Not that Nader doesn’t have a point to some of his positions, but aside from all the shenanigans in Florida and Ohio, George Bush won because Nader was in the race in 2000, sucking votes from Gore. At least this time, because of Bush, a majority of the country seems to be anti-Republicans so he probably won’t have the effect he did back then. Hopefully.
Ralph Nader joins US presidential race
Independent candidate Ralph Nader has announced that he is entering the US presidential race, a move which many Democrats fear could deprive their party of vital votes.
Mr Nader was accused by supporters of Al Gore of handing the 2000 election to George W Bush by attracting voters who would otherwise have backed their candidate.
The consumer rights activist announced on NBC television’s Meet the Press that he was launching a third-party campaign for the White House because voters were disenchanted with the Democratic and Republican parties.
If this washed up old wrinkle bag runs again he will succeed in doing one thing, getting McCain elected. If Hillary is the nominee, McCain wins anyway. If Obama is the nominee then wrinkle bag saps away those who don’t want to elect a career politician (McCain), yet can’t bring themselves to vote for a black man, again McCain wins.
This is the same reason that Clinton won in ’92. Anyone remember Poss Perot?
I agree third parties have this effect–but not Ralph Nader this time. The Dem vote will swamp the Repug vote and too many people remember Ralph from 2000 and Obama does have the “Change” label regardless of its validity.
I support Nader–his anti-corporate welfare pro individual person is the direction we need to go, but I would never vote for him as he is not electable==one of the chief drawbacks of our two party system.
I am still reminded of another reason Gore Lost==the 60,000 retired jewish voters who marked their ballots for Buchannan, a clear mistake. I wonder if people too dumb to vote correctly should even be allowed to vote?
Let’s be honest, if the democrats can’t win the white house and increase their majorities in congress while Nadar is running, then they have no one to blame but themselves.
#4–QB==could you explain that just a bit? You seem to be arguing for some kind of illegal control over the party? This is the dem party, not the repugs.
[yawn] What happened in Florida in 2000 is clear and it has nothing to do with Nader Vader. Now back to golf.
What message are the losers who vote for Nader trying to make? They must be incredibly non-connected to the world around them to think a third-party candidate could ever win.
He has no job and no source of income other than working for the republican party as a spoiler.
Ralph Nader is unsafe at any speed.
Ralph Nader should recuse himself from ever indulging his political ego again after 2000.
Good grief can’t you think beyond one causal variable. Nader didn’t cause Gore to loose in Florida. Bill Clinton did. Imagine if he hadn’t played with that girls privates during working hours. Gore would have won that state easily.
#11, Huh?
Poor job, editor. At least when you were a hack you were interesting. Now you’re just bland.
It’s amazing how everyone is sick and tired of the same old Republican and the same old Democrat crap but anyone who isn’t a Republican or a Democrat is automatically ‘unelectable’.
How so? No one is allowed to vote for them? Aren’t there Independents with independence in the U.S.?
Say what you will about their incompetence, the news media in the U.S. has everyone totally brainwashed on this particular subject.
President? Only Republicans or Democrats need apply. Anyone else? Well, they’re all ‘spoilers’ and ‘unelectable’. How do you know this? The news media told you!
This tired looking cadaver is paid by the GOP to run in order to neutralize the swing votes that look democratic.
You forget, Gore DID win the 2000 election. We have a REALLY crappy election process here that should be replaced with a straight up popular vote. (Hilary said she would fix that in 2000. That conversation disappeared about three months later. )
Even so the problem was that Gore didn’t win by a large enough margin to avoid these stupid problems. It was just so close that for the first time in recent history, every vote did count. It was Katherine Harris’ fault, voting irregularities, people being told they couldn’t vote in largely democratic Florida precincts, butterfly ballots, hanging chad’s. It was Al Gores fault as much as anyones for doing what most democrats have done since their big loss in 96 swinging to the middle to try and appeal to everyone and just alienating or boring most into just not caring. If Al Gore were HALF as interesting while running as he revealed himself to be immediately afterwards (Nobel, Oscar, Grammy, SNL host) he would have won in a landslide. Why do democrats think they have to appeal to everyone, republicans don’t. It was 49% of the voting publics fault for voting for Bush. And yes it WAS Ralph Naders fault, but not for running. Other parties have every right to run in a democracy. I blame him for successfully convincing many otherwise smart (and some not so smart) people that there was no difference between Gore & Bush, his big campaign rhetoric back then. This may have been true on some issues like campaign finance and lobbying, which he thought was everything wrong in politics, but since in retrospect most people can agree it would have been a VERY different world had Gore been president the last 7 years not Bush these people hopefully now see this for the empty rhetoric it was. Hopefully people won’t fall for the same trick twice. Let him run. He’s not running to win, he’s running to bring his ideas into the debate and make the case for third parties in the country, maybe try and get a real one going one day. I’m not going to vote for him though.
I voted Gore, Dean & Obama.
Congratulation on your victory President McCain. Would you like to bomb Iran now? Also, which Supreme Court nominees would you like to complete our transition to a theocracy?
Today is the day that McCain won the Presidency. And for those of us who are tired of being taxed to death it is a great day.
WOW!!! now we have A REAL CHOICE FOR PRESIDENT!
Bobbo, no conspiracy theories here. I was just making the point that the Republicans are completely slumped and fractured these days. This SHOULD be the easiest election for Democrats in years, even spotting a few percentage points to Nadar.
If the Dems can’t win, it’s their own fault.
Wasn’t Nader running 2000 as well? I think he is doing it for all the federal matching funds, this is plenty of money for him.
Why do people say he stole votes from Al Gore? Did he manipulate the vote count? Gore wasn’t entitled to anyone’s votes, and on top of that he had environmental activists protesting at his speeches. Gore has companies engaged in offshore oil drilling, drilling on Indian lands(the subject of the protests,) and was one of the biggest polluters in Tennessee from the zinc mining on his family farm.
The guy is a fucking ego maniac, it’s that simple.
I’ve read several times about people close to Nader, and prominent people who’ve been his admirers, trying to talk some sense into him about Presidential elections. Or just begging him to stop. No luck. As other posters have pointed out, this is now what Ralph Nader “does”. At least he can’t put a purely destructive force like Bush in the White House this time.
#20–QB==maybe I’m bristling because I see the dems doing just that? Keep the good stuff coming.
Hey ! Look at me. I’m so warped by my egotistic craving for attention that I fail to see the disservice I’m doing to the causes I claim to support.
Nader didn’t lose the election for Al Gore, Al Gore could not even win his home state of Tennessee.
You rebuli-crats hate Nader because he thinks past your next paycheck and tries to take the power back and restore it to the middle class.
Oh SNAP!
Looking from the outside viewpoint I find it equivalent of the urban legend that Americans believe in Nader “stealing” the votes form the Democrats.
From this vantage point Nader represents missing axis in 2D American politics. On Democrat side you have pro-big-govt. on Republican pro-big-business and the Nader is pro-people. Votes for Nader are clearly anti-Democrat-anti-Republican.
# 1 gquaglia said, If Hillary is the nominee, McCain wins anyway.
Are you one of those Fox pundits who just pull “facts” out of their Lumiere lamps?
Most polls put the two even (within the range of 5% statistical error.) Reuters/Zogby is the only one that puts him ahead by 12%. One major screw-up and McCain could lose that 12%.
http://tinyurl.com/39guh8
# 21 MikeN said, Why do people say he stole votes from Al Gore?
Do people say that? Not in the sense you’re using the word, anyway.
What we do say is that Green voters are so politically stupid that they wasted their votes on Nader’s ego-run and made it easier for Bush to steal the election.