Obama Costs Nader the Election

Election results are in and they clearly indicate that Democrat Barack Obama has cost Peace and Freedom’s candidate, Ralph Nader, the presidency. Simple math proves that had Obama not run, and had all of his support gone to Nader, that Nader would have easily won the majority of Electoral College votes and, therefore, the presidency.

A similar electoral flaw occurred in the 2000 presidential election when Al Gore cost Ralph Nader the presidency.

- Bob Maschi

Ralph Nader wonders whether Obama will be an 'Uncle Tom'

As someone old enough to remember when Ralph Nader meant something in America, I found this sad to watch.
- Bruce Tomaso

Nader: Obama is a Coward

From the Detroit Free Press:

Obama ran “a brilliant tactical campaign,” Nader said, but showed cowardice by failing to take on entrenched corporate interests or the Israel lobby in the U.S. While Americans “can be proud that an African American has become president,” Obama has done it without challenging the status quo, he said. Nader cited Obama’s support for federal assistance to General Motors, his nemesis for the last half century, as an example of “a serious character deficiency.”

Voter Beware: Of Ralph Nader

While Nader has seemed to be under the national radar for some months, Carl Bernstein warns the Nader vote in a few states could turn the election if it is closer than the polls suggest.

Full piece here, but some key excerpts:

Perhaps, as conventional wisdom has it, Barack Obama will win comfortably; perhaps John McCain - in an increasingly longshot scenario - will claw his way to victory, and in such a way that Nader's candidacy will not figure.

But bring about a close election in a number of states - especially Ohio and Missouri, where polls show Nader winning about 2 and 4 per cent, respectively - and it is just possible to see how Nader, with his messianic vanity, and destructive urges that are best explained by God or psychiatry, can again determine the future of America.

It is even possible to foresee a way in which--if the national electoral result is unexpectedly tight on Tuesday-- the student population of Ohio State University (60,000) could, if Nader attracts enough support on campus and the final vote in Ohio is as close as Florida was in 2000, determine the outcome of the 2008 presidential election. (Memo to Ohio State students: share this message with your friends.)

In an Ohio News Organization poll in late September, among those making less than $20,000 a year, Nader was at 11 percent. Among independents, he was at 10%. And for those aged 18 to 29 in central Ohio, he was at 7 percent.

There are two other states, especially, where Nader could influence the election outcome if McCain were to surge towards the finish: Colorado and Missouri, more likely the latter. I was on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis ten days ago, and sentiment for Nader was hardly dormant. Nader sent out a mass mailing in the state last week, and according to the latest CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corp. poll, he is at 4 percent in Missouri, where McCain and Obama are seen to be running neck and neck: 48.3 to 47.7 per cent, in McCain's favor, according to the latest CNN average.

Like a Good Nader, Bob Barr is There

Barr Secures Libertarian Party Nod

It sure will be interesting to see what effect Bob Barr has on the election totals in November. I predict he'll get more attention and more votes than Nader. Is the conventional wisdom that Barr will draw away votes from McCain and Nader will take away from the Democrat correct? In a year when we're likely to have two major party candidates with cross-over appeal, it's impossible to predict. Fasten your seatbelts...it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

A Nader for Republicans?

Democrats may get their wish: A third-party candidate likely to steal more votes from McCain than Nader will steal from Obama.

His name is Bob Barr. You'll remember him as one of the rabid Elephants in the House of Reps pushing the Clinton impeachment. It appears he may be the Libertarian Party's nominee for President. We'll find out when they hold their convention in, yes, Denver, over Memorial Day weekend.

Barr has formed an exploratory committee. If he gets the nod, I may just help him out a little. Some payback for the Rush Hillary Limbaugh debacle.

Whine, whine whine

Peace activist fasts to protest Nader candidacy

"We need Ralph Nader's help. We don't need another divisive presidential campaign," says Jerry Peace Activist Rubin (yes that's his legal name).

Read about his fast here.

Patti & Ralph

Looks like Patti Smith has teamed up with Ralph Nader. I'm a fan of hers. And to be clear, I agree with many of Ralph's positions, with the exception of "I'm running for President."

Clean up on aisle 2008

Michael Heaton writes on Nader for the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

"He's like the restless retiree you wish would become a Wal-Mart greeter."

Nader knows best what issues we care about

And from an editorial in the Nashua Telegraph:

"Nader announced his fifth run for the presidency last Sunday on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' rapping the major party candidates for not addressing issues 'that are supported by a majority of the American people.'

"Presumably, he meant issues other than health care, tax reform, a new approach to foreign policy in the Middle East, immigration reform and climate change, all of which Republican John McCain and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have talked about plenty in their campaigns,

Hot Air on Nader

I'm referring to Bill O'Reilly, whose comments are courtesy of the Boston Herald:

"Nader has far more in common with Raul Castro than Howard Dean. He thinks the Dems are almost as bad as the Republicans when it comes to exploiting folks."

Nader Surfaces

Harold Myerson writes in the Washington Post:

"Nader of all people should know that social change in America emerges from movements -- labor, civil rights, feminist -- rather than from third parties. Movements transcend parties; third parties divide movements."

A Driving Force

Bob Herbert in the New York Times:

"It would have been impossible to believe during his heyday that Ralph Nader could be despised by many Democrats and progressives, that he would become a target of their ridicule and vitriol. He is now widely viewed as a hapless perennial candidate with no political upside and the ever-present potential of throwing an election the wrong way. "

Nader Supporters for Obama...

...have a page here. Perhaps the most poignant case not to support Nader.

And from an American in Oxford

Asheesh Siddique, blogging for The Guardian on The Audacity of Egomania:

"Ralph Nader has defied all logic and announced this morning that he's going to help win eight more years for George Bush and a hundred more years of dodging IEDs for American troops in Iraq."

A voice from the UK on Nader

John Rentoul blogs for The Independent:

"The man is the Tony Benn of American politics, whose egotism and cult of left-wing purity has been an utter disaster for the values he affects to espouse."

I have to agree with a comment on this post that if Ross Perot hadn't run in 1992, Clinton would have lost to GHW Bush. But I don't agree with the commenter's point of view that we can't be happy about that and yet decry Nader's run. For one thing, there was a real feeling in the air that Perot could win. He was a serious candidate trying to win, at least. Nader has never been that.

Ralphing

Marty Kaplan writes on Huffington Post:

"It's hard to believe, I know, but there is now an entire generation of 20- and 30-something Americans who don't know that Ralph Nader wasn't always a total a**hole. And yet, despite the stupefying narcissism and destructive potential of Nader's 2008 presidential bid, there's one important issue raised by his independent race that a legitimate fear of his candidacy's consequences, or a well-earned contempt for his arrogance, should not be allowed to obscure."

Read on!

Thanks again, Ralph

Eric Alterman writes on Media Matters' Altercation:

"One of the great mistakes liberals made in the 1970s was to try to win in the courts what they could not win at the ballot box -- thereby allowing their democratic muscles and instincts atrophy and helping to inspire a right-wing backlash against which they were defenseless -- and which now controls those same courts -- and Nader was the leader in this misbegotten movement. As a presidential candidate, he's been an undeniable catastrophe."

Nader's Glitter

Thomas Sowell for Human Events:

"Nader was never a consumer advocate in any real sense. He was a Nader advocate then and he is a Nader advocate now, when he runs for office oblivious to his friends and supporters."

Why would he?

Steve Benen on The Carpetbagger Report:

"Why would someone with an impressive legacy on behalf of consumers take additional steps to make his enemies happy, his allies resentful, and his reputation tarnished?"

Nader's Nadir

Marc Cooper on Huffington Post.

"Politics is all about perception, and the perception of Nader's first run, fairly or not, was that of a tragedy. His redux in 2004 was more of a farce. His run this time will be doomed to be pathetic. It will accomplish absolutely nothing except to diminish Nader's own towering record as a citizens' advocate and to marginalize the crucial issues he raises... It doesn't have to be this way. Ralph Nader could play an essential and productive role between now and November without sacrificing neither his independence nor his principles."

Ralph Nader: tragedy to farce

On Atlantic.com by James Fallows, who once worked for Nader.

"...Ralph Nader has so many people who actually are loyal to him -- and who wish they didn't have to face the reality about the choices he has made over the last eight years."

Obama and Huckabee on the Nader candidacy

From the Chicago Tribune:


"He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush, and eight years later I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about."
- Barack Obama


"Naturally, Republicans would welcome his entry into the race."
- Mike Huckabee

Nader Announces Plan to Wreck Election

Read Andy Borowitz on the Nader candidacy. Hysterical as always.

Nader announces candidacy

As expected, Ralph Nader announced he is a candidate for President of the United States this morning.

It occurs to us he may be trying to help the Republicans by making McCain only the second oldest candidate in the race.

Obama on possible Nader run

From the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog by Nick Timiraos:

"Barack Obama said today during a visit at the Ohio State University Medical Center that he wasn’t terribly concerned about the prospect of a Nader campaign. 'I think the job of the Democratic Party is to be so compelling that a few percentage [points] of the vote going to another candidate is not going to make any difference.'

"Obama responded to criticism from Nader, who has suggested that the Democratic hopeful lacks substance, by noting that Nader has reached out to his campaign. 'My sense is that Mr. Nader is somebody who if you don’t listen and adopt all of his policies thinks you’re not substantive,' Obama said, before praising Nader as a 'heroic' and 'singular figure in American politics.'"

Proud to be part of the "Liberal Intelligentsia"

From the Weekly Standard in 2004:

"On Meet the Press, (Nader) exhibited a marked animosity toward the Democratic party. He said there wasn't a whit of difference between the Republican and Democratic parties--a talking point he used often in the 2000 presidential race. Sounding a lot like, well, a conservative, he said that those urging him not to run--a motley crew that includes the editors of the Nation magazine, ice-cream magnate Ben Cohen, and an assortment of websites such as Ralphdontrun.net and NoNader.org (precursor to this blog) --were all members of the 'liberal intelligentsia.'"

Message to Ralph Nader from Anonymous

Nader says he needs $10 million

From a January 30th ABC news report:

"Ralph Nader has formed a presidential exploratory committee, and said in an interview Wednesday that he will launch another presidential bid if he's convinced he can raise enough money to appear on the vast majority of state ballots this fall.

Nader, who ran as an independent candidate in each of the past three presidential elections, told ABCNews.com that he will run in 2008 if he is convinced over the next month that he would be able to raise $10 million over the course of the campaign — and attract enough lawyers willing to work free of charge to get his name on state ballots."

Green Effort to draft Nader

A number of Green Party members want Nader to be the party's candidate this year.

In 2000, Nader was the Green candidate, received about 3% of the vote and, we argue, was the tipping point that lost the election for Gore.

In 2004, Nader ran as an independent and received less than 1% of the popular vote.

The Greens for Nader web site is here.

"The Nation" on possible Nader candidacy

Full article here.

"Unlike Gore and Kerry, Obama -- now the likely Democratic nominee -- has taken smarter stands on a number of issues close to Nader's heart, such as trade policy. This is not to say that Obama is as good as Nader on the issues. Far from it. But the savvier Obama platform, as well as the movement character of the Illinois senator's campaign, is likely to leave even less space for Nader to deliver a message."

Nader to appear on Meet the Press

Ralph Nader will appear live on Meet the Press tomorrow (Sunday) morning. It is widely expected he will announce he is running for president. Find your local airtime here.

Time to Make a Choice

It's time to make a choice. Even if you believe Nader makes an even stronger case against the status quo than Obama, what will be the result of your voting for Nader?

Will it really help achieve your goals? What will the country and the world look like after four or eight years of a McCain presidency?

Ralph Nader and the issues he believes in and has fought for his whole career would be better served by working within the Democratic Party than by the quixotic campaign he is waging. And by surfacing every four years, his candidacy is as much distraction as bully pulpit. His message would have had more impact as a Democratic candidate than it is likely to now.

No Nader 2004

From the web site we had prior to this blog:

"For the past three years, everything Nader accomplished during his period of unparalleled creativity, which lasted from around 1963 to around 1976, has been systematically undermined by the Administration that he was instrumental in putting in power."

- Hendrik Hertzberg

Ralph Nader said a lot of things that needed to be heard during the 2000 campaign. But he also said there was really no difference between Bush and Gore. Despite the shortcomings of the two major parties, there is a real difference (can you say "John Ashcroft"?).

The 2004 election may be as close as the last one. It's time to make a choice. Even if you prefer Nader's positions to Kerry's, what will be the result of your voting for Nader? Will it really help achieve your goals? What will the country and the world look like after another four years of Bush?

We believe that we will be far better off with Kerry as President than with Bush, and that the issues Ralph Nader believes in and has fought for his whole career would be better served by his support for Kerry than by the quixotic campaign he is waging.