Would people look at Nader and McCain, both products of a time before me (and I’m bumping up to 50 soon) and see the reasons to “turn the page”?
Would he be mirror image thorn in Obama’s side to Huckabee’s in McCain’s, restraining the play to the middle, making Obama to tread a line between throwing bones to the Left and going after the Obamacans and independent centrists?
It’s not an accident; Nader has knowingly dedicated himself to hurting the Democratic candidate in Presidential elections. In 2000, the Green Party said its realistic goal was to get 5% of the national vote and qualify for federal election funding. In the final days of the campaign, strategists said that they should focus on Blue states like New York and Massachusetts, where voters would feel secure in voting for Nader because Gore had a strong lead, and in liberal areas of Red states like Austin, Texas, where voters would feel their vote against Bush was mostly symbolic anyway. By concentrating on these areas, the Green Party would maximize the votes it would receive.
But Nader himself vetoed this plan. He insisted they concentrate on states like Florida, New Hampshire, and New Mexico where Bush and Gore were virtually tied, despite the fact that he would have a harder time getting votes in these areas. But he’d have an easier time swinging the state from Gore to Bush. So he managed to screw both the Democrats and his own Green Party.
So the only question is whether Nader was doing this on his own initiaitve or whether he had made an agreement with the Republican Party in exchange for getting their support in his campaign.
Those who think Nader is going to be important in some way this time around need to put down the bong. Politically Nader is a near octogenarian sideshow at this point, and the people that voted for him on the last go 'round have (mostly) learned their lesson. His political impact on the Dem and the Pub candidates will be completely and utterly irrelevant. Both Obama an McCain are radical candidates in their own way. Nader has no dancing room.
The only thing he really wants is face time for his opinions, and this is by far the cheapest and easiest way to get it.
I remember his 4% or whatever being reported in the 1984 primaries because it was pretty much the only news on the Republican side, and the networks apparently felt they had to at least mention them after reporting on the Democratic primaries.
I don’t understand why anyone would even think about spending the money a presidential campaign must cost when they have no chance of winning. Its not only a waste of votes thatcould have gone to a viable candidate, its a waste of cash that could be better used.
Besides, if Nader was serious, wouldn’t it have had more sense to have started earlier to build up support?
He does not need the money . He invested very well. GM spent a fortune trying to find a motive for his actions. They just could not accept some people want to make the world a better place.
