in 2004, but Al From made a fuckton of money.
And that's why another Nader run wont accomplish anything, because he doesn't threaten the DLC status quo: he only runs as a spoiler, he's not building a movement for change.
Yah just like the DMCA, Defense of Marriage Act, Telecom Reform Act, and Communications Decency Act (Source) would never have been enacted had Bob Dole or Bush I been President?
Which are molehills next to the mountains of torture, extraordinary rendition, breaking half the Bill of Rights, warrantless wiretapping, and endless incompetence.
Let us also not forget that the Clinton Administration signed into law the Iraq Liberation Act, which established "regime change" in Iraq as the official US position
Why don't you dig up those old lists of Democratic officials saying bad things about Saddam while you are at it? Democrats weren't saying we had to invade Iraq now, not later. Democrats weren't pushing non-existent ties between Saddam and Al Queda. Democrats weren't demonizing anyone who wasn't go ho on the war as being traitors.
The point of the story is that while the Democratic leadership deserves a good deal of blame, putting them in the same boat as the incompetent fascists is laughable.