Help Talk Some Sense Into Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader's website is asking for our advice on whether he should run next year. If anybody agrees with what I was saying before, let's head over there and let him know.
Considering that the site does not show us the results of the poll, and he has a disclaimer on the front page about ignoring "orchestrated campaigns", he may well be planning to follow his ego no matter what we tell him. But it's worth a shot.
EDIT: In the interest of fairness, here is a Wall Street Journal interview posted by Daily KOS, where Nader seems to indicate he will not run if Dean gets the nod:
For all the gloominess Democrats may harbor about Howard Dean's chances in the general election, here's a bit of good news: Ralph Nader, whose third-party candidacy cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000, seems unlikely to mount a run against the former Vermont governor.
Mr. Nader says he will decide in the next few weeks whether to run. But in the meantime, his praise of Mr. Dean undercuts any rationale for another independent candidacy.
"Reading his position papers sounds eerily similar to what we've been saying," the longtime consumer advocate notes in an interview with the Online Journal this week. "He speaks clearly ... not in Senate-ese ... and projects vigor. We need a macho Democrat." The front-running Democratic candidate, Mr. Nader says, has an impressive "rope-a-dope ability."
There are caveats. "Dean's record as governor is nothing to shout about," Mr. Nader says, noting that his preference would be Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich.
But Mr. Nader waxes on about how preferable Mr. Dean is to President Bush. In 2000 the consumer advocate suggested there was little difference between candidates Al Gore and Mr. Bush.
"Unlike most of the other candidates," Mr. Nader says, the Vermont governor "is not compromised by votes for the Patriot Act or for the Iraqi war resolution."
Posted by jsmooth995 at December 19, 2003 05:49 PM
I have always had the greatest respect for Ralph Nader. When the worker or oppressed needed a voice, there he was. If corporations were running amok--which is never--there he was battling with them and for us.
Now, however, he is in jeopardy of becoming a buffoon and hero of the right-wing conservative Republicans. For Mr. Nader or anyone else to state that he did not help elect Bush and lead the defeat of Gore flies in the face of the facts.
The argument that Gore did not carry Tenn. when he had very little chance of doing so is a canard used to soothe his conscience. He and the supreme court were the reasons why Gore lost and we have had to endure this caricature of a president.
Now we hear that Nader is planning on running again in 2004. What a fool. I'm starting to believe that Nader wants Bush to win in order for him to sell more books and make more speaking engagements. Nothing else makes any sense.
He does not agree with anything that Bush and his lackeys propose. He does agree with many of the ideas that the Democrats propose. What else could explain his intent on running again and siphoning off votes that would normally go to the Democratic candidate?
Wait, maybe he is just a FOOL? That is what I believe. If he runs, his legacy of trying to help the down-trodden, the powerless, the consumer will disappear and he will be remembered as the court jester and the election of an administration for eight years that will destroy most of what has been accomplished for the average person in this country.
In a word, DO NOT RUN IN 2004.
Respectfully
J. Michael Hutton
Franklin, TN.
jmhwork@aol.com
Posted by: J. Michael Hutton at February 21, 2004 09:15 AM
Dear Mr. Nader:
In my younger days, I had quite a bit of respect for the work that you had done for consumers and the people of this country. I donated to your causes and supported you. That, however, has changed. In the 2000 elections, you claimed that there was no difference between the Republicans and Democrats and urged people to support you in your folly. I believe that you cost Al Gore the election.
Well - Now do you see a difference now? I hope that you aren't so blind that you cannot see the damage that Bush and his cronies have done to this country. Gore would never have sent us into a preemptive war with Iraq, which in the long run will cost us so much in terms of young American lives, not to mention the expense of the whole fiasco.Gore wouldn't have attempted to dismantle the Clean Air Act, Clear Water Act, Endangered Species Act, etc.,etc. The blood of 538 soldiers and thousands of Iraqi civilians rests partially on your hands. Granted, the degree of damage to America that has occurred could not have been anticipated by you at that time, but you must surely now see that a repeat of the 2000 election cannot be allowed to occur. I hope that you can follow your conscience and for the good of the country not run for President again, so that we can fix the environmental, social, economic damage that Bush has caused. I beg you and I will get all of the people I know to urge you not to run for President in 2004. Please help us take back our country . Should you choose to run again, I will never support you or your causes with money or help. Please support the only hope for our country, the defeat of George Bush, by the most electable Democratic candidate that emerges.
Thank you, Carla Strand Sammamish, WA 98075 cmacstrand@juno.com
The following editorial in the Daily Camera.com says a lot of what I feel and I plan on sending to everyone I know.
No, Ralph, no
A Nader campaign in 2004? Please, not again
July 14, 2003
Here is good news for anyone who sees no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, who still thinks Al Gore and George W. Bush were Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who believes that a powerful incumbent is vulnerable to a quarreling and splintered opposition — anyone, in short, whose view of American politics is uncluttered by hard facts. Send the word: Ralph Nader may run for president again.
Nader announced last week that he's considering another run for the presidency, under the banner of the Green Party or as an independent. Nader's decision will rest in part on whether he approves of the leading Democratic candidates at the end of this year — and if his comments last week were any indication, he probably won't. The only candidate to excite his strong interest so far is U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who is far to the left of the pack and far behind in the polls.
The whole country knows what Ralph Nader accomplished in his last campaign, even if Nader and some of his supporters still refuse to acknowledge it. If he didn't singlehandedly deliver the 2000 election to George W. Bush, he furthered the Republican cause by siphoning votes away from Al Gore — not only in Florida, but across the country. A shift of political energy from Nader to Gore would almost certainly have delivered the White House to the Democrats, with lasting consequences for domestic and foreign policy.
Nader's campaign was damaging not only because of its practical outcome but because the candidate of "idealism" based his appeal to voters on an outright falsehood. He asked the American public to believe that Bush and Gore were all but indistinguishable, since both men were chained to the interests of large corporations.
There was a single grain of truth in that remark: The Democrats, like the Republicans, are too indebted to big contributors. There was also a mountain of deception, and the past three years have proved it. After the Iraq war, even some of Nader's old supporters have admitted that they, and the candidate, were wrong to deny the vast differences between Bush and Gore.
What would a Nader campaign accomplish in 2004, other than to inflict more damage? How would it sharpen the essential debate of the next campaign — the debate over George W. Bush and his conservative agenda for the country? If Nader does run, his name recognition alone would guarantee him a certain number of votes, even if he campaigned as an independent. But for what reason, other than ego gratification, would he enter the race? And why would voters with a sense of responsibility for the country's future be tempted to vote for him?
Public-opinion polls already show that voters often approve of Bush's performance even though a majority disagrees with him on a whole range of issues. If many of those conflicted moderates vote for the president, and if disaffected voters on the left throw their support behind third-party or independent candidates (or no one at all), the 2004 debate may be over before it begins.
Ralph Nader was a pioneer in the consumer movement and an eloquent crusader for economic justice. But now, as he ponders a fourth run for the presidency, he risks becoming the Harold Stassen of the progressive movement — a man remembered not for his achievements as a reformer but his futility as a candidate.
This is a man who has spent a lifetime demonstrating that he cares deeply about important causes. The best way for Nader to champion those causes in the 2004 presidential race is to stay out of it.
