Fox News is reporting that Nader will enter the '04 election as an independent.
I’m worried- really worried- that he’ll pull more votes this time than he did last time, and keep Bush in the White House. Obviously, to some of you that will be a good thing, and this thread isn’t for debating that.
I want to know whether Nader will have more clout this time around than last time, and how much that will affect the eventual Democratic candidate.
I don’t think so, a lot of his votes last time were people who wanted to make a statement, in the belief that Gore would win handily. I think fewer of those people will make that mistake again, and realize that a vote for Nader, no matter what your intent, is likely to enable Bush to return office. The popular tide is turning against Bush, and there will be more than enough to offset a small percentage of misguided Greens. Plus, the Democratic Party appears more energized, and a large turnout (which, judging by Democratic primary turnouts is very likely) is going to be the deciding factor. I’m not worried.
Didn’t he run as a Green last time? He’ll run as an independent this time, which means there will also be a Green candidate running, no?
This will make the gay marriage issue much bigger as Bush will try to make Kerry come out hard against it, and drive some of the pro-gay marriage vote into the Nader/Green camp. I don’t know if that’ll work, but Bush and Rove will certainly try.
If you think about it, the close the election is the better it is for Nader. He gets a lot more publicity in a tight race than he would if one side is expected to win in a landslide. Most people expect this to be a very close elsction.
Oh great - four more years of Julius Caesar. Thanks, Ralph.:rolleyes:
One problem with a Nader candidacy is that it will enable Bush/Rove to engage in some Presidential Debate gamesmanship. It gives Bush an excuse to refuse to debate. I’m betting he won’t debate unless Nader is included- a tactic which helped Reagan undermine Carter when John Anderson ran as an independent in 1980.
Do you suppose Republicans will be underwriting Nader’s campaign? It would be interesting to dissect his donor list.
Forgive, Dutchboy… I would really like to post a calm, well-reasoned reply, but it is difficult when my hands are trembling with the urge to wrap my fingers around his pencil neck and squeeze and squeeze until his eyeballs…
I have to lie down for a while.
IMO, Nader is a bit too old, starting too late and may have problems getting on the ballot to cause as much problems as last time.
The potential for Nader to setoff another stink bomb may be even greater now however. What do you think about half that Dean support and most of Kucinich’s are coming from? About 10-15% of democrats are about as hot over Washington democrats voting with Bush as they are over Bush.
Only Nader, or possibly conservative talk show hosts, would use a radio as a podium to cry “I’m being censored” from.
I don’t know if he will screw up the election or not. But note the “repentant nader voter” campaign. Heh. Small stuff, but maybe indicative of some people using hindsight to make intelligent decisions.
I heard that interview. That particular bit made me very disappointed in Nader. “Censorship” my ass. Free speech, Ralph.
I’m with elucidator on this one. What an arrogant, egotistical ass. He has zero chance–ZERO–of getting even half as many votes as he did in 2000. Too many people who voted for him got the Iraq war in return, and they all know it.
Independent THIS, Ralph!
no clout.
We see what happend last time. he made his point, which means everyone learned and won’t be idealisitic again.
Greens aren’t that stupid. Nor are independants.
vanilla, former Green.
OK, better now. A nice cuppa chamomile tea, a bit of centered breathing, a return to rationality. OK, then, the Nader candidacy.
The performance of Nader in the last election must surely cut into his support, slice the jugular vein of financial flow, and stab to the very heart of his…his…stab to the very heart…again and again and AGAIN AND AGAIN UNTIL…
Well, maybe not quite yet.
elucidator, are you sure you’re not my mom? Really, really sure? She’s still not speaking to her friends who voted for Nader in 2000.
(And we’re still not entirely sure my grandparents weren’t some of the confused elderly Jewish voters in Palm Beach County who misunderstood the butterfly ballot.)
That quote of Nader’s makes me fear for the safety of the democratic process in the snowball’s chance in Hell that he would be elected. What, anyone who criticizes him is censoring him? No matter how much I may agree with some of his stands on actual issues, that’s just schmucky.
I’m not sure I understand the hostility here.
For those of you who think Nader is arrogant for wanting to run when hardly anyone wants to vote for him…well…maybe he’ll get his comeuppance when hardly anyone votes for him.
For those of you who don’t want Nader to run because you’re afraid too many people will vote for him…well…aren’t people allowed to vote for whoever they like? Do you want him not to run just so the people who prefer him to the other guys won’t be able to vote for the candidate of their choice? That doesn’t seem very democratic to me.
Given the way the last election turned out I can see why people are worried, but it wasn’t Nader who put Bush into office. The man has every right to run for president, and I don’t see how he’s more deserving of hatred than any other independant or alternative party candidate.
I doubt he’ll be very strong. I think the anti-Bush sentiment will cut right into those who would vote for Green. They know how bad the country will be with 4 years of a Bush whitehouse that doesn’t even have to worry about a re-election campaign in 2008.
Call me cynical, but this smacks far less of political philosophy than it does of pure self-serving.
Nader has, for the most part, become a non-entity. Declaring himself a candidate ensures him lots of publicity (especially of the “how will he damage the Democrats” type), the ability to probably be included in a presidential debate, at least a few reporters assigned to him, etc. So, in essence, he becomes, for a short time, relevant.
On the flip side, there is ZERO chance he’ll be elected president. And there is 100% chance he’ll pull more votes from the dem candidate than he will from the pubbie candidate. And since, on at least a cursory level view, his “philosophy” is closer to the Dems than the Pubs, he’s damaging whatever “philosophy” he may claim to espouse.
Thus has become Nader - a purely self-serving person. Fuck his philosophical stances.
That being said, he won’t have the same effect as last election.
2000 Nader voter here.
The primary driving force behind the Nader voters in 2000 was that there wasn’t much difference between the two candidates. And, hard though it may be to believe now, there wasn’t. It was Ineffectual Centrist Democrat vs. Ineffectual Centrist Republican.
We had just been through eight years of a Democratic administration that brought us welfare “reform”, the Defense of Marriage Act, exactly no progress in health care policy, etc., etc., and Gore was poised to be the same or worse. How much worse could it be, we thought, if the man in office actually was a Republican?
Quite a bit worse, it turns out. What can I say–we were wrong. I’m not sure we would have been so wrong had it not been for 9/11, which allowed Bush to reign with impunity for quite a while, and emboldened him to screw us over in increasingly ambitious ways.
I doubt most of my fellow Naderites are any more excited about Kerry than they were about Gore four years ago. However, I doubt you’ll find many of them who are willing to say this time that there’s no difference. Nader will barely be a blip on the radar screen this time around.
Dr. J
A vote for minority parties are votes to the party you’d be least likely to compromise on. It’s just the way our voting system is set up.
Thankfully, some Nader voters disagree with you. Hopefully they realize that by failing to compromise they are mathematically helping the candidate they like least. The rest… well, they must live in some other country that has a different voting system where Duverger’s Law doesn’t apply.
Or perhaps they see, like DoctorJ, that the difference between the two candidates was larger than they’d surmised.
now youre scaring me.
I have no idea why you’re worried about this. I mean, I share the concern it would hurt the Democratic candidate, but MORE votes than 2000? Not a chance. Even if he was running as a Green, not a chance. Nader and LaDuke got 2,858,843 votes in 2000. This year, I bet Ralph doesn’t get a quarter of that.