Ralph Nader running for President again

Post by **Vympel** » 2008-02-24 09:28am

The anti-establishment consumer advocate made the announcement in a televised interview on Sunday.

Mr Nader was accused by many Democrats of handing the presidency to George W Bush in the November 2000 elections. He ran again unsuccessfully in 2004.

Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are vying for the Democratic ticket. John McCain is almost certain to run for the Republicans.

Nearly three million Americans - more than 2% of the vote - backed him when he stood as the Green Party candidate in the 2000 presidential election.

That election was so close that a small proportion of those votes - particularly in the key state of Florida - would have put Al Gore in the White House.

Mr Nader was born in Connecticut in 1934 and was educated at Princeton and Harvard universities.

He has spent most of his life fighting for consumers and workers against corporations.

In the 1960s his work on car safety led directly to seat belts and shatter-resistant glass being fitted in every American car. From the 1970s he built a reputation for dealing with issues including workers' rights, public safety, the environment and the influence of corporations.

He founded a number of groups including Public Citizen, which in recent years has been active in organising protests against the World Trade Organization and World Bank/IMF.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2008-02-24 09:36am

Go Nader! Ensure a McCain Victory.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2008-02-24 09:41am

What? We can only have most of my ideals? Not all of them? Then we will have NONE AT ALL!

Post by **Surlethe** » 2008-02-24 09:47am

On the one hand, this is the exercise of democracy (at least as close as we can get in the US), so I can't be too mad. On the other hand, if McCain wins because Nader siphons votes from the Democrat Party, I don't think many people here will be happy campers.

Shep wrote:Go Nader! Ensure a McCain Victory.

What, you going to vote for Nader now?

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2008-02-24 09:52am

Damnit Ralph, no one likes you anymore. Sit in the corner.

acesand8s · Post by **acesand8s** » 2008-02-24 10:16am

Fuck you, Ralph. Did you not learn from 2000? Did you forget the last fucking 8 years? Now, while I think he has some good points, like breaking the two-party stranglehold, this is not the time. There are enough mistakes to fix and Obama is a fantastic candidate. Let's avoid getting John "Bush-lite" McCain, m'kay?

I'm watching him on Meet the Press right now. He's going on about how no one is going to vote for McCain, because he represents a continuation of Bush's policy. My god, has he missed the entire fucking Republican primary? McCain's getting flak for not being Bush-enough! Nader's as wrapped up in his own fantasy world as George Bush.

Post by **Coyote** » 2008-02-24 10:16am

"Anonymous message to Ralph Nader" found here sums it up pretty well.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2008-02-24 10:21am

Ralph Nader got 0.38% of the popular vote in 2004. The only reason he had any impact in 2000 was because 1) the margin between Bush and Gore was razor thin, and 2) progressives who were tired of the Clinton administration "selling them out" saw no difference between the major party candidates. After four years of Bush, they were ready to hold their noses and vote for Kerry. After 8 years of Bush, with a candidate who's as close to a liberal as they come in the Senate running against a guy who is promising a 100 year war in Iraq, Nader will be lucky if his own vice-president votes for him.

Big Phil · Post by **Big Phil** » 2008-02-24 10:43am

RedImperator wrote:Ralph Nader got 0.38% of the popular vote in 2004. The only reason he had any impact in 2000 was because 1) the margin between Bush and Gore was razor thin, and 2) progressives who were tired of the Clinton administration "selling them out" saw no difference between the major party candidates. After four years of Bush, they were ready to hold their noses and vote for Kerry. After 8 years of Bush, with a candidate who's as close to a liberal as they come in the Senate running against a guy who is promising a 100 year war in Iraq, Nader will be lucky if his own vice-president votes for him.

My first thought - "goddammit Nader, you fucking douchebag, nobody cares about you!"

My second thought - "This election won't be close enough for Nader to make a difference."

The only way Nader makes a difference is if Obama (or Clinton) seriously fuck up on the campaign trail, or racism and O'Reilly's "lynching" of Michelle Obama come back into vogue. Obama's either going to clobber McCain by a significant margin, or he's going to get clobbered because he did something stupid between now and November.

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2008-02-24 11:27am

I think the most hilarious bit about his anouncement was that he stated that the general public was "disenchanted" with both parties major candidates. That may be the case on the Republican side but you would have to be blind to miss the enthusiasm that is suffusing the Democratic race.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2008-02-24 01:02pm

CmdrWilkens wrote:I think the most hilarious bit about his anouncement was that he stated that the general public was "disenchanted" with both parties major candidates. That may be the case on the Republican side but you would have to be blind to miss the enthusiasm that is suffusing the Democratic race.

Much like the Clintons and the DLC, Nader is stuck in the 90's.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2008-02-24 01:04pm

Ghetto Edit:

And one can no longer say with a straight face that there's no real difference between the Republican and Democratic nominee. I mean you really couldn't say that in 2000 without being a fucking idiot, but it's far more apparent now.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2008-02-24 03:48pm

I remember how, back in 2000, I was driving down Magazine St. leaving my friend's place after watching the returns and how fucked up the election had gotten and how Nader's candidacy had sapped just enough of a percentage away from Gore to throw Florida into Bush's hands (as reported at the time) when I simply shouted at the top of my lungs "FUCK RALPH NADER!" with the window open at 1.00 in the morning. I still blame him for doing his bit to help Chimpus Caesar into the White House (with the assistance of daddy's friends on the Supreme Court) and you can bet millions of Democratic voters view Ralphy-boy the same way.

MKSheppard wrote:Go Nader! Ensure a McCain Victory.

Nader was insignificant in 2004, and 2008 is going to see a strong Democrat (likely Obama) pitted against a weak Republican (McCain) who's going to have the 8-year legacy of failure that is the Bush presidency hanging around his neck like a millstone and who's message essentially is "Vote for me and more of the same". I don't think anybody's even going to notice Nader in this race.

Big Phil · Post by **Big Phil** » 2008-02-24 04:15pm

Nader actually made a good point on Meet The Press this morning, when he announced his candidacy:

"If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up," Nader added.

and he's absolutely right. If the Democrats can't win in 2008, they don't deserve to continue as a political party.

Battlehymn Republic · Post by **Battlehymn Republic** » 2008-02-24 04:23pm

Oh, please. If and Ron Paul runs to suction off votes from McCain, you'll all be cheering for him. I'm sure we all appreciate Ross Perot's campaign. Screw the two party system.

Turin · Post by **Turin** » 2008-02-24 06:17pm

What boggles my mind is the venom with which people blame Ralph Nader. The only person Al Gore can really blame for losing the election is Al Gore. If you can differentiate yourself from a moron like GWB -- and anyone with half a brain knew this long before Bush was actually in office -- I'm not sure you should be putting the blame anywhere but yourself.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2008-02-24 06:18pm

Ah, Nader, listening to his own ego and furiously masturbating over the 'Centrist' America which exists only in his dreams.

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2008-02-24 06:46pm

Battlehymn Republic wrote:Oh, please. If and Ron Paul runs to suction off votes from McCain, you'll all be cheering for him.

Of course. Anything that contributes to the ousting of the Republicans from the White House as soon as possible is good for America and for the world. It's not a matter of fairness, it's a matter of ensuring that the party with a proven history of alternating incompetence and malevolence does not continue to control the most powerful nation on Earth.

At any rate, the only way anyone's ever going to get rid of the two-party system is to amend the Constitution to change the way elections are run. At things are, it's simply impossible for anything other than a two-party system to arise in a country structured as the United States is. The Constitution might as well have a passage saying "Two is the number of parties, and the number of parties shall be two. Not one unless proceeding immediately to two. Four is right out." Spoiler candidates aren't going to change that.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2008-02-24 09:22pm

Battlehymn Republic wrote:Oh, please. If and Ron Paul runs to suction off votes from McCain, you'll all be cheering for him. I'm sure we all appreciate Ross Perot's campaign. Screw the two party system.

Actually, no. I had the same thoughts about Bloomberg's possible run syphoning off the Wall Street Republicans:

Fuck these egotistical assholes.

They show up every four years, never do anything else, just get lots of publicity and whine about how the parties are soooo out of touch. They are narcissitic cunts who need to shut up and sit down.

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2008-02-24 09:36pm

Turin wrote:What boggles my mind is the venom with which people blame Ralph Nader. The only person Al Gore can really blame for losing the election is Al Gore. If you can differentiate yourself from a moron like GWB -- and anyone with half a brain knew this long before Bush was actually in office -- I'm not sure you should be putting the blame anywhere but yourself.

All joking aside but George Bush knows how to do dirty politics. In '04 when any competent person could have pointed out the massive failure that was Iraq and the failed promises of the Bush Administration inhunting down OBL yet he won. at the end of the day the one thing I will give King George credit for is that he knows how to fight and win a dirty political race so blaming Gore for not fighting dirty enough has merit but its not the whole story. We all know the narrative by now which is that Gore won the popular vote nationwide but lost thanks to Florida. So he did what he needed to, he ran a campaign that got a plurality of the votes nationwide. The problem is the 2.8% or so that Nader took came almost exclusively from Gore's base and if even half of them voted for him (and the other half stayed home) then he wins a majority nationwide and ends up taking Florida (though in a close race). So Nader does have some part to play though I think the venom is excessive there is no doubt that were he not in the race Gore would have emerged victorious.

As a flip side to this George HW Bush had every reason, even with the saggig econnomy, to believe he could pull off the win in 92 until Ross Perot came along and stole half the party and Bush got caught trying to retain Republicans in the general instead of picking up independents like Clinton was able to. You can Blame Bush for not running a better campaign but there were two candidates pulling from the same base and sometimes there just isn't anything you can do about it.

Turin · Post by **Turin** » 2008-02-24 10:10pm

CmdrWilkens wrote:All joking aside but George Bush knows how to do dirty politics. In '04 when any competent person could have pointed out the massive failure that was Iraq and the failed promises of the Bush Administration inhunting down OBL yet he won.

Yeah, I'm still frankly not sure how that could have happened in '04 without gross incompetence on the part of the Democrats... or the American public being incredibly stupid. (Yeah, yeah, I know... again, joking aside.)

CmdrWilkens wrote:at the end of the day the one thing I will give King George credit for is that he knows how to fight and win a dirty political race so blaming Gore for not fighting dirty enough has merit but its not the whole story. We all know the narrative by now which is that Gore won the popular vote nationwide but lost thanks to Florida. So he did what he needed to, he ran a campaign that got a plurality of the votes nationwide. The problem is the 2.8% or so that Nader took came almost exclusively from Gore's base and if even half of them voted for him (and the other half stayed home) then he wins a majority nationwide and ends up taking Florida (though in a close race)

The economy was good (the papers were masturbating about "The Best Economy in History!" for crying out loud). We weren't in a war. Relations with the rest of the world were pretty good, considering. And for all intents and purposes, Gore was the incumbent. Gore should have won by enough that whatever measly little bit Nader took was irrelevant. It was Gore's race to lose.

CmdrWilkens wrote:So Nader does have some part to play though I think the venom is excessive there is no doubt that were he not in the race Gore would have emerged victorious.

Sure, but I guess the question is: could that have been reasonably predicted in advance? We all obviously know that answer is no, so for anyone to fix blame on Nader is a little short-sighted.

CmdrWilkens wrote:As a flip side to this George HW Bush had every reason, even with the saggig econnomy, to believe he could pull off the win in 92 until Ross Perot came along and stole half the party and Bush got caught trying to retain Republicans in the general instead of picking up independents like Clinton was able to.

I think that's a poor example. Perot pulled from the same base, but pulled a (surprisingly) huge amount of the vote from Bush I. We're talking about Nader, who pulled a couple of percent. I'm not sure those are really analogous.

Battlehymn Republic · Post by **Battlehymn Republic** » 2008-02-24 10:32pm

Nader's only major effect was in Florida, and any fault he caused there could easily be attributed to Republican operatives, the Supreme Court, or the voters themselves.

SirNitram wrote:
Battlehymn Republic wrote:Oh, please. If and Ron Paul runs to suction off votes from McCain, you'll all be cheering for him. I'm sure we all appreciate Ross Perot's campaign. Screw the two party system.
Actually, no. I had the same thoughts about Bloomberg's possible run syphoning off the Wall Street Republicans:

Fuck these egotistical assholes.

They show up every four years, never do anything else, just get lots of publicity and whine about how the parties are soooo out of touch. They are narcissitic cunts who need to shut up and sit down.

Okay, that's equal-opportunity hatin'. That's got more integrity.

Drooling Iguana wrote:
Battlehymn Republic wrote:Oh, please. If and Ron Paul runs to suction off votes from McCain, you'll all be cheering for him.
Of course. Anything that contributes to the ousting of the Republicans from the White House as soon as possible is good for America and for the world. It's not a matter of fairness, it's a matter of ensuring that the party with a proven history of alternating incompetence and malevolence does not continue to control the most powerful nation on Earth.

The Republicans should be defeated by Democrats alone. Cheering on a spoiler to do the same to them is just cheap and weak. If you can't even beat them legitimately at the election, how effective can you be when you're in power?

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2008-02-24 11:17pm

They show up every four years, never do anything else, just get lots of publicity and whine about how the parties are soooo out of touch. They are narcissitic cunts who need to shut up and sit down.

Yeah, god forbid anyone ever try to work outside of the two-party system. They might end up forcing the major parties to incorporate some of their ideas into the platform. Can't have that.