"The Myth of the Good Nader" by Jonathan Chait, TNR, senior editor

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040308&s=chait030804

last 3 paragraphs of very revealing article:

As Nader embarks upon his fourth protest run against the Democrats in as many elections, there is something slightly ridiculous about the shock of his liberal critics. They still don't know who they're dealing with. Nader is not a heroic figure tragically overcome by his own flaws; he is a selfish, destructive maniac who, for a brief historical period, happened upon a useful role. 

In the waning days of the 2000 election, some of Nader's campaign advisers urged him to concentrate on uncontested states, like New York and California, where he could attract local media without competition from the major-party candidates and win liberal voters who needn't fear tipping the race to George W. Bush. Instead, he chose a whirlwind tour of battleground states, campaigning in Pennsylvania and Florida, where votes would be harder to come by but more consequential to the outcome of the race. Liberals assume Nader tried to maximize his vote total without regard to how it affected Bush and Gore. The truth is that he actively sought to help Bush, even at the expense of his own vote total. 

It's therefore both comic and sad when liberals take Nader at his word that he does not believe he affected the outcome of the 2000 race. The website RalphDontRun.net patiently explains how, if Al Gore had netted even 1 percent of Nader's 97,000 Florida votes, he would have overcome Bush's 537-vote margin. Like other liberals, the people behind the website seem to think, if they could only persuade Nader that his candidacy might help reelect Bush, it would dissuade him from running. More likely, it would have the opposite effect. The real mystery is not why Nader would do something so destructive to liberalism. It's why anybody ever thought he wouldn't.

[John_H]

1. The most shocking bit of info in this article is...

that anyone with half a brain and a third of a conscience would ever work for Nader:

"In the waning days of the 2000 election, some of Nader's campaign advisers urged him to concentrate on uncontested states, like New York and California, where he could attract local media without competition from the major-party candidates and win liberal voters who needn't fear tipping the race to George W. Bush."

Just goes to show, you can fool all of the people some of the time.

[DennisReveni]

2. So, does this sound bad? Making sense of the Lie's.

Ralph wants to know:
In the 2004 election, should these issues be part of the debate?

1. Full public financing of public elections with the necessary, broad changes for a more fair and representative election process, replacing present charades;
2. A responsive political system to expand the civic energies of the American people by, among other ways, facilitating the banding together of workers, consumers, taxpayers, small investors, and communities.
3. A serious drive to abolish poverty using long-known policies;
4. Universal health insurance -- single payer embracing prevention, quality and cost controls;
5. A living wage for the tens of millions of workers making less than $10 an hour -- many full time workers at $5.15, $6, $7, $8, and long overdue labor rights reform;
6. An adequately funded crackdown on corporate crimes, fraud and abuse that have cheated trillions of dollars from taxpayers, investors, pension holders and consumers, plus specific corporate reforms;
7. A comprehensive and determined nurturing of the physical and educational needs of children;
8. Reform of the criminal injustice system and defense of the precious pillars of our democracy -- civil liberties, civil rights and civil remedies for wrongful injuries -- which are under relentless assault by corporate interests and the present government;
9. A multi-faceted foreign policy to wage multilateral peace and promote arms control, plus utilizing the many assets of our country's knowledge base to lift prospects for the impoverished people abroad;
10. A redirected federal budget for the crucial priorities of our country and away from the massive waste, fraud and redundancy of what President Eisenhower called the "military-industrial complex," as well as the massive costs of corporate welfare;
11. The crisis of commercial food, water, and diet policies, in addition to agribusiness domination over dwindling, rural, small farm economies;
12. The need for renewable energy and energy efficiency, instead of costly oil, gas and nuclear boondoggles;
13. The housing problem for the millions of households who can't afford the rents or can't escape gentrification and sprawl;
14. The relief of highway congestion and the promotion of modern public transit;
15. The pull-down effect of corporate globalization on labor, the environment, consumers and our democratic processes.
16. The consequences of media concentration over our public airwaves.

Let us know what you think!

How about this?
http://www.votenader.org/why_ralph/index.php?cid=3
Did Ralph cost Al Gore the election in 2000?
No.
Al Gore won the election in 2000.
George W. Bush cost Al Gore the election.
No one is entitled to votes, they must be earned.
To say someone is a "spoiler" is to relegate all third-party and independent candidates to second class citizenship. American does not belong to two parties.
The Constitution does not mention parties.
This country had a rich history of third parties.

[DennisReveni]

3. So, does this sound bad? Making sense of the Lie's pt2

http://www.votenader.org/why_ralph/index.php?cid=3
George W. Bush cost Al Gore the election.

No one is entitled to votes, they must be earned.

To say someone is a "spoiler" is to relegate all third-party and independent candidates to second class citizenship. American does not belong to two parties.

The Constitution does not mention parties.

This country had a rich history of third parties.

George W. Bush’s recount strategy in Florida cost Gore the election.

The deceptive butterfly ballot, which Democratic officials approved, cost Al Gore the election.

Katherine Harris-style purging of tens of thousands of non ex-felons from the voter roles cost the election.

A 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court stop of the recount cost Gore the election. (See Jeffrey Toobin’s book Too Close to Call).

Playing the "what if" game, Gore cost Gore the election in Tennessee, Arkansas, and each of the presidential debates.

Buchanan cost Bush four states (Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Mexico).

Except for brief, progressive moments, such as at the convention, which helped his polls, Gore ran the usual, lackluster corporate Democratic campaign.

And they did. They voted for Bush, including more than 250,000 self-identified Democrats in Florida.

Moreover, a Democratic exit poll showed that Ralph’s votes came 25% from Republicans, 38% from Democrats, and the rest were nonvoters who would have only voted for Ralph.

In other words, more than sixty percent of Ralph’s voters would NOT have voted for Gore.

In New Hampshire, exit polls showed that Ralph "took more votes" from Republicans than Democrats, by a 2 to 1 margin.

CNN’s polling data said that if neither Nader nor Buchanan had run, Bush would have beat Gore 48 to 47 percent, with 4 percent who voted not voting.

For the last three years Democrats and media pundits have been smearing Ralph Nader and the Greens — oblivious to the facts — looking for a scapegoat for the failures of their own party and its candidates.

It is not the job of third-party or Independent candidates to make sure either of the two major parties wins.

That would be like asking a new start-up to make sure Microsoft or Apple has more market share.

Moreover, there are 100 million people in this country who do not vote. There are plenty of nonvoters for all candidates to attract.

Electoral votes are not a zero-sum game.

Historically, third parties and Independents move very important agendas.
If the goal is to defeat Bush, why not just support the Democratic Party’s nominee?

It’s really not clear that the Democratic Party can defeat George W. Bush all by itself. "Electability" is neither an agenda nor a mandate. A two-front approach may be needed and let’s look at why:
The Democratic Party is part of the problem.

* They voted for or failed to stop the Iraq war resolution turning Bush into a wartime president.
* They voted for or failed to stop the Patriot Act.
* They voted for or failed to stop John Ashcroft.
* They voted for or failed to stop Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.
* They voted for or failed to stop the Medicare fiasco.
* They lost the 2002 midterm elections, contrary to historical tradition.
* In 1983, the Democrats controlled 23 more state legislatures than the Republicans; today the Republicans control five more than the Democrats.
* In 1983, there were 18 more Democratic governors than Republican ones; Now there are three more. New York, Massachusetts, Kentucky, California, Florida and Texas are all Republican controlled.
* More young adults today identify themselves as Republicans than 20 years ago, while fewer identify themselves as Democrats.

At what point do you stop relying on a party to be an opposition party and start asking what else needs to be done to put some spine into Washington politics?
Didn’t Ralph say that there was "no difference between the Democrats and Republicans?"

Ralph did not say — as has been repeated ad nauseum — that there was NO difference between them.

He said that overall there were few major differences for which the Democrats were willing to fight -- differences not just in rhetoric but in reality.

The Republicans have become very good at electing extreme Republicans, and the Democrats have been very good at allowing them to do so.
Do you still think there are few major differences between the major parties?

Yes, compared to their towering similarities (including selling elections to commercial interests), and Ralph’s agenda to move this country forward. Both parties keep getting worse.

Now a question for you: what is your breaking point with politics as usual?
Would a Nader candidacy help elect independent minded candidates to Congress?

Yes and that is one of the reasons to run: to help bring out more people who may vote down ticket for some independent thinkers in the House and Senate.

The Democratic Party seems at times to have given up on winning back either House of Congress.

Both parties are so reliant on Congressional redistricting determinism that there is no chance for fresh blood to move new ideas.

Only four House incumbents lost in the 2002 mid-term elections.

What is wrong with this picture?

It’s incumbent protectionism all over the USA.

We need some new voices and fresh choices in Washington, D.C.
What has Ralph done since 2000?

Just because you may not have heard daily of Ralph on the corporate media, doesn’t mean that Ralph has been silent.

Apart from being the same consumer advocate he has always been, uplifting young people’s civic interests, and writing books, Ralph has continued to speak out on all kinds of issues, for a sample:

* the many reforms that need to be made in the electoral process, including, the corrupt funding of public campaigns, the disenfranchisement of voters, and the vote-counting machine deficiencies;
* the quagmire wars in Afghanistan and Iraq;
* more corporate-managed globalization;
* corporate war profiteering;
* the corporate crime, fraud and abuse crime wave;
* the need to send corporate crooks to jail;
* the need for integrity in accounting;
* the mad cow disease and food hazards generally;
* the annual Congressional pay raises while the living wage is nonexistent for 45 millions workers;
* the ill-suited appointments by the Bush Administration;
* the exclusionary Commission on Presidential Debates;
* low income neighborhood redlining, payday loans and rent to own rackets and other predatory lending;
* lead contamination and record rates of asthma in children;
* the subordination of sustainable economic and technological solutions to environmental devastation and government indifference;
* the criminal injustice system and the need to open wider the civil courts to defrauded or wrongfully injured people presently denied justice; and
* the need for more consumer health, safety and economic protection.

Additionally, Ralph has recently started four new citizen organizations.

Earlier this month, along with several third parties and former candidates, he sued the Federal Election Commission for not acting against the two-party controlled partisan Commission on Presidential Debates.
What has Ralph done to build the Green Party?

As the New York State Greens wrote recently:

"Ralph Nader has done more to grow the Green Party than any other individual in this country. He has run as our presidential candidate twice, and has helped the Green Party tremendously in raising funds in between campaigns. He has supported numerous local Green Party candidates, and has attracted media attention that the Green Party would not have received otherwise. Green Party enrollment surged after both of his presidential bids..."
Specifically, during the election, Ralph helped:

* local Greens start 450 new local Green chapters,
* achieve ballot lines for several states,
* support state and local candidates;
* make the party grow from an association of states to a national party;
* recruit and share lists of tens of thousands of volunteers; and
* start 900 chapters on college campuses, all resulting in the largest vote for a progressive candidacy in 75 years.

Since 2000, Ralph:

* wrote Crashing the Party, touting the Green Party and its platform;
* attended 45 fundraisers in some 31 states, at his own expense, raising more money than anyone for the Green Party at the national party, state and local levels;
* sent representatives to the Global Greens Conference in Canberra in 2001; the Hiawassee, GA meeting in 2000; the Santa Barbara, CA meeting in 2001; and the D.C. meeting in 2003; Ralph attended the Philadelphia, PA conference in 2002.
* has met with dozens of Green leaders around the Globe as they visit D.C.;
* went to Europe in 2002 for the 3rd annual Congress of European Greens in Germany, and visited the French and Swedish Greens before their elections.

[Cheswick2.0]

4. yup, that about sums it up

I know people who I like a lot who have a blind spot about Nader. He ran in 2000 to spoil the election. That is why he is running this time. It's all about teaching the party a lesson. Everyone must listen to Nader or pay the price.

[gonefishing]

5. Sounds great (no argument here)

The price we will pay is another 4 years of bush and maybe worse. Yep Nader will have taught everyone a lesson will be our mantra as democracy spins down the toilet.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Sad article. Earns 3 razzies. :^P

[gonefishing]

7. Plus 2 for democracy = 5

ABB(EN) I guess?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. Wow... You Tore The Author A New One With Your Whithering Critique

NOT