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.
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.
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:
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.
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?
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.
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).