# Ralph Nader is doing his best to reelect Bush **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 12, 2003, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ralph-nader-is-doing-his-best-to-reelect-bush/218505 "2003-12-12T02:35:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ralph-nader-is-doing-his-best-to-reelect-bush/218505/61 "2003-12-12T23:17:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SentientMeat \* > Must we forever vote for the prick we _hate least_? Only until we get a system where likable, honest, candidates with integrity can actually _survive_ the political process. As it is right now, politicians tend to be unlikable guys because they’re the ones willing to do unsavory things to get the financing and support needed to run at all. (Though I will say that I voted for Gore in 2000 not because I hated him the least, but because I thought he was overall the better-qualified candiate.) Anyway, I don’t quite see why folks have got such a hard-on against Nader for. If he wants to run, let him; and if people want to vote for him, they should. I might not think that’s a smart decision, but I don’t think voting for Bush is a smart decision either, and letting people make foolish decisions is part and parcel of a democracy. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ralph-nader-is-doing-his-best-to-reelect-bush/218505/62 "2003-12-12T23:52:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jayjay \* > \*\*Simply put, if you vote Green, you’re voting principle over reality. Which is really fucking admirable when we don’t have Junior fucking up the US’s image worldwide and squandering all of that 9/11 sympathy faster than a crack whore goes through a lottery win. > > \*\* Dammit, **jayjay** , if you weren’t gay, I’d ask you to marry me for that last line alone! Teehee!!! You know, I never have seen NADER stating what he stands for and why one should vote for him. Only him bitching about the system. Maybe he has made statement about his stance, I don’t know. I haven’t seen it. He strikes me as a nasty, bitter, hateful individual who looks down at everyone around him and thinks that the majority of voters are idiots. No thank you. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ralph-nader-is-doing-his-best-to-reelect-bush/218505/63 "2003-12-13T00:30:51Z")
_blush_ Actually, I messed up that paragraph by forgetting to add the punchline… “But we DO, Blanche! We DO have Junior yadda yadda yadda…” As it stands now, the grammar parses out as me admiring the Greens for sticking to principle. Yeesh! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ralph-nader-is-doing-his-best-to-reelect-bush/218505/64 "2003-12-13T03:42:46Z")
Perhaps Nader is being paid by Bush. ---
**Author:** ![TVeblen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@TVeblen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVeblen)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ralph-nader-is-doing-his-best-to-reelect-bush/218505/65 "2003-12-13T04:25:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by masonite \* > \*\*Perhaps Nader is being paid by Bush. \*\* I wish it were that easy. Nader is just anudder noisy progessive. Unfortunately, it’s the bane of the Dems. They honestly foster a “big tent” but their inclusiveness houses a lot of frankly dippy lightweights. Nader is just in a long line of ego-ridden wannabe politicos. Say he actually _got_ elected–a laughable stretch right here. His chances of actually getting useful work through Congress is exactly zip. So he plays the spoiler, while the Pubbies shamefully pander to the absolute polar opposite of what conservatism should be. They’re very efficiently, slickly organized, unfortunately at the cost of pandering to factions inimical to their purported tenets. But what the hell, loud PR drowns out substance every time. What an unholy mess. The Pubbies have sold out their principles and the Dems are squabbling–again. I’d like to slap the living shit outta Nader. IMO he’s sold out _his_ principles for pure ego. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ralph-nader-is-doing-his-best-to-reelect-bush/218505/66 "2003-12-13T04:47:56Z")
Veb, the “selling out on principles” idea led me to the nonserious speculation that he was being paid. He’s supposed to be a smart guy, right? Is he just pure _evil_, then, if he knows he’s damaging his own cause by helping Bush, but runs anyway? What’s possibly in it for him? ---
**Author:** ![TVeblen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@TVeblen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVeblen)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ralph-nader-is-doing-his-best-to-reelect-bush/218505/67 "2003-12-13T05:49:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by masonite \* > \*\*Veb, the “selling out on principles” idea led me to the nonserious speculation that he was being paid. > > He’s supposed to be a smart guy, right? Is he just pure _evil_, then, if he knows he’s damaging his own cause by helping Bush, but runs anyway? What’s possibly in it for him? \*\* Great point. I think Nader has sold out by putting his ego before his principles. Nader truly is incorruptible in terms of cash. He’s an ascetic. Unfortunately he’s been seduced instead by his true vulnerablity: righteousness. I truly admire the guy for the risky, groundbreaking work he did as an outsider. He took on the big car companies on behalf of public safety when nobody else dreamed of it–and won. He was the free voice of capitalism. “You build it but you tell us what we’re _buying_.” Radical stuff, now taken completely for granted. Trouble is, useful work gets done on lots of levels, and Nader isn’t wired or connected to shift roles, personally or professionally. Statesmanship requires compromise and breadth. Nader has neither. He’s abandoned the role of conscience and example for that of Icon. His coin is ego. Damnit. ---
**Author:** ![spectrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@spectrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spectrum)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ralph-nader-is-doing-his-best-to-reelect-bush/218505/68 "2003-12-13T06:09:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RTFirefly \* > **2) ISTM that Gore ran a surprisingly lefty campaign in 2000. Every time I turned around, it seemed he was talking about special interests this, and the richest 1% that. He did so much of that, I was afraid he’d scare off the genuine centrists.** He did. Gore veered to the moderate-Left at the Convention and remained there until he finally gave up the ghost in December. And since then he’s continued to drift to the Left – though I believe he’s still a Free Trader. The Democratic Convention in 2000 represented the beginnings of the formal ideological split between what are becoming the Gore and Clinton wings of the Democratic Party. Gore ran to populism and moderate-liberalism in 2000, eschewing a lot of the New Democrat message. He was a totally different animal than Clinton, and that was clearly intentional. Whether Gore the New Democrat could have won the election that Gore the Populist lost is the source of much of the internal Democratic discord in this primary season, as the populist wing of the party congeals around Dean and the New Democrats seem to be moving towards Clark (given the shriveling of support for Kerry and Lieberman). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ralph-nader-is-doing-his-best-to-reelect-bush/218505.md?page=3)