Ralph Nader is once again mounting an independent presidential bid, vowing to fight “corporate greed, corporate power, corporate control.â€
He won’t matter this time. For one thing, it’s not a good year for third-party candidates, because there’s a surprisingly high level of voter satisfaction with both major party candidates.
Moreover, the premise of Nader’s past runs — the two parties have the same agenda — has been proved demonstrably false. As Barack Obama said in dismissing Nader’s run: “He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush, and eight years later I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about.â€
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60 Comments
As long as he doesn’t take from Obama, it’s Olley Olley in free to me.
Does anyone care?
nope
Finally! A candidate for J R!
Nadir (spelling intentional) is meaningless. He has not been forgiven for the help he gave Bush.
I’m pretty sure Hank, that JR despises Nader :D
LMFAO. Talk about timing (from open thread)
I think bush said it on this topic!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKgPY1adc0A
Power to him! Libs are whistling past the graveyard on this one. You people don’t have that many percentage points to give away.
Go Nader!
Hank: Is this the green candidate a few posters have been talking about?
Not to worry. Nader won’t take any votes away from Obama, nor any campaign money. Nader voters are people who merely cast protest votes and wouldn’t have voted otherwise. Nader’s campaign money comes from Republicans so it only hurts in Republican fundraising. Nader is like Huckabee, he just wants attention.
“Nader won’t take any votes away from Obama,…”
[whistle whistle whistle]
In 2000 Nadir got 3%. In 2004 he got 0.3%. This year he will be lower than that. As I noted; many of us who once liked him will never forgive him for his support of Bush.
Nader is on NPR right now.
Listen.
Everyone knows Nader swung the election to Bush in 2000. Without Nader, Gore would have won. He’s trying to do it again. I’m sick of him playing spoiler in Presidential elections. He acts like the only way he can effect change is by running for President. Looks like an attention-whore to me. I hope people don’t fall for it this year.
Nadir is an idiot – and that is being unkind to idiots in general.
The man has nothing, absolutely nothing to offer. He is just stroking his $!~~%^ and hoping to get a rise.
Nadir will be lucky to get one half of one percent of the vote in the general, and that is probably stretching it.
Well,
I think Nader ran as the Green party candidate in 2000 and as an independent in 2004, who knows. If Obama wins the nod, Nader could cause him a few problems. Obama has annoyed the Hispanic vote. And, there’s a lot of democrat women that might stay home.
If Hillary wins the nod, or steals it at the convention I should say, she’s in trouble with the African Americans. The dems need both minority blocks, brown and black to win national elections. Neither cnadidate has a lock on them now.
Yep, November is looking better and better! Hell, I might even watch the debate tomorrow. There’s no way to predict when Ms Rodham is going to blow, sorry poor choice of words, I meant lose it. It would be a shame to miss it!
Nader is in NOBODY CARES
“Whatever Nader might be, an “idiot” he is of course not. That Harvard-educated “idiot” has done more to improve people’s lives than you ever will.”
What has Nadir done? Corvairs and then what?
“What has Nadir done? Corvairs and then what?”
Then he got Bush elected.
He’s become this generations Pat Paulsen —
“As Barack Obama said in dismissing Nader’s run: “He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush, ”
Interesting.
So FAR I don’t see any discernible distance between Obama and george bush.
Oh and Doug?
“Nader won’t take any votes away from Obama,”
No but if Obama is the nominee, I will be voting for Nader. So that’s a vote lost to the Dems.
I ditto what Rage said re Ralph Nader.
He is a reminder of a party I HOPE still has a few ideals. He has been a lifelong advocate for those ideals.
Nader has not left the Democrats. The Democrats are just turning into lite Republicans.
Obama calls the Republicans the party of ideas.
He’s done a lot to raise the conscience level of consumers and if taken seriously (okay or even acted seriously) he may have garnered more respect and perhaps influence
Obama calls the Republicans the party of ideas
no he didn’t what said in essence was Reagan had the new ideas for change back in the early 80’s — he did not say they were the party of ideas —
JR – So it’s people like you that ultimately gave Bush II the presidency? They didn’t like Gore, so they voted Green out of pettiness and gave Bush the presidency? I think I speak for almost all Democrats when I say, if you don’t want to vote for Obama, at least just don’t vote.
He’s actually the perfect liberal candidate. He wrote “Unsafe At Any Speed” and single handedly shut down Corvair production.
Almost every thing in his book was proven a lie. Almost every attack he has ever made on ‘big business’ over the years is a lie. Perfect liberal candidate!
Ken – JR got it into his head what Obama said, and although his perception of what Obama said has very little basis in reality, he is a’spinnin’. He said that Reagan “changed the trajectory of politics”. Whatever. He’ll think what he wants, and then pout when he doesn’t get his way.
And were those ideas for change good?
NONE of the Republican ideas were good.
Obama may be slipping here a bit.
By failing to call those Republican ideas bad, he may be revealing more about himself than he been willing to so far.
Folks? When you have the enemy on the ground and your foot on his throat, you don’t HAVE to work with them.
We see the evidence everywhere that the GOP wants Obama. A great deal of his support against Senator Clinton comes from Republicans making mischief with the more open Democratic nomination process. And look at the posts here from cons. It’s clear who THEY prefer.
Wake up.
“JR – So it’s people like you that ultimately gave Bush II the presidency?”
No it wasn’t people like me. I voted for Gore.
But it wasn’t Ralph Nader stole the election from Gore. bush and his machine and the Supreme court did that.
“No but if Obama is the nominee, I will be voting for Nader…”
Hee Hee. And so it begins.
What has Nadir done? Corvairs and then what?
Sigh. . .just one tiny piece of the man’s legacy:
In 1971, Nader founded the non-governmental organization (NGO) Public Citizen as an umbrella organization for these projects. Today, Public Citizen has over 140,000 members and scores of researchers investigating Congressional, health, environmental, economic and other issues. Their work is credited with facilitating the passage of the Safe Drinking Water Act and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and prompting the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader
Mader could credibly claim credit for Clean Air and Clean Water acts as well.
But I understand: It’s much important to blame any close or outright stolen electoral result on him. Comformity to the party line is the only path to victory!
I call bullshit. I voted for (and gave money to) with the full knowledge that he’d be stroking some corporations at our expen$se(if not of our lives), and that he was openly playing footsey with the DLC. I made this rational judgment becausing defeating Bush was too important–not because electoral-math vigilantes had denied another choice.
Why, TDT, should JR abandon his franchise? Particularly in Kansas . Only my current state (AZ) is less likely to turn on McCain!
I voted for Nader in 2000, in Kansas. You can indirectly blame me (though, of course, you can’t mathematically lay it on my shoulders).
Those of you obsessed with what might have theoretically been (and that’s all it is) could better expended that energy protesting, say, the theft of Florida. I have some difficulty with people who think we have too much democracy, whatever the possible otucome.
Left Kerry’s name out above. . .
I voted for Nader twice myself. We are in Kansas afterall. My man still won, Nader is encouraged to keep running.
Perfect!
Regarding candidates like Nader, I believe the Catholic Church has the right idea. Saints may make great symbols, and maybe people to emulate in some small way, but trying to actually live with them gets irritating in the extreme. Therefore, the Church only allows people to become saints who have been dead a respectable while.
Nader, that supremely ascetic guru whose untiring efforts and lawsuits over 40+ years to save us from ourselves have made him a living Saint to us and an aspect of Satan to our attackers (also ourselves), has really started to grate on our innately human desire for an occasional damn-the-consequences good time. He inspires guilt (that most useless of emotions) by the megaton as a means of reforming us into the soulless, funless creatures in tune with and victim of our environment that nature intended us to be. He will save our lives by eliminating all reason for being other than simple existence. Certainly we need a savior, but at the cost of our souls do we want one?
We live on a finite, dynamic planet in a finite and dynamic universe. No matter what we do, we’re not going to be around forever, either individually or as a species. We are not the end product of evolution, just the current temporarily dominant species on a vast list of temporarily dominant species. Now we can spend our time in denial and misery, trying our damnedest to prolong that inevitable extinction, or we can do our best to improve the lives of as many people as possible while we inscribe our story on the stones to hopefully be read by whatever species achieves dominance next. Maybe we don’t need a great Saint. Maybe we need a great Storyteller.
“Nader is in — does anyone care?”
No. End of thread. Next question.
Nice prose Jed – however, there is no St. Nader in my vocabulary.
You know, the Democrats that are blaming Nader for Bush sound a lot like the Republicans I know that blame Perot for Clinton.
Why not focus your anger on those that really deserve it? There is plenty of blame to go around. I know many of you think that the Republicans are pure evil and that everything is going to be wonderful if the Democrats win. That is exact same sort of crap I heard 8 years ago from the other side of the aisle when the Republicans were dreaming of Clinton leaving office.
I’m no fan of Mr. Nader and I would never vote for him, but he does have some valid points about the way the whole process has been designed to stifle debate and shut out anybody other than the annointed frontrunners of the major parties.
I was a big fan of Nader until now. I understand why he might have had reason to run in the past because the Democrats had pretty much become a centerist corporate party only a little further to the left of the Republicans. But this time with Obama he has no such excuse. All he is doing is helping the Republicans. As a consumer “advocate”, I assume he does not want 4 more years of the Republicans poisoning and killing American children. By running he should know what the result will be. Maybe 4 more years of this: http://clarkhoward.com/shownotes/category/12/114/269/
Nadir has pulled a collin powell, after a lifetime of helping the country he has ended his career by harming the country. Whatever happened to caring about one’s legacy?
What Nadir should do is support the dems., and then get into a position in the admin. in which he could actually have an effecive war on the corporate excesses that are killing our country.
I rather like Jed’s metaphor of Nader-as-saint. Yes, Jed, I get the ironic dig. I think we have enough mutual respect to not elaborate further.
No difference between Bush and Gore? Well, the campaign bullshit could lead to that conclusion. I do fault Nader , you’re goddamn right-for playing the game. That was stupid.
But, from Nader’s “How on Earth can we accept this?” perspective, there wasn’t a difference. He wasn’t the whole picture–I agree–but he thought better of us than we deserved. That’s a flaw, but one I find hard to condemn.
But his motivation–the removal of corporate control over our the most important aspects of our lives–was both prescient and correct. It was the basis of John Edwards’ 2008 campaign. Is it any wonder that Edwards was only grudgingly acknowleged by the corporate media—and endorsed by Nader?
If John Edwards had not been defeated, would Nader be announcing today?
Hell-o. . . NO! And those of you supposed political junkies, who waste hours of your precious time arguing here, goddamn know it!
I honestly believe that the Dems’ current prospects–Hillary and Barack–are not bad people. I apologize for withholding their halos.
They are human beings playing a very dangerous game: power .
Now: Are we ready to talk about reality? Yet?
I don’t see why people bash on Nadar so much, he’s done more postive things for this country than most anyone. He has a real legacy, and is an independent to boot, he’s really a centerist, and thats what we need, not left wing, right wing, north wing (Libertarian), or south wing (dictators) extremes.
I’m glad he’s running. He’s green and might pull a few of the global warming flunkies with him.
So Boxlock, you then agree, the Bush Doctrine is a blessing from heaven. It sounds like your pulling for McCain. Good luck with that. I’d rather have a realist, not an idealist (dems), or a pessimist (repubs) for president. Boxlock, I think we should stay in Iraq of course, and mop up the 10 year flood Bush left us. But you, voting for McCain, you had better be prepared to send your kids, grand kids, or any of realitives to invade Iran, because thats exactly is what is on McCain’s agenda. It’s exactly what is on Bush’s agenda, but he hasn’t been able to use a false flag incident yet, like they we’re trying to with the filipino monkey.
McCain said it himself, we’re going to be at War for at least a generation. If’s he’s president, you know damn well they will enact a draft and send Americas youth to the slaughter to fufill their re-shaping of the middle east plans out lined in PNAC.
Last I heard from an Army recruiter, its getting real hard to recruit kids now days. Their getting a low turn out rate even from kids in JROTC in highschool.
“Their getting a low turn out rate even from kids in JROTC in highschool.”
Oh I don’t doubt that a bit.
My son starts high school next year. Not long ago, the school had an open house for the new freshman class.
Sheesh the ROTC people were in every hallway and on every corner! And they would NOT let my son by without getting in his face and trying to push literature on him.
Oh and by the way? I stayed out of it.
Now my son is generally polite. But after a dozen times with these folks he had had enough. He finally just started telling them “Not interested!” as we approached them in the hall.
Their are higher ups in the military trying to avoid at all costs another Nation Building war, if they were not trying to avoid a P’nac war, we would already be in Iran right now bombing them, if they we’re going with the neo-con flow they would have turned the filipino monkey into gulf of tonkin incident. You think our citizens serving in the military want to go invade Iran, when there are more military men and women that supported Ron Paul than any other canidate. That should send a strong message to us CIVILIANS, that their lives are better than the reasons and causes of the Iraq War and future wars being planned. You want to tell a soldier the real reasons their fighting in Iraq. Hey bud, you and your boys are fighting to stamp democracy in the middle east, Corporate Franchise Style, its just like opeing up a new McDonalds, and your fighting to attract terrorists, insurgants and scum bags into Iraq so you can kill em, and your fighting so Private Industry can do your laundry and get rich off it, and your fighting because you’ll boost the economy back home in America.
Yea, all those things we’re doing aren’t horrible evil things, but are they worth dying for? Would die for those things?
JR–
Your school should have “opt out” forms that you can sign. These are forms that tell the military NOT TO CALL OR CONTACT your son for recruitment.
Let me know if want them and can’t get them.
Not every principal is on-board with this.
Would die
^
You
Sheesh the ROTC people were in every hallway and on every corner! And they would NOT let my son by without getting in his face and trying to push literature on him.
Ah yes, No Child Left Unrecruited.
That rather supports the whole “don’t worth with Republicans,” don’t it? Teddy should have known better.
I thought so.
But Ted’s been playing the game for nearly 50 years. That such a veteran could get it so wrong–even allowing that you can work with Republicans sometimes, and even have to, but — well, that’s pretty damn scary.
Maybe it depends on who you’re working with, ahd when, and how. Again: Power. Who’s the senior partner, and who’s willing to use that? Clinton? Mr. 43% limped thru his goddamn presidency.
I hate to say it, but Mr. Oily-Brown-and-Root was the last Dem president who knew how to use his position.
And I like Jimmy Carter. I like to think he would have kicked Washington butt if he had come back in say, ‘88. But he was unprepared in ‘77.
That, I have to say, for all the rhetoric, for and against, worries me about Obama. At least Hillary has looked into the eyes of the beast.
But she has also sucked upon its teat, repeatedly.
So I dunno. Let’s rock.
I’ll look into that Capn.
But this was an open house.
I worry for the kids whose parents didn’t attend as there was nothing to stop these recruiters.
They were using the ROTC kids themselves.
Probably there is some sort of out for that.
Good post, Bucky.
As far as Nader goes, I find myself agreeing with both WSC and Rage.
I worked for Nader’s organization for awhile in college. The man understands that the biggest threat to freedom is not communism or terrorism, but corporatism, a kind of neo-fascism in which powerful corporations bend the will of gov’t to their ends, the public and the public good be damned.
Trouble is, he always maintained that he could do more outside the political arena.
Then he ran for president in 2000, which was nothing short of insane. How does a guy who never held public office actually believe he could vault into the White House?
Whether Nader cost Gore Florida, which cost the election can never be resolved, but it didn’t help.
His perennial runs for president are making him a butt of ridicule, not furthering his movement which has some laudable goals.
At least Hillary has looked into the eyes of the beast.
But she has also sucked upon its teat, repeatedly.
lol, nice dramitization.
“Hilary Clinton has fought many battles, and drank the blood of her enemies, and she is hardened as jagged sea rock that impaled a pygmy whale.” Fight on Hilary, fight on.
Cap’n: As I’m sure you’ve heard, Nader maintains that Washington has gotten so bad that he can no longer accomplish anything in the normal way.
So he runs for president. Thousands turns out, but the funds don’t. So most people hear nothing. And Hatred Of Nader guarantees that those who might otherwise be willing to listen, don’t.
So neither approach works.
Bedtime for democracy.
Obama should pick Nadar as his vp, that way we get Nadar into office, without taking votes away from the dems, and letting the repubs snatch another election.
I believe that every vote Nader gets comes at the expense of the Dem’s. As a Republican, I welcome his entry!
“”"JR–
Your school should have “opt out” forms that you can sign. These are forms that tell the military NOT TO CALL OR CONTACT your son for recruitment.
Let me know if want them and can’t get them.
Not every principal is on-board with this.”"”
Let’s not bash the military. The military did me a whole lot of good and gave me alot more than I could have got anywhere else with only a HS diploma. The military was wonderful for me and it can be for any young adult that puts in the effort and takes advantage of everything the military offers. I went into the military a boy with no direction in life and, quite frankly, with a hell of alot of problems including a stay in the county jail. I came out of the military as a man who had much more going for him. I then went to college courtesy of the military. Keep in mind too that our military does not decide where and what wars to fight in. It was not the military that woke up one morning and said “hey we are bored so let’s go invade a country”. It was YOUR President and YOUR Congress that thought invading Iraq on no evidence was such a cool idea. Believe me, the military would rather be doing other things like finding Ben Laden.
Kev–
Any kid who wants to join the military-industrial complex, the biggest socialist enterprise this country has ever seen, is perfectly free to do so.
We just think that 16 year old kids shouldn’t be harassed with calls etc. if they don’t want to be.
“It was YOUR President . . . that thought invading Iraq on no evidence was such a cool idea.”
Clarification: George W. Bush has never been my president. He should be serving time in a maximum security prison for crimes against the state by stealing the election of 2000, for firing federal prosecutors for refusing to break the law for him, for invading a country which posed no threat against our country, for torturing prisoners, for holding prisoners without trial, for illegal invasion of privacy in violation of the “search and seizure” clause of the fifth amendment, for plotting to overthrow the elected head of state of Venezula, and many more various and sundry crimes.
The vote on “Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq”
The title of this is clear enough, don’t you think? 58% of the dems voted for it.
21 (42%) of 50 Democratic Senators voted against the resolution: Sens. Akaka (D-HI), Bingaman (D-NM), Boxer (D-CA), Byrd (D-WV), Conrad (D-ND), Corzine (D-NJ), Dayton (D-MN), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold (D-WI), Graham (D-FL), Inouye (D-HI), Kennedy (D-MA), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Reed (D-RI), Sarbanes (D-MD), Stabenow (D-MI), Wellstone (D-MN), Wyden (D-OR).
1 of 49 Republican Senators voted against the resolution: Sen. Chafee (R-RI).
The only Independent Senator voted against the resoution: Sen. Jeffords (I-VT)
Fleetie,
Of course a lot of people supported the war then; they weren’t allowed the information that the administration had at the time, and believed (at least to some extent) the line of bullshit Bushco was pimping. We know better now!
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