Ralph Nader again, now that name rings a bell

Happy New Year!

Speaking of party time, former and possibly future presidential candidate Ralph Nader rang in the new year by sending an angry e-mail to reporters. Isn't that what everyone does to start a new 12-month cycle?

Nader was blasting (Nader and blasting seem to go together, don't they?) Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton over her fundraising. Then, Nader said in a follow-up interview that he might run for president again in 2008.

Nader’s e-mail, co-signed by Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and former San Francisco supervisor Matt Gonzalez, says: "Do you really believe if we replace a bunch of corporate Republicans with a bunch of corporate Democrats that anything meaningful is going to change? This has to stop. It's that simple."

Reached on the phone later by The Times' Dan Morain, Nader lauded (Nader lauding?) John Edwards for his presidential campaign, saying the former senator is using the opportunity to talk tough about corporate abuses. But Nader also left open the possibility that he would run again himself, saying he would be making the decision in about a month. Possibly good New Year's news for beleaguered Republicans.

Nader angered many Democrats by mounting a Green Party candidacy in 2000, siphoning votes from Al Gore and helping to create the eight-year George W. Bush presidency.

“Hillary Clinton is an unacceptable candidate to large numbers of independents, Democrats and third party members,” the Nader e-mail said. “ … If Hillary Clinton prevails, millions of Americans will look elsewhere for change, or stay home.

“It's that simple,” the missive said.

Then, it ended with, “Happy New Year.”

--Andrew Malcolm

Comments

[Mike Feinstein]

WHO ARE THE REAL 'SPOILERS"?

It is unfortunate that writers like Malcolm continue to tiresomely and deceivingly state as 'fact', that Ralph Nader 'siphoned' votes from other candidates.

By metaphorically conjuring up images of 'siphoning' votes from someone else's electoral tank, it perpetuates the myth that voters aren't in control of their own choices. Instead it destructively and disempoweringly suggests voters are somehow controlled by the candidates, making it easier then to blame those candidates and dismiss the issues they represent.

It also conveniently 'forgets' that ten times the number of Florida Democrats voted for Bush compared to the number that voted for Nader, while trying to place blame on Greens and Nader for rightfully participating in the democratic process.

Finally, it continues to ignore the easy solution of implenting Instant Run-Off Voting (IRV) - where voters can rank their choices in the order of their preference. IRV eliminates the dynamic those like Malcolm complain about and further empowers voters to truly express where they stand. http://www.instantrunoff.com.

IRV is a reform that Greens have consistently offered to ranking state and federal Democrats, who unfortunately choose to mostly ignore it (with a few notable exceptions).

That being said, former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, a champion of IRV as well as a variety of social justice and environmental issues, has already declared for the Green Party nomination in 2008. For more on her candidacy, see http://www.mckinney2008.com

Mike Feinstein
Santa Monica
http://www.feinstein.org

[Jurgen Vsych]

Yeah, Nader keeps "blasting." Blasting unsafe cars, unsafe water, unsafe air. Blasting the secrecy in DC that Cheney and Bush hold so dear with that pesky Freedom of Information Act Nader helped create.

Blast that Nader! Damn his muckraking watchdog eyes! Doesn't he realize we have THE DEMOCRATS to safeguard our civil liberties? And what a MARVELOUS job they've done!

My new book, "What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?" (Wroughten Books) tells how Al Gore siphoned votes from Nader. It will ring some bells in the heads of viral Democrats, who have forgotten Nader's incredible record of service to America. Nader entering the race would be good news for beleaguered Americans.

Jurgen Vsych
San Francisco, CA
http://thewomandirector.com

[Panskeptic]

If you believe there's no difference between Hillary Clinton and the Republicans, just think about Supreme Court nominations. Any rational person can see there's going to be crucial differences on that one.

Ralph Nader really needs a girlfriend.

[Alan MacDonald]

The recent news that Nader is backing Edwards strikes me as a probable sign that Nader believes that Edwards has the guts to actually take-on the corporatist empire (which Gore didn't have in 2000). [BTW, I think Gore now has the guts also].

The most important quality in taking on corporatist Empire is guts first.

Avid commitment and the guts to actually ‘fight’ for populism and real democracy is (in my opinion, and I think Nader's) the best indicator of fighting our global corporatist Empire hiding behind this facade of 'Vichy America', since a fight for popular democracy is the penultimate fight against Empire.

Nader's support of Edwards may well be intended to acknowledge, bolster, and encourage Edwards to stick with this fight more resolutely than Gore did when the DNC/DLC brass told him to 'back off' populism in the fall of 2000.

If this hope of mine is half true it may possibly indicate that Edwards is real, that Nader is sensing a real opportunity and trying to stoke rather than dismiss a democratic fight against global corporatist Empire in 2008 (that didn't materialize in 2000), and that Nader and Gore may find themselves backing the same fighter.

If Edwards proves that he deserves Nader's support by really fighting for populist democracy and against this damn global corporate Empire called 'Vichy America', and if he can straight-arm the DNC (which Gore and Dean couldn't) and gets on the ballot, I will be able to vote Democratic again for the first time in decades!!! --- and I'll be one happy anti-empire, anti-corporatist, anti-fascist voter and citizen.

[marc]

Nader and his coterie within the Green Party have been asserting that it is impossible for change to come from the Democrat Party to the extent that it has been made a litmus text. Either you support Ralph Nader or you are a demogreen who is secretly supportive of the Democrats.

Like a child who has been scorned by a parent who constantly tries to get back in good graces, only to be scorned again, Nader betrays his followers by trying to pressure the Democrats to run a more progressive candidate although that candidate would be bound as tightly by corporate power irrespective of the name.

Politics is not a place for those with abandonment issues to work them through.

And the nature of this letter is curious. The Democrat nominee is not chosen by party bosses behind the scenes, rather delegates are selected for a nominating convention. So the threat of this letter is all the more curious. Is Nader threatening the Democrat establishment to ignore the will of the voters should they select Clinton? Is Nader threatening the Democrat rank and file to vote his way or else?

What kind of democracy is THAT?

Ralph Nader needs to be put out to pasture, far away from the Green Party, as a way of preventing him from hurting others again, or from hurting himself. Nader is a union buster and a practical jerk to work with, expressing nothing but disgust for folks who work for him essentially for free.

Combined with Gonzalez, Nader represents the two bit celebrity wing of the Green Party, a clique which has no interest in doing the work at the local level required to beat the Democrats in favor of swinging from venue to venue where all they have to do is speak behind a microphone before the warm embrace of a crowd that already agrees with them.

-marc

[David Gaines]

Nader is supporting Edwards' rhetoric, rather than any long line of actual accomplishments (since Edwards doesn't have any regarding the constituencies Ralph considers to be so important), and he has been fairly careful to make that distinction in his public praise of Edwards. Actually, Nader has, going back to 1996, always been precise in his criticisms in terms of distinguishing between what Democrats say and what they actually do.

My concern is that Edwards, particularly with his emphasis lately on "the middle class," which is no different than what Hillary Clinton emphasizes, will fall into that Democratic Leadership Council chasm where poor folks and disadvantaged people of color are completely forgotten about. I think Ralph, Rocky, and many others (people like Jim Hightower, for example) need to keep the fire burning hot underneath Senator Edwards' rear end on this point.

[Cameron]

Votes don't siphon. First they belong TO THE VOTER and then they are cast and belong to a candidate. (Except when they're stolen by fraud, of course.) There is never any time when a vote belongs to one candidate and another can take it away. The very idea of vote "siphoning" is mathematical nonsense. For all you or I or anyone else knows, Nader's presence turned the Florida 2000 vote from a Bush landslide to a race that was too close to call. And he certainly had nothing to do with THE DEMS' DECISION in the summer of 2000 not to sue to reinstate the hundreds of thousands of low income voters the FL Sec'y of State had illegally purged. So please stop insulting the public's intelligence with that ridiculous "Nader stole Gore's votes" blather.

(There's nothing in here, pal, about Nader stealing anything. He siphoned votes from a place where they were likely to go without nader's presence and thus affected the race. That's an historical fact.)

[Linda]

To perpetuate the urban myth that "Nader siphoned off" votes in 2000 reflects the Democratic Party's inability to accept responsibility for their own ineptitude. Shortly after the 2000 election Donna Brazil, Gore's manger, was interviewed and asked why she thought Gore lost. Her response did not mention Nader at all, but focused on the missed opportunity of not including the still popular Bill Clinton on the campaign trail. Indeed, Gore lost his home state of Tennessee as well as Clinton's then home state of Arkansas. I believe if he had won either of those states, the election would have gone to him. So, If Donna Brazil didn't blame Nader, why do others?

I can remember taking to the streets the summer of 2000 demanding that Nader be included in the presidential debates. He was not, purportedly because he failed to reach 15% in the polls and therefore, was not a "factor" in the election, per the Democrat and Republican controlled Presidential Debate Commission. So, if he was not considered a "factor" in the election, then, logically, he should not be blamed for its outcome. You can't have it both ways!

Then we have the post election matter of Sen. Gore himself, speaking for the Senate, ignoring Rep. Maxine Waters' insistent demand on behalf of the Black Caucus that the Florida votes be recounted and wrongly purged black voters be re-instated. Who knows where we would be today had Gore had found his backbone that day and listened to Rep. Waters!

So, please, before you villify those of us who wish to express our rights to practice democracy and before you stifle freedom of political thought with shallow propaganda, please look in the mirror first and examine all factors.

This year I will be supporting Cynthia McKinney, who has announced her candidacy with the Green Party. Ms. McKinney is the most courageous leader I've seen in a long time and is someone who will speak for those who have otherwise been shut out by the current system. She will unify progressives across the spectrum of issues.

[SystemsThinker]

Mike Feinstein is completely correct that the blame for "spoiling" at this point rests with the major parties who have failed to implement Instant Runoff Voting and other such solutions. They know well that they have the opportunity through doing so to eliminate the very possibility of "spoilers," yet they continue to perpetuate an election system in which they can try to exclude other parties by resorting to scare tactics about this phenomenon which it is in their own power to eliminate.

The thing that is truly difficult to understand, however, is Ralph Nader's own failure to speak consistently and loudly about these necessary election reforms when asked himself about his purported role as "spoiler." I discuss Nader's suspicious failure to speak often about IRV on my blog at http://www.systemsthinker.com/blog/2007/12/an-unreasonable-man/ .

[Gordon E. Finley, Ph.D.]

One Path to the Presidency

Gordon E. Finley, Ph.D.

Both leading Democratic candidates repeatedly have emphasized “change” as a core theme in their campaigns for the presidential nomination. They talk of changes to improve the lives of women, Blacks, Hispanics, and children -- but I still am waiting to hear what changes they have in mind to help me, other white men, and boys specifically.

In October, 2007 David Paul Kuhn published The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma. The most important statistic in this book is that white males constitute the second largest voting bloc in America: “They [white males] make up between 36 and 39 percent of voters, roughly five times more than Hispanic male and female voters combined. White women are about a 5 percent larger voting bloc than white men…” (p. 6).

Listening to the acceptance and concession speeches following the Democratic primary in South Carolina last night, I heard no candidate speaking to us. Not surprisingly, Kuhn argues, white men vote Republican. Democrats seeking to win big on Super Tuesday next week might well want to begin by reading Kuhn’s book today.

To help them along, here are three critical issues for men. The first is job outsourcing and the economy -- focusing on jobs for men as well as jobs for women. The next is divorce and child support. The biggest negative consequence for men of past presidential pandering to the women’s vote is that federal law now funds the divorce and domestic violence industries that separate fathers from their children and transfer wealth from men to women. To regain the male vote of all racial and ethnic groups, Democrats must come to value boys and men, support marriage, discourage divorce by leveling the legal playing field, and encourage father-child relationships.

If this does not constitute change, I don’t know what would.

The third and most important long-term issue is the boy and man crisis in education. As widely documented, in K through 12, boys are losing ground to girls on virtually all indices. At the undergraduate, level men constitute at best 40% of college students, and at the graduate and professional levels they constitute distinct minorities in most fields.

What boys need is a massive change in social attitudes giving them the same kinds of social support and encouragement now given to girls. At the federal level, boys also need the same kinds of interventions designed to remedy and enhance educational attainment currently offered to girls.

So, what’s all this got to do with the path to the presidency in 2008? In my view, just as candidates began attending to the needs, wants, and aspirations of girls and women in the 1960’s, so too today, do candidates need to attend to the needs, wants, and aspirations of boys and men not only if they wish to win the Presidency – but far more importantly – if they wish to improve the quality of life for all citizens in 2009 and beyond.

Gordon E. Finley, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology at Florida International University in Miami. His faculty web site is: http://psych.fiu.edu/Faculty&StaffPages2/Finley/Finley.htm

[notsoandso]

Ralph Nader, Fidel Castro, Al Davis all old guys that no longer get it, and don't know when to just step back & enjoy the sunsets.....

[Michael Krupnick]

What a sad commentary on our distorted national perceptions that the single person who has demonstrated steadfast courage, unassailable integrity, dogged persistence, and remarkable intelligence is marginalized and even ridiculed as a crackpot who "cost Gore the election". Ralph Nader clearly is undervalued because his ethos is no longer considered relevant in a culture that has lost its political compass.

[KAE]

I Agree with Mike Feinstein its not a forced vote people make there own decisions.