and promoting Nader. After all, a Bush candidacy won't be that bad...especially for the American Left. We all know how that turned out.
Published on Tuesday, April 11, 2000
Nader Skewing The Election Would Bring Newfound Power And Self-Respect Within The American Left
by Dan Hamburg
As a Ralph Nader for President supporter, I fretted through the Democratic and Republican primaries. My big fear at first was Bill Bradley, whose "just to the left of Gore" patina won him endorsements from the likes of Sen. Paul Wellstone, Prof. Cornell West, Katrina van den Heuvel of The Nation, and even the reliable environmental group Friends of the Earth.
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Now the Dems are left with Gore and the Repugs with Bush. Perfect. The more you look at their lying, sleezy, environmentally destructive, corporate-schmoozing ways, the better it is for Nader. In fact, the best spokesmen for Nader are Gore and Bush themselves. Now, if the Reform Party gets its act together and nominates Pat Buchanan, we'll have a field of candidates from which Ralph Nader will emerge like a beacon of light from the thick fog of American politics. I don't expect the Nader candidacy to illuminate the entire political landscape. Victory is not yet within reach. But this election could bring enough Green votes to qualify for federal matching funds, thereby placing a legitimate political alternative squarely on the map in 2004.
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Any marginally liberal, progressive, leftish person has to look at those numbers and cringe. If you're a Gore Democrat, they create an unassailable fortress around the vice-president, and against the good sense and virtue of a Nader candidacy. Sure, a vote for Nader might feel good, but a presidential election is not an opportunity for self-indulgence. Dubya must be denied! It's your duty, even if you have to hold your nose, to pull the lever for Al!
Not so fast. ...
Besides an outright victory, the most auspicious outcome of this presidential race would be Ralph Nader pulling enough votes away from Al Gore to skew the election, even if that means electing George W. Bush. The New Democrats, as embodied by Bill Clinton and Al Gore, have only marginally better public policy positions than the Republicans. The Democrat establishment opposes national health care and public financing of campaigns. It opposes the increasingly popular call for an end to commercial exploitation of our public lands, particularly our beleaguered national forests. The Democrats support the continuation of outrageous military spending, NAFTA and the WTO, the death penalty, the drug war, and mass incarceration. A Bush presidency, while it would make me gag, would at least make the enemy that much more clear and that much easier to attack.
But the chief benefit from a Nader skewing of the election would be a newfound power and self-respect within the American left. No longer would the Democrats be able to take our votes for granted by playing the "lesser of two evils" game. The possibility of a strong new party on the left would force the Democrats either to institute significant internal and policy reform or simply to meld with the Republicans. My guess is that, after years of living high off the corporate hog, they have no intention of engaging in soul-searching.
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http://www.commondreams.org/views/041100-103.htm