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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.'"
Yup - don't blame me, I voted for Ron Paul. :-)
Libertas in infinitum
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
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.
We've already got that. We don't have a two-party system. We've got a 100-party system. California Democrats and Wyoming Democrats couldn't even ideologically be considered part of the same party, to say nothing of New York Republicans and Alabama Republicans. The factional politics ARE inside the party itself. There is no "national" party since we don't elect national candidates, with the exception of presidents and vice presidents. The national leadership is the faction within the party that can wield the hammer best at a given time. Parties for Congress are run at the state level. Once they all get to Washington, they figure something out as a pool of a couple hundred individuals.
Are you saying that Ronald Reagan is a Republican in the mold crafted by the current leadership? Is Ron Paul? Hell, is John McCain? Is Eisenhower?
Is Harry Reid the same kind of Democrat as Nancy Pelosi? As FDR? As Wilson?
Each party has a fully realized set of factions, but only one gets to lead at any given time. There's no problem with the "number of parties" in the United States. There's a strong party line dictated by the leadership, and whips keep Reps and Senators on short leashes. All that needs to happen is for the caucuses within the parties to start banding together and voting on the issues, but there's always going to be someone in charge, and that means they've got the loudest voice. The basic problem is that the voters are too lazy to elect people based on their values and ideals. Getting rid of the neocons and Jesus people would be easy if the people wanted it.
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.
The other way is to get constitutional reforms passed which change how elections work. Good luck getting that to happen. That would require the help of at least one of the two existing parties and I don't see that happening.
So, the only purpose of a 3rd party is to draw votes from another party. Deciding to run in a 3rd party does not mean you're presenting a 3rd choice. It means that you're attempting to draw votes from the major party that agrees with you the most.
I don't like it. I very much wish we could alter the system to allow people to vote with some sort of multi-vote system as in I like person #1 but if they don't win then I prefer person #2. There are a variety of other voting schemes, any one of which would probably be better.
But, there is only one possible outcome of another Nader run. That is to draw votes away from Obama. If Nader runs and McCain wins then Nader bears the blame just like he bears the blame for getting Bush elected.
The only real possibility that I see for change is to push to get the primaries opened up more. That is where we have real choice. The primaries are corrupt in many ways. There are plenty of very undemocratic issues in the primaries for both major parties. That needs to change and it's the only way that change can occur.
Cow Cube
... 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?