Nader on Wolfie

Did I hear him say 6 months to withdraw from Iraq and get UN in?

And did I hear Wolfie just position Ralph as the "Peace candidate"?

I think it will backfire, Nader is so egotistical he will say something so profoundly stupid he'll start to slip in the polls.

it looked like he was hurting Kerry and would ensure another Bush term he said "of course not. That's not how you treat your volunteers." Thanks again, asshole!

I just posted this message in response to a different thread, but this new thread seems more appropriate for my response. In addition to the post below, I would add that candidates tend to rarely reveal any intentions of dropping out until reality dictates for that to be the appropriate path. So, I'm not surprised at all by Ralph Nader's response to the question...

With so much hostility being directed toward Ralph Nader’s candidacy and those who are supporting him, I’m compelled to offer my own defense of his role in this election. Nader is not ignorant to the opinion that he is widely considered to be the spoiler of Al Gore’s candidacy in 2000. While I don’t share that opinion, I respect the qualifying observations of those who do. Nader’s mistake, in this regard, would have been avoided if he had simply dropped out of the race in the days just prior to the election.

I’m convinced that Ralph Nader will not repeat that same mistake in this election. Nader’s campaign will have been even more successfully effective in achieving its goals simply by dropping out this time just prior to the election and giving his endorsement to John Kerry. I firmly believe this to be the intention of Nader’s campaign and if I felt this were not the course of action he would take in this election, I would not be supporting his candidacy.

Nader’s candidacy, I believe, is beginning to play the intended constructive role in putting pressure on John Kerry to strengthen the weaker aspects of his campaign that have been haunting him throughout the entirety of his candidacy. As the election process moves forward it is essential that John Kerry present a very strong, defined positions that clearly set him apart from those of the Bush administration. Kerry needs to present an image of his leadership to the American voters that conveys an undeniable confidence of having a real vision of where he wants to lead us and what solutions he will bring to the table. While it’s possible that Kerry would be able to win the election without emphasizing these qualities, it will have more to do with Bush’s failures than it will in the voter’s confidence of John Kerry’s leadership and vision.

It’s this constructive pressure that I feel Ralph Nader’s candidacy will bring to John Kerry’s ultimate success in not just the election, but also as a strong President. Just as I feel Ralph Nader will not repeat the mistakes of his 2000 campaign, I feel that John Kerry will not repeat the mistakes of Al Gore. John Kerry’s overall success will be determined by his own strength as a leader and his ability to bring the voting public on board with his vision for our country. In 1992 and 1996, Ross Perot’s candidacy did not spoil Bill Clinton’s successful campaigns, but somewhat enhanced it. This, to me, speaks for itself about the significance of a candidates strength of leadership, vision and charisma, which Bill Clinton undeniably possessed. I’ve yet to see these qualities in John Kerry, but I believe with the proper influence and pressure placed upon his campaign from Ralph Nader’s candidacy, we may see John Kerry soon emerge with those characteristics that will help transform him into becoming an outstanding candidate and a very successful President.

So, while I’m currently supporting Ralph Nader’s candidacy, it’s with the best of intentions to helping John Kerry become a stronger, more defined leader who will succeed against George Bush. It’s my hope that we will see John Kerry win this election by the largest landslide victory in our history with an enormous voter turnout. It would be absolutely shameful for this election to mirror the 2000 election and I believe that Ralph Nader’s candidacy will help far more than it hurts. Additionally, I would like to see Ralph Nader be brought into Kerry’s campaign toward the end and to become a member of the Kerry administration following the election.

Bottom line, I think it’s worth considering the perspective I’ve presented here rather than continue to harbor such anger and hostility toward Ralph Nader and his supporters. I believe Ralph Nader will ultimately be a valuable asset to John Kerry’s success. He is opening doors by his own examples of strong, unwavering positions with social and political vision. John Kerry will only benefit by following some of Nader’s leads to solidify his own strengths.

by identifying Nader as the peace candidate.

Of course, no one will mention that we wouldn't need to get out of Iraq if Nader had not run in 2000. The reason is that we would not have gone to Iraq in the first place if Gore had been in the White House.

I don't like to say this, but I think Pat Buchanan is more honest and honorable than Nader.

said there was no difference between the 2 parties. Chimpy's saying that Jesus was his most influential philosopher was a close second.

I feel that Ralph Nader's observations of the extensive corporate influence and campaign financing that impacts the agendas of both Republican and Democratic parties were legitimate. Given, there's multiple tiers of comparison that can be drawn between the behaviors of the two parties in ways which are detrimental to the overall public interest. Had Al Gore and the Democratic party opted to separate themselves more strongly from the Republicans and offered clear positions of reform and defense of their own voter base, Ralph Nader's assessment would have been irrelevant.

Fortunately, I think that the Democratic party is beginning to return to it's roots, although still to a disspointingly small extent, compared to where the party was at back in 2000. I think the criticsms and observations made by Ralph Nader in his Crashing The Party book were justified and necessary in order to help influence the direction of the Democratic party away from the more submissive, centerist position and into a stronger, more people oriented platform. The extremely low voter turn out in the 2000 election speaks more loudly about the lack of differences between the two parties than simply the observations of Ralph Nader. I feel that while it may not have been what Democrats wanted to hear, Nader's criticisms were indeed honest opinions supported by legitimate arguement.

first of all, is that a fact? I didn't know that turnout was especially low in 2000.

Second, Nader was running in 2000. If voter turnout was still low, even with Nader running, doesn't that disprove the theory that it's because of there only being the two choices?

The eligle voter turnout for the 2000 Presidential election was 51.3%. This turnout is the second lowest voter turnout in a Presidential election since 1948. The eligible voter turnout has been steadily declining since it's peak of 62.8% in the 1960 election. The two lowest voter turnouts were 49% in 1996 and 50.3% in 1988. This decline in voter participation, to me, reflects the overall apathy and disinterest held by the public in regard to their perception of differences between candidates or their respective parties.I would absolutely hope that given the hotbed of issues and our current state of affairs will change that trend for the better in the 2004 election.

Perhaps, if Ralph Nader was allowed to participate in the debates it might have carried some positive influence on the overall voter turnout in the 2000 election. Unfortunately, that might not be true either, given that Ross Perot's participation in the 1996 debates still resulted in the overall lowest voter turnout of 49%. Ultimately, it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference, but I sincerely doubt it would have made it any worse.

Oops, my bad... Ross Perot was actually excluded from participating in the 1996 debates, which ended up having the lowest voter turnout of only 49%. However, Ross Perot did participate in the 1992 debates and the voter turnout was a noticeably higher 55.1%. So, having corrected myself, I think that actually provides some support for the point I was making regarding voter turnout being influenced by the voting public perception of a valid third party candidate thrown into the mix.

voters come out and support his candidacy? 2000 would have been the year because Dimson was largely unknown. He could get away with the lie "Dems samne as Reps" then.

But no one really turned out for Ralph as the "alternative, did they? Maybe because that approx. 50% really doesn't give a shit about about politics, as long as they can watch their TV programs.

So 2000 was Ralph's year to be the alternative. This year he's just carrying water for the Republicans.

In 1992, Perot had the advantage of his own deep pockets, ability to effectively advertise his candidacy and received mass exposure by being allowed to participate in the debates. Those factors count considerably in a candidates ability to draw votes from those who would otherwise might have stayed home instead of going to the polls. For the most part, Nader lacked those resources during his 2000 campaign when compared to Perot.

Given the limitations of Nader's campaign. It would have been interesting to have seen how Nader's participation in the debates might have impacted voter turnout, but obviously there's not much of a means of measuring that outcome. But just looking at the rather significant bump in the 1992 voter turnout (55%) when a third party candidate was allowed to participate in the debates compared to the lowest voter turnout in 1996 (49%) when the third party candidate was excluded might suggest that up to 6% of that difference might have been pulled from the otherwise apolitical crowd.

Ideally, John Kerry will begin to strongly appeal to the typical 50% crowd that does participate in our democracy to the point that he will effectively pull off a landslide victory against Bush regardless of whether Nader actually remained in the race or not. If Clinton could pull it off in 1992 and 1996, I think Kerry should be able to do the same, providing of course that he defines himself as a confident, charasmatic leader who offers a clear vision and strong solutions for the direction of our country. The lack of these qualities, I feel, is what ultimately prevented Al Gore from a successful landslide victory in 2000.

It's embarassing that the 2000 election was as close as it was given that Bush should have been very easy to defeat, one on one or otherwise. It's also worth remembering that Al Gore did actually win the 2000 election (not just the popular vote, but the Florida electoral vote as well) but conceeded and allowed the Supreme Court to select the President. It bothers me that the public actually allowed this to happen and that Gore didn't continue the push for the full recount.

Unfortunately, everyone seems very concerned that Kerry is not going to have greater public appeal than Al Gore did. Given Bush's continually dropping in the polls and the opporutnities ahead for Kerry to come out swingin' I would be really disturbed and disappointed with our voting population if we end up with another 50-50 draw this time around.

"everyone seems very concerned that Kerry is not going to have greater public appeal than Al Gore did."

Kerry almost ran the table in the primaries...pretty damn impressive considering there were 9 people running.

Rather disingenuous to push the "everyone seems very concerned" meme.....just about every Democrat I know couldn't be happier with Kerry as our candidate. Sorry, no sale on that.

Too bad Ralph didn't run in the primaries....then we'd have had the opportunity to consider him vs. Kerry. He would, of course, have been rejected impressively.

I really have no idea what Ralph thinks he is doing in this race. He appears to enjoy lecturing the American people with his "holier than thou" bullshit. Lucky for him, the Republicans have no problems underwriting his campaign. Hell, Wolf Blitzer is promoting Ralph as the peace candidate. I'm sure that'll help drain the single issue anti-war votes, thus enabling GWB to continue his war.

I'm writing this all on the fly, so if I'm overstating an inaccurate assessment it has more to do my mistake in making generalized assumptions. With the aspects of my discussion you have pointed out, I would edit my statements a bit to reflect less generalization. I'm not trying to be disingenous and my true agenda is for John Kerry to succeed in his candidacy. I'm an admitted independent voter so I'm trying not to speak on behalf of the Democrats in the statements I've been making here.

Kerry did indeed run the tables in the primaries, but we could open up a whole different topic on my opinions and assessment as to why. I'll spare the comments on that because, at this point, it would be beating a dead horse topic.

Maybe it's just me, but it does seem like there is quite a bit of concern that John Kerry is not defining himself as strongly as he needs to in order to defeat Bush. If that concern was non existent it would seem to me that nobody would be concerned about a few percentage of votes being sacrificed to Ralph Nader's campaign. I honestly and sincerely hope that John Kerry landslides Bush in November. As awkward as it must sound, that's why I'm currently supporting Ralph Nader. Honestly, I keep trying to get genuinely excited about John Kerry's candidacy, but he just hasn't impressed me enough yet to align myself exclusively to his campaign. If things somehow end up as neck and neck between him and Bush in November, I'll admittedly vote for Kerry without hesitation. But, I would really like to think Democrats, such as those who participate in this forum, would be expressing a little more confidence and faith in John Kerry's campaign to not feel so outwardly threatened by Ralph Nader's candidacy.

I'd say that's the entire point of what has become a rather long winded discussion on my part. Ease up on Ralph and have some faith in John Kerry. Ralph's not the bad guy. While I don't expect or advocate for Democrats to dump their support for John Kerry and start supporting Nader, I would suggest that they assess the constructive points of Ralph Nader's candidacy and stop reacting with such hostile fear that he's going to cost John Kerry the election.

of the damage he caused until after the election. Without Ralph, we take NH and Florida. Gore wins. Sorry, no free ride this time. It's Nader-Bush vs. Kerry. He is enabling a Bush election and you can spin it whatever you'd like, but that is the ugly fact.

I've got plenty of faith in Kerry, but I also realize that institutional voter fraud requires the largest possible win to keep the election from being stolen again. Nader adds the "fog" that could provide the cover for Bush's BBV hijacking.

One other thing. I've yet to hear one iota of a meaningful platform from Ralph. Like, what does the man think he can accomplish that Kerry can't?

In the absurdly unlikely event that Ralph could get elected, then what? Nothing. His agenda is compromised or totally disregarded/ignored in Congress. He is a 'Party of One'.

But we get to listen to a self absorbed pompous ass lecture us for 4 years about how good his ideas are. Terriffic.

If you go to his website, you'll see all sorts of ideas we've never thought of and need to "adopt" -- he's for equal rights for women! He "wants to end poverty" and he "wants to create jobs!" He thinks education is a good thing! And some of his proposals are a whopping three sentences long!

We have so much to learn from Saint Ralph...

Florida and New Hampshire would have been irrelevant. Also, if Al Gore would have strongly pushed for a full recount of the Florida ballots rather than conceeding under pressure and allowing the Supreme Court to select Bush, Gore would have pretty much been assured to have actually won.

I've already stated that I felt Ralph Nader was mistaken to not drop out of the race given the potential for such a close election. I honestly don't feel that he'll make that same mistake again should the polls in late October indicate that we are in for another 50-50 election.

I also share your concern for voter fraud which was rampant in Florida, and probably elsewhere too but didn't come under any scrutiny since Florida was the undeniable focus of attention. However, even extensive levels of voter fraud are only effective in an election as close as what we experienced in 2000.

While I disagree with the overall assessment in this discussion regarding the lack of substance in Ralph Naders campaign, I also didn't come here to sell anybody into supporting him. Just a simple request to ease up on the unnecessary fearful hositility and anger directed toward Nader and his supporters. I don't realistically expect any of the posters within this forum to accept anything I've said, but as a long time reader, but rare poster, in this forum I just wanted to get some of my opinions off my chest and I appreciate the feedback I've received from yourself and others in this thread regardless of any measureable success that has resulted or not resulted from my effort.

Ultimately, I sincerely wish John Kerry and his supporters the best of luck in November and I'm hopeful that he will slaughter Bush embarassingly with a record high voter turnout to make their opposition to Bush known very loudly.

The media ridiculed Gore for speaking out for the working class. Remember 2000 was a time of great prosperity for most people and the people in the middle identified with the "rich."

Of course, corporations give to both Dems and Repubs. They aren't dumb. But they give 85% to Repubs and 15% to Dems. That way they can say the 2 parties are the same, even though they get their way much more often with the Dems than the Repubs.

And, of course, the corporations have donated to the Greens when they think doing so will hurt the Dems. Has Nader said anything about the effect of corporations on his efforts?

I thought most of his speeches fell with a bit of a thud. His appeals to the working class seemed widely perceived as mostly lip service in contrast to his reputation for being overly accomodating in his courting of the corporate interests offering high dollar soft money. I feel that Al Gore failed to truly come off as a "man of the people". Gore just didn't seem to really click with people and his decision to distance himself from Clinton during his own campaign was a bit of a mistake given that a lot of those who prospered during the 90's economic boon would have liked nothing more than for Clinton to get another term.

I'm not sure the corporate figures break down to the 85%/15% distribution, but from what I've seen in various breakdowns the gap appears much narrower. In answer to your question about the effect of corporations on Ralph Nader's campaign, I'm assuming you're refering to his own fundraising. Nader's campaign does not accept corporate donations or donations from political action committees.

What influences the platform are constituencies. There are many organizations working to raise awareness about a range of issues. Nothing is accomplished without enough popular support to win elections and enough Congressional support to pass legislation. It's all about constituencies, and organizing can influence them and support policy -- nagging outside the party is NOT effective without popular support, unless the effect desired is losing elections.

Ralph Nader has done NOTHING for the causes he claims to care about, and has in fact harmed them.

If the constituencies of the Democratic party are not receptive to the vision, ideas and positions of a significant demographic, then the reasonable alternative is for that demographic to align themselves with leaders who do represent those issues. In my opinion, that's what democracy is all about. If the Democratic party has no interest in considering the non-platform positions of those not in their fold, then they do so at the risk of not winning their support.

However, I do disagree with your assessment of the value of Ralph Nader's overall contributions to our society. If more people were as dedicated to public service as Nader has been, we would have a much stronger societal infrastructure and probably wouldn't even be having this discussion. Out of curiosity, in what ways has Nader harmed the causes he claims to care about?

I thought you were saying his criticisms were intended to influence the platform (post #6 I think).

If it's about getting a candidate who each voter is as closely aligned with as possible, why not have all 10 Democratic candidates run? More democracy! More representation of each demographic's views! If they don't agree with us, they lose our support. And maybe they'll each get 10% of the vote.

I don't know what Ralph Nader's contributions have been, except that he stopped the Corvair 30 years ago and takes credit for a lot of unnamed "groups" in his website bio. I dare say the Democratic candidate has a more impressive record of legislative accomplishment, as well as a greater chance for making further progress, since he has greater than a snowball's chance in Hell of actually taking office.

Nader's greatest influence on public policy is his support for the current Bush administration. No matter what Nader's rhetoric, the effect of his actions and "no difference" distortions has been to help undermine enviromental standards, economic justice, workers' rights, consumer protections, etc. That will be his lasting legacy.

the Greens were seeking in 2000.

Nader broke his promise to his progressive supporters, by telling them that he was only going to campaign in non-swing states to get 5% of the vote without spoiling Gore’s campaign, but then in the last weeks, actually campaigning right in those swing states.

One of those "swing states" was Florida. Nader was here the weekend before the election in 2000--Nader received 97,488 votes in Florida--Gore lost by 537, as we are all well aware.

This behavior on the part of Ralph Nader cannot be justified.

Al Gore might have been influenced by Lieberman's heavily hawkish support for going to war against Iraq as well. While I would tend to agree with your statement, I find it difficult to dismiss the influence Lieberman might have had on the Gore Administrations policy toward Iraq.

At least Nader is against the war that Kerry supports. I'm not a big fan of Nader but he has a helluva lot better chance of getting my vote than "we need to send more troops" Kerry.

and his name is Dennis Kucinich.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Which I may do if I don't vote Green or Nader.

I was absolutely opposed to this war and extremely disappointed that John Kerry voted in support of the resolution that gave Bush the green light to go to war. I was also very disappointed with Kerry's non-committal answers prior to the war as to whether he would or would not support military action. It's that playing of both sides that turned me off of supporting Kerry during the primaries.

However, I would actually consider all of the democratic candidates, with the exception of Joe Lieberman, to being "peace candidates" in the sense that they seemed sincere about what they would consider to be the best approach to fixing the mess that Bush has created. Now that this huge mess has been made, I'm not entirely confident in the withdrawl proposals that have been presented by Nader or Kucinich. I think they might be too idealistic given the intricate nature of such massively disrupted regional stability. While I'm leary of the proposal to simply send more troops, I would accept it if I had confidence in the leadership that was making such a decision. As a Wes Clark supporter, I would tend to default to confidence in his proposals which John Kerry appears to be aligning himself with.

So, in fairness to Kerry, I think Kerry is probably being more realistic in his considerations for how to effectively fix the mess in Iraq rather than painting himself into a corner by advocating what might otherwise be a disasterous and premature withdrawl. I admire Dennis Kucinich and supported his candidacy up until Wes Clark announced his candidacy. So, it's with high regard and consideration that I make my critique against his Iraq policy. There will be no simple solution to the mess in Iraq and it's going to take an extremely significant talent pool from within the Kerry administration to handle the situation in a way that moves toward a truly successful and peaceful outcome. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting for Kerry to solidify the presentation of his vision and solutions rather than simply continuing to focus criticism against Bush's failures.

He can say anything. He'll never have to try to do it, nor will he ever face the consequences.

I don't think anybody who is currently supporting Ralph Nader, or Nader himself for that matter, are guaging their support on whether it's realistic or not that he actually gets to sit in the big chair. Regardless of the hostility most Democrats are expressing toward Ralph Nader's candidacy, Nader is advocating a strong set of policies and vision that are intelligent, constructive and completely in line with traditional Democratic values.

To me, it's essential to the quality of any democracy that more than two parties worth of agenda be represented with reasonable fairness. If we allow ourselves to simply maintain a perpetual cycle of limiting our democracy to such narrow standards based on a sensationalized fear that whatever candidate we align ourselves with will only be capable of a slim margin of victory at best against his opponent, then we are destructively reducing the expectations of quality we place on our representatives.

The significance of Ralph Nader's candidacy does not hinge on whether he realistically stands a chance of winning the election. Rather, it's that there is an additional voice adding constructive policy discussion which serves to constructively strengthen the strategy of the only candidate who realistically will successfully defeat Bush.

If Democrats are truly so scared that Ralph Nader's candidacy poses so much of a threat as to upset John Kerry's ability to defeat George Bush in 2004, then I think the Democrats need to contemplate the wisdom of their decision to support the candidate they have selected. Though I'm not a Democrat, I at least have some faith and confidence that John Kerry will prove himself to be a strong enough candidate as the election draws nearer to do far better than 50-50 against such a pathetic opponent as George Bush, regardless of whether Nader is a factor in the race or not.

You do understand that our system doesn't really allow for three candidates AND an election result that likely reflects the majority. The two party system is a result of the way our electoral system works, not the other way around. Three parties in an election are most likely to result in a plurality win and one that doesn't reflect the will of the electorate. I know we've all be over that a zillion times, but it seems so important and yet Nader supporters/apologists seem to glide right past it.

If Nader is "completely in line with traditional Democratic values," why isn't he working WITH and WITHIN the party rather than opposing it?

If Nader wants to be "an additional voice adding constructive policy discussion," why isn't he using his voice WITH and WITHIN the party rather than opposing it?

If Nader wants to defeat the Chimp, why is he running against John Kerry?

The country IS divided about 50-50. The voting systems themselves are untrustworthy. Every percentage point matters. Does Ralph Nader not realize these facts, or not care?

Nader has said he wants to destroy the Democratic Party, so anyone who claims otherwise is either lying, or too foolish to deserve any respect.

Him and his need to 'do the right thing' is going to get the U.S. and the world in trouble.