Don’t Worry About Nader
Don’t Worry About Nader | The Progressive Magazine since 1909
I don’t know why there’s such a hullabaloo about Ralph Nader’s announcement that he’s running for President again. I know a lot of people hold grudges against Nader for Gore’s defeat in 2000, and I’m not going to deny he played some role. But so, too, did Gore himself. So, too, did Katherine Harris. So, too, did the Supreme Court. . .And what’s happening this year is that it’s really unlikely that Nader is going to make any impact on the outcome of the race whatsoever. . .
And it doesn’t mean he can’t possibly do some good by running.
One function he could play is to point out how undemocratic our two party system is, how rigged it is against third party or independent challengers. He’s doing that already.
Another, even more important function, is to raise issues that no other candidate is raising, and he’s started to do that already, too.
Nader’s presence is a reminder that Obama doesn’t represent the left pole in American politics, and it is salutary to call Obama on his support for a bloated Pentagon budget, or his reluctance to lead on the issue of Israel and Palestine, or single-payer health care.
Comments
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bryan-young/why-we-need-nader-in-the-b88617.html
Obama may not "represent the left pole in American politics", but nobody who does is going to come anywhere close to getting elected. For a guy who might actually be able to beat McCain, it just seems to me that he's progressive and thoughtful enough for a liberal to be almost happy with...
I voted for Nader in 2000, and don't regret it. I don't know if I'll vote for him again, because I do find more to like in Obama than in any other front-runner in decades. I was for Kucinich until he dropped out, then for Edwards until he dropped out.
Blaming Nader for Gore's loss ignores the bigger reaasons Gore lost, including his oddly wimpy admission of defeat when the votes hadn't all been counted yet. Kerry took a cowardly fall in the same way, despite clearly documented vote-stealing in Ohio (as Mark Crispin Miller has demonstrated).
Nader is running to alert us all to the lack of viability a run like his has--a third-party run, that is. He knows he can't win, but he also knows that our current two winning parties are both too far to the right for the good of common people. A more viable progressive third party could pull the whole conversation more to the left, getting truly populist issues back onto the table.
Even though he can't win, people on the left should be thanking him, not cursing him. He won't cost a democrat the election, and he never has.
It has been said around here before by many others, but every time Nader comes up, it should be said again.
1) Without proportional representation an electoral system breaks down with 3 major parties (assuming that is the end game of protesting the 2 party system), particularly when you have population density and large special interests as you do in the US. So as a protest you are only breaking the system further, trying to dig out of a hole if you will. Even with a parliamentary system you run the risk of loosing democracy by adding parties, look at Canada through the 90's. More choice can in practice lead to less democracy, as counter intuitive as it sounds.
2) Nader as a person wishing to bring issues to the forefront does loose credibility by running, he has marginalized himself to an extreme among those who would otherwise give him consideration. As a practical matter he will get less main stream liberal press and be ignored as a candidate, except on Pox News etc., further marginalizing himself among his audience.
3) In the words of the prolific M1 of Dead Prez (paraphrasing others i realize) "the enemy of my enemy is my man". When push comes to shove, in tight races, people will vote to beat "Bomb Bomb Iran".
Huffington Post: Why We Need Nader in the Race
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