Unwatchable At Any Bit-Rate.

Mr. Nader--Another politician who wants us to believe that he's for Country First, when it's really all about him.

Nah. He doesn't have a plan to elect Republicans. He's a nut. He's always been a nut. Nuts do nutty things.

Voltaire understood that, "the perfect is the enemy of the good."

Ralph is no Voltaire.

What I just don't get is this: Ralph Nader is an ethnic Arab, and therefore obviously a terrorist. Why doesn't he get called out on that?

Looking back, I wonder if these character traits that make Ralph so insufferable now didn't work for him, in a different era, as a consumer advocate. I'm sure it didn't hurt that he was a young, handsome, idealistic attorney. But, in retrospect, he was always a bit clueless about certain things. It was just an era of yelling and blaming and finger pointing, so Ralph's schtik worked.

Nader can thank his lucky stars that the election did not hang on Missouri. Obama lost the state by 6000 votes - one third of the votes cast for Nader.

You could argue, of course, that in 2000, he didn't know better.

I hope Public Citizen cans the freak.

While I agree with Nader's critique of the corporitazation of the US economy and politics and life generally -- it is perhaps the single most important issue facing the country since it affects every aspect of American life including health care, energy, credit and saving, even education -- he has gone about in a divisive, self-righteous "if you don't think I'm completely right, you are the problem and are evil" way.

I also think Nader is completely right when he talks about how our government treats the poor. But you can excoriate anyone who doesn't agree with you with very racially charged words, or you can, say, do what David Shipler did and write a book about the working poor that might actually get people to rethink how they are viewed and treated. OK, Shipler's book accomplished nothing as far as I can see, but it was still 1,000X more likely to than Nader's hectoring.

It's been clear since 2000 that Nader doesn't have a shred of political comprehension in his body. He sounds so strange to everyone because for him there is no politics, only policy, and he behaves like someone for whom there is no such thing as politics or political discourse. You would hope that someone like that would know enough to stay out of politics. I say this as someone who is so focused on policy I am literally unable to understand or emotionally connect at all with the big deal being made about Obama being the first black president. I feel no pride in it all. It's like telling me that yes, 2+2=4. Maybe that's because I knew he would be president back in March. There were times during the campaigns this year that I literally forgot he was black until I was reminded of it; the same with Hillary being a woman. Because I don't view them as a black candidate or a woman candidate. All that matters to me are policies, and there are times I have a hard time understanding why people think someone's color or chromosomes matter even 1/1000 as much as their policies. But at least I know enough not to get involved in politics at all. Because it's alien to me. I don't even understand political rallies, and I've been to a few.

I have a friend who feels the same way Nader does and has even used the Uncle Tom phrase in relation to Obama while talking to me. It's frustrating because even if they're right or partially right about the issues, they're so far out of the mainstream and have actively set themselves in such strong opposition to any political success that all they can do is throw bombs.

P.S. Nader and the corporatocracy reminds me of Petey and healthcare.

Nader's nasty comment is very similar in timbre and intent to his 2004 campaign panders to Muslims and radicals, in which he said Israeli "puppeteers" "control" and "coerce" the American government into giving up American taxpayer dollars. The pattern is primarily one of political attention-seeking, whatever politics underlay these statements.

I'm curious to know whether Ezra was outraged by Nader's 2004 outburst.

Ezra,

I'm a huge fan of this blog, it's really one of my favorites. You offer some much needed sanity in your commentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Middle East issues and I love your insightful, easily accessible analysis on health care policy.

As a result, I am quite dissapointed to learn that you're a member of the "blame Nader for 2000" camp. Rather than blaming Nader, shouldn't the target of our blame be the GOP itself and it's corrupt voter suppression tactics? Anyone who's seen the film recount knows Katherine Harris had 10,000 African Americans scrubbed from the voting rolls in Florida, which would have tipped the election in Gore's favor. According to the US Election Assistance Commission, over 3 million votes weren't counted in 2004. Given that ethnic minorities and Democratic voters are disproportionately victims of such suppression tactics, it's likely that Kerry would have won in 04 had those votes been counted. RFK Jr says Bush stole Ohio in 2004, which would have given Kerry the election.

In other words, I'm quite dismayed by your comments about Nader and the more generalized hatred towards Nader among mainstream Democrats. That anger is surely misplaced. Given your manifest intelligence and progressive views, I expected much better from you.

Ralph Nader is an American hero. This is poor treatment for a man who has saved countless lives through his tireless consumer advocacy. To see real leftist policies, we must reject the two-party system that continuously shuts down true progressive reform. Though I hope Obama will be a great leader, he still endorses expanded military action abroad and has shown little resistance to corrupting corporate influence. Ralph Nader's calls to expand the presidential debates beyond the two major parties could have provided the American public with a chance to hear honest alternatives to corporate plutocracy. This effort to smear a great man as some sort of secret racist republican is despicable. The election of the first African-American president should not mean that race is no longer up for discussion - just the opposite; this is precisely the time we should openly attack racially charged issues. I must disagree with these attacks on Ralph Nader, and he can rest assured of my continued support.

The false indignation of the interviewer is silly.

You could argue, of course, that in 2000, he didn't know better.

Look many felt and feel today that Clinton was a conservative, arguably Clinton governed more conservatively than did GW Bush, and that Al Gore was also conservative and so Nadar’s 2000 run. Now it is more difficult to make the case that Obama is a conservative, we will see how he governs, but at this point Nadar is attacking the Democratic party. BTW Austin Goolsbee signals that Obama is far more conservative than his rhetoric and perhaps more conservative than many posters on this board will be comfortable with.

I guess this election will be the first time I've voted for the winner in the presidential race. I voted Peace & Freedom in '96, to protest the drug war;) I'm glad that even while casting a protest vote I had the sense to steer clear of Nader, who struck me as authoritarian, slightly mean-spirited, and generally bad news.

Nowadays it drives me crazy when a protest vote scuttles a really good candidate, like Gore or Franken, but I have no idea how you should get through to protest voters, other than having a really good positive agenda. Maybe Franken should have vocally endorsed spending a bit more on poverty or something, to give all those Minnesota nicies a positive reason to overlook a tasteless joke or two.

I guess the overwhelming emotion from this election is relief that we'll have people in office who, whatever their faults, will at least be trying, combined with gratitude to all the people who worked to make it happen. It's a stunning accomplishment, which redefines the boundaries of what's possible.

The other thing that occurs to me is two quotes of Paul Wellstone that Franken often repeats, "Politics is about doing well for people", & "The future belongs to those who are passionate and work hard".

one last random thought: Rachel Maddow was maybe a little bit exasperating last night, the traditional liberal unwilling to take her own side in an argument, but on the whole she was doing exactly what a good reporter ought to do: to be a bit sympathetic to the underdog, to be a bit skeptical of the people on top, and to try to speak truth to power, even if the powers be new, exciting and incredibly admirable and inspiring.

To add to what Warren said, one might point out that campaigning in Florida - a state where the election was obviously going to be close, making it hard for a third party to garner votes - makes no sense in terms of any of Nader's stated objectives in that campaign, but does make a lot of sense if he wanted Bush to win.

Oh, and then there's the tiny fact that he actually said he wanted Bush to win:

When asked if someone put a gun to his head and told him to vote for either Gore or Bush, which he would choose, Nader answered without hesitation: "Bush." Not that he actually thinks the man he calls "Bush Inc." deserves to be elected: "He'll do whatever industry wants done." The rumpled crusader clearly prefers to sink his righteous teeth into Al Gore, however: "He's totally betrayed his 1992 book," Nader says. "It's all rhetoric." Gore "groveled openly" to automakers, charges Nader, who concludes with the sotto voce realpolitik of a ward heeler: "If you want the parties to diverge from one another, have Bush win."

Nader's fall is so sad; I did use to see him as a hero, and was genuninely excited (like many others) when he ran in 2000. That was actually the beginning of my engagement with politics, and I suspect that of many others who ended up working for Dean, Kerry, and Obama. Before that, politics was never about the kinds of things that actually concerned me.

And yes, it's easy to demonize his short-sightedness, but I agree with the other poster that Republican vote suppression was far more pernicious; Nader would not have made any difference without an election that was already being stolen. And how many of us understood that was what was going on? I didn't.

He does not seem like a well person to me, now; how could someone who fought the battles he did end up where he is now? Is he still completely sane? Or was his nature just not evident before? I don't know enough to say, but it saddens me. How can a clearly intelligent person not understand that the key to breaking the two-party domination game lies in destroying the Electoral College, not in spoiling races to no purpose?

He could have parlayed his standing and accomplishments into so much good. What a waste.

i lost any respect for the man when after 2000, he went around saying that the election tipping to Bush over Gore didn't matter, because they were both the same.

for a guy whose shtick is truth-telling, this was such a load of bull-sh*t that i knew Nader was no more honest than anyone else.

maybe Gore wouldn't have been a good President, but the idea that he would've invaded Iraq, vetoed stem-cell, and threw out habeus corpus is so ridiculous that i knew, at that moment, that Nader was unable to take any responsibility for his actions.

now he's going around calling Obama an Uncle Tom? go f*ck yourself, Ralph.

I usually don't watch fox news but i applaud them for handling Nader's horrible remarks the way they did

Nader is not interested in actually making a difference or he would have taken the the route that the Christian right did and work to take over the Democratic party from the inside between elections, then running candidates in the Democratic party primaries.

Sort of what you know, a community organizer would do.

At the current count in MO, if you add Nader+McKinney(Green) to Obama, and Barr+the_other_right_wing_guy to McCain, McCain still wins. So it's not just Nader flipping the state.

On the other hand, Bob Barr may be the reason NC goes blue.

wow.. such attitude in combatting a racial slur on an interview from Faux news. ..amazing.

EK you have to realize however that Nader said this most likely to get a response like yours. He got his comments splashed across the internet by bloggers and newsies cause of peoples indignance.

Hes playing alquaeda media games. doing something shocking to get your ideas out there even when your too weak to be relevant. Even if his broader point was perfectly reasonable,noone would have listened to his interview tonight any other way.

..pretty effective. Not politically, but as far as being heard it seems to have worked.

The excellent quote from Voltaire posted by Matt Rubin above made me think of Flaubert's description of one of his characters, a communist idealoque in the revolution of 1848. I am quoting from (almost certainly faulty) memory, but it was something along the lines of "the perfect combination of the mind of a geometer and the soul of the grand inquisitor."
Also I am more and more impressed with Shepherd Smith's minimalist rhetorical techniques. How quietly--and without any huffing and puffing--he allows Nader to do himself the maximum damage. Very kung fu.

One thing to remember about 2000 is that for a brief moment, the idea of Ralph Nader actually contending for the election, as opposed to just spoiling it, wasn't completely, utterly insane. It was pretty insane. But not anywhere near as insane as it would be now.

If I'm remembering correctly, Nader showed up to 15% support in some polls for a brief time. Coming off of two sort-of credible third-party runs by Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996, the prospect of a strong third party run in 2000 didn't seem off the charts impossible, especially if you were 18 or 20 years old or whatever and still believed that good things could happen.

Of course Ralph Nader was like 65 years old by that point, so he should have known better.

I always thought that if the elections in 2000 proved anything it surely was that Democrats could win a majority of the popular vote even with a a third party candidate in the field...

when did gop voting fraud and supreme court intervention become nader's fault?

I always thought that if the elections in 2000 proved anything it surely was that Democrats could win a majority of the popular vote even with a a third party candidate in the field...

when did gop voting fraud and supreme court intervention become nader's fault?

p.s.: sorry about the double posting put I didn't intend to post anonymously

http://www.mattbors.com/archives/457.html
That is all.

If the Democrats supported the policies they should, people wouldn't be voting for others. You don't have anything to say about that?

And do you know what Uncle Tom means? You are acting like it means that the person saying it doesn't like blacks. That is not what it means. It means someone who sells out in order to serve power, often applied to blacks who betray the interests of blacks.

Do you like the idea of appointing Rahm Emanuel?

Arnold Layne, I'm not interested in making protest voters feel bad, or make them responsible for Bush. But the way I'd explain it is, it was a bad storm, with an imperfect captain. But if some of your best crew-members start scuttling the ship, you'd be angry too, even if the ship would have sunk anyway.

Now that gets to the question whether the Greens & the Dems are on the same ship. I think the answer is yes: both want universal health care for example, and anti-poverty programs, something which will require spending a bit of money on, money that's harder to find after so much has been squandered these past 8 years.

I voted for Nader in 2000 in Oregon and I will regret that for the rest of my life. I take responsibility for that and other Nader voters should too. He is NOT a hero, contrary to what others think. He is a sad sack of a person. Looking at him in this clip I wonder if he suffered a stroke, his face looks different. Perhaps this has affected his thinking? Either way, the latter part of his career completely erases whatever good he did in the beginning of his career.

Wow, is this real? "What was that?"

It's been unclear for some time whether he actually holds leftist positions but doesn't care to see progress towards them or just uses a leftie agenda so he has some fig leaf rationale for why people should continue to pay attention to his spoiler campaigns.

If there's any logic at all behind Nader's campaigns, he's hoping to heighten the contradictions. Help the Republicans make life so shitty for all Americans that there's an enraged populist uprising.

wow.. such attitude in combatting a racial slur on an interview from Faux news. ..amazing.

My optimistic answer is, Shep Smith is better than most on Fox. My more cynical answer is, of course they'd be happy to call out a racially offensive remark coming from a left-winger.

And personally, I wouldn't blame Nader or Nader voters at all for 2000. I blame Bush, Republicans, Democrats who split tickets and vote for Bush, people who didn't bother to vote... any of those made a much bigger difference than the people who picked the "wrong" opposition candidate. However, Nader may not be responsible for Bush, but he's still an egomaniacal asshole.

I voted for Nader in 2000 in Oregon and I will regret that for the rest of my life.

You can stop. Gore won Oregon.

What Nader said was stupid. Yet he's clearly not a bigot. He would like Obama to be more progressive than he is. And I tire of the 25 year old Kos Kidz who really have no idea what Ralph Nader accomplished and need to dismiss him entirely.

Wasn't it that idiot Markos who told Biden to pack it in for his comments about Obama?

There is an ideological defense; it's just that very few agree with it. If you believe that Obama will govern as an ideological centrist, and you believe we've been doomed to a cycle of going one step backwards with centrists followed by three steps backwards with right-wingers followed by one step backwards with centrists, etc. for the last forty years or so, then one could make the argument that electing Obama is only better in the short term. In the long term, it might be better for progressives to "spoil" elections for centrists until the Democrats are forced to nominate true progressives, which could in theory be the faster route to a truly progressive administration of this nation. I only wish Nader was more up-front about this strategy.

I hope that I am wrong about Obama. I hope that you all are right that he will be a transformative progressive president. But I don't see how that happens without cutting the military budget and reversing REAGAN'S tax cuts. And I fear that after eight years of centrist stasis, it will be the Republican's turn again. Nothing would please me more than to be wrong about this. I'm reading Kuttner's Obama book, and, again, I hope you guys are right!

Ralph Nader is an American hero. This is poor treatment for a man who has saved countless lives through his tireless consumer advocacy.

McCain was a hero too, and yet he acted as a dickwad this campaign.

"If you want the parties to diverge from one another, have Bush win."

Heh. He was right.

Wow, I always wondered what it would be like to see a liberal version of Ron Paul, both in terms of substance and the tenor of his supporters.

I only wish Nader was more up-front about this strategy.

Well, he couldn't possibly be up-front about it, because it amounts to saying that he wants things - economy, workers' rights, income inequality, etc. - to get bad in the short term so that people will turn to genuine left-wingers for salvation. In the meantime, people would get fired and lose their life savings and health insurance. If Nader was up-front about it, he would go from merely unpopular to almost literally radioactive.

I can understand the logic to that, and I'll bet I could support that general strategy in other circumstances. But to play that kind of game with the actual presidency, I don't think the end justifies the means, or at least, you can't get to that end by those means.

It seems to me that you either believe in a 2 party system or you don't.

If you believe in a 2 party system, then yes it stands to reason that the Naders and Barrs and Baldwins and McKinneys of the world are vote-suckers who prevent their causes from prevailing.

On the other hand, if you think that the 2 party system leaves us with very bad, lesser of two evils choices, then you probably aren't going to accept this critique of Nader.

Personally, I blame Gore and Kerry to the extent that they failed to make the sale to left-wing voters. Obama did a better job making that sale.

On the other hand, Nader's "Uncle Tom" comment is racist and offensive and should be viewed as such.

Dilan, there's a difference between acknowledging a reality and liking it. Any first-past-the-post electoral system tends to produce 2 parties.

You can wish you were in a European-style proportional representation system in which a social-dem or green party that attracts, say, 20% of the vote can get deputies elected and influence policy as part of a larger coalition, and get enough institutional stability to grow. But you're not. Sorry. In the US of A, when you come in 2nd you get *nothing* even if you have 49%. That is why 3rd parties fail. Read the history.

*Successful* politics is about doing what works in the circumstances you find yourself, not indulging in flights of fancy.

It seems to me that you either believe in a 2 party system or you don't.

*Shrug* call me agnostic about the two-party system, then. The two-party system does result in "lesser of two evils" calculations, but it seems our government structure is predisposed towards it naturally and almost inevitably.

Three caveats, though: just because something hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it can't (for example, a black president...), a third party can still become influential on a state or regional scale, and what those two parties are isn't fixed. The Republican Party was created when the Whig Party collapsed.

So I've never been interested in a third party, except for considering Nader in 2000. (Don't worry, I didn't. And I was only 18 and I was in Vermont anyway.) But I don't think people who do support third parties are necessarily crazy or stupid.

Three caveats, though: just because something hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it can't (for example, a black president...), a third party can still become influential on a state or regional scale,

If a third party doesn't become influential on a state or regional scale, it WON'T become influential on a national level.

The 50-state strategy applies to them as well.

RALPH NADER in 2012!

There is one party in the United States the business party with two factions the democrats and republicans (Chomsky). Obama is of course the lesser of the two evils.

Obama won, but let's see what he will actually do to bring "change that we can believe in". Cuz I don't by his BS.

Dilan, there's a difference between acknowledging a reality and liking it. Any first-past-the-post electoral system tends to produce 2 parties. You can wish you were in a European-style proportional representation system in which a social-dem or green party that attracts, say, 20% of the vote can get deputies elected and influence policy as part of a larger coalition, and get enough institutional stability to grow. But you're not. Sorry. In the US of A, when you come in 2nd you get *nothing* even if you have 49%. That is why 3rd parties fail. Read the history. *Successful* politics is about doing what works in the circumstances you find yourself, not indulging in flights of fancy.

The problem is that just because our system favors 2 parties doesn't mean that any voter or putative candidate has an obligation to cooperate with either of the two parties. It isn't their responsibility to prop up parties or a system they disagree with.

Third party candidates, like Nader, and their voters should NOT be assumed to be people who agree with one of the two parties. Rather, they are people whose views are not represented by them. Any 2 party system will result in lots of voters who vehemently disagree with large swaths of both parties' platforms.

The problem comes when people who DO agree with one of the two parties telling those who DON'T how they must conduct themselves. For instance, hawkish center-right Democrats (Al Gore's and Joe Lieberman's constituency in 2000) had no business telling left-wing pacifists how they had to vote.

The fact of the matter is that the only way to dissent from the 2 party system is to vote for third parties. This, of course, will always drive centrist supporters of one of the two parties crazy, because people whose votes they feel they are entitled to will instead go to someone else, thus "helping" the opponent. But, of course, the third party supporters could say the same thing-- that it is precisely the willingness of other voters to sell out the left in favor of a bankrupt system that never achieves left-wing goals.

Again, there's no way, in the end, to judge the "rightness" of the Nader voters and their candidate without reference to one's own position, both on the political spectrum and about the desirability of stronger third parties.

The problem is that just because our system favors 2 parties doesn't mean that any voter or putative candidate has an obligation to cooperate with either of the two parties

Sure; of course. Political engagement is optional in free societies. But if you're not going to engage with the political system you have, what's the point? Bringing Naderism to the US political system is like playing golf with a tennis racket. You're perfectly welcome to do so, but actual golfers are going to give you funny looks.

Third party candidates, like Nader, and their voters should NOT be assumed to be people who agree with one of the two parties. Rather, they are people whose views are not represented by them.

I'm quite confident you don't actually believe that there are two universes of people: those who vote R or D, and those who vote 3rd party or not at all, and the two don't overlap. 3rd party politics try to get voters, including those who might otherwise vote R or D. And even if they don't try, they'll probably get some anyway. In many elections, like 2004 and 2008, third party politics don't have any impact on actual plitics, they're a diversionary hobby for 1-2% of the electorate. But the whole point of 3rd party politics is to transcend that.

that last one was me too

My optimistic answer is, Shep Smith is better than most on Fox.

True, that. And I think you'll be able to see the direction of Fox News for the next four years -- or at least a trial balloon at what it might become -- in what happens to Shep Smith.

(see also: the Murdoch tabloids when Tony Blair took over in Britain.)

As for Nader, he's an irrelevance.

I think pseudonymous in nc is on to something. There was a curious combination of two articles on Fox News recently in the NYT, one in the arts and leisure section, the other in the business section. The arts and leisure article concerned some leaks from an upcoming book of conversations with Murdoch by Michael Wolfe. Murdoch is quoted as saying he is sometimes "embarrassed" by Fox News and he wonders whether Roger Ailes has lost his way. The Times article contained statements from a Murdoch spokesperson which were muted non-denial denials of the criticisms of Fox News. You know the drill, words taken "out of context," blah, blah, blah.
The article in the business section concerned the very serious problems Fox has now with ratings. Although their overall rating are still relatively good, they are having their clock cleaned by MSNBC in the 25-54 and 18-25 demos. Unfortunately for them, these are the only demos advertisers care about. The Fox News audience skews old. That is poison in the television business. Now look at demographic details of this election's exit polling. Obama had an overwhelming landslide victory in the younger (that is to say valuable from a television advertising income standpoint) demos. What then is the future of a cable channel whose image is that of people like Hannity, and soon Glenn Beck--good signing, Ailes!--who project a blistering contempt for the man this target demo has just joyfully elected president? The simple fact is that the business model which made Fox News a success during the late Clinton and early Bush years is no longer operable. Murdoch, the man who bought MySpace, understands this. It will be interesting to see how he attempts to thread this needle. I would not be surprised to see Ailes retire soon.

> And I tire of the 25 year old
> Kos Kidz who really have no
> idea what Ralph Nader
> accomplished and need to
> dismiss him entirely.

Nader's last substantial achievements came around 1975 - 33 years ago. I for one clearly remember the pirg business of the 1980s which upon close investigation turned out to be a combination of cult and multilevel marketing scheme. And Nader has only gotten worse since then.

Cranky

Sayonara, baby.

"The man who did more, arguably, than any other to condemn us to the Bush era"

Um, Ezra, there were some guys, well, four guys and a lady, that stole the election from Gore. Anything? Is this thing on?

"Sure; of course. Political engagement is optional in free societies. But if you're not going to engage with the political system you have, what's the point? Bringing Naderism to the US political system is like playing golf with a tennis racket. You're perfectly welcome to do so, but actual golfers are going to give you funny looks."

Win

"The man who did more, arguably, than any other to condemn us to the Bush era"

This is not arguable. Its false. The GOP stole the election and lets not forget that. Furthermore, it bothers me that so many progressives are willing to point fingers at Nader while turning Gore into a victim turned hero recently. Lets not forget that Gore had the opportunity to support an investigation on voter disenfranchisement from his position in the senate granted to him as a VP. There are countless ways he could've fought for the election, but he opted not to. In my opinion, that was the most disgraceful act of the 2000 election. It wasn't Gore's choice to backdown from that fight. Once Gore accepted the nomination of his party he should've felt a sense of obligation to fight for every single vote, not allow for 50,000 black people to be illegally purged from voter lists. If Gore wasn't up for that fight, then he shouldn't have accepted the nomination.

Now having said that, what Ralph Nader said on FoxNews was absolutely sick and inexcusable. If he wants to question whether or not Obama will be a champion for the people or for corporations then fine. But its disgusting for him to put it in explicitly racial terms and the fact that he doesn't know better and would continue to push on it when given the opportunity to backtrack is disgraceful.

Its a shame because Ralph Nader really has done some great things for this country in consumer advocacy. The fact that he's so willing to allow his legacy to be erased by making racist comments and failing to acknowledge any realities about the political winds in this country is quite disappointing.

Nevertheless, progressive looking to point fingers at Nader for 2000 I think are way off. Any of the 7 3rd party candidates in Florida in 200 received more votes than the margin of difference between Gore and Bush. But again thats not the point. Gore didn't actually lose Florida, it was stolen from him. The first people to blame are the people who stole the election. The next people to blame are the people who failed to fight that. Its easy for us to point fingers at those we disagree with and Ralph Nader certainly qualifies, but that doesn't mean its realistic. Gore was very much in a position to win the election after election day. That he didn't fight hard enough is a failure for which he is responsible and a betrayal that I'm shocked by progressives willingness to forgive.

Jeebus:
My point was that I regret casting my vote for him because I was very wrong about the mind of man he was. By your logic, people in Texas never have to regret voting for W.

I think the focus on Nader lets one of the unsung villains of the 2000 election off the hook. I did not vote for Nader so much as I voted against Joe Lieberman, who gained attention by backstabbing his party's sitting president to the delight of the village idiots, I mean mainstream media. He used his perch to attack the base of the democratic party incessantly for the next two years and parlayed that calumny into a VP nod. I listened for years from that blowhard about what a bad democrat I was and by election day 2000 I wasn't going to take. If Nader hadn't been on the ballot, I would have voted for Gus Hall or whomever. It is only as Joe has shed his last shreds of decency that others have come to the conclusion that this man has no place in the party. Too bad it took us a decade to realize that rewarding traitors isn't the way to win elections.

I've often thought of the political continuum as more of a circle than a line. Trotskyists like Kristol and the Commentary crowd made a smooth transition to tip over the left to right boundaries and become the intellectual base of the neo-cons.
The notion of calling a black leader an 'uncle tom' certainly originated on the left but in more recent years I've seen white right wingers use the term to slander black leaders who are effective.
We could argue about whether Nader's agenda is really right wing or not, but the fundamental difference between his position and Obama's campaign is in organization and the fundamental insight that real change comes from the ground up. We can continue the arguments about policies and tactics -- hopefully with more civility than Mr. Nader demonstrates and without slander -- but we also have to look at politics as a process of organization and mobilization, bringing people together to accomplish real change. The evidence for determining who the real progressives are should by now be very clear.

Better hed: "Ralph's Nadir"
You're welcome.

Ralph Nader, a man who once had a few good ideas, is irrelevant today and this is how he gets his face on the tube.

He fall in the same category as Lieberman. He's someone who I despise. As I would despise any and all traitors to causes they claim to support. His willingness to take money from the corporate/GOP interests he once fought. His lack of interest in doing anything constructive for progressive issues other than blather on about how they aren't progressive enough for him. His inability to accept anything other than capitulation to his ideas only. His cheerleading for a Bush win in 2004. And his bigoted statement here is just piece of the many ways he has abandoned his once vaunted concern for people from 30 years ago to nothing but concern for his own ego.

He disgusts me. I can't imagine why anyone with a brain and an ounce of common sense would vote for this sad specimen.

I'm not a Nader supporter, but come on: Gore won in 2000. He won the popular vote and the electoral college hung on Florida, which he...won. If you want to blame someone for Bush's taking office, try Sandra Day O'Connor.

The internets seem to provide an unending supply of people willing and eager to write variations on the "No, no, no the *real* reason Gore lost was...." whenever Nader's culpability is mentioned. I'd suggest to those people that if they mentally insert "ceretis parabis" into the original claim, the exercise would become unnecessary. It seems obvious to me that it's implied in such statements, but I seem to be in the minority.

I'd suggest to those people that if they mentally insert "ceretis parabis" into the original claim

Here's the problem: Ezra said that Nader "did more, arguably, than any other" to cause the Bush disaster. This is suggesting that Nader was more than just one but-for cause among many.

And anyway, I think your comment actually underscores what people find objectionable about the claims that it was Nader's fault. It was such a close election that there was a thousand things you could point to as making the difference. Elian Gonzales. The butterfly ballot. Sandra Day O'Connor. All of these seem equally plausible to me. So why are so many people so stuck on Nader? O'Connor's crime was a thousand times greater.

A complex but extremely close outcome has many ceretis parabis causes. (That so many people seem to be hung up on the search for the one true or real cause has never made any sense to me; it appears to either be based on a ) Some are random and circumstantial. Some are the products of agents. Some of those agents (like, say, Katherine Harris) are certainly more morally responsible than Nader. But she's a corrupt Republican doing what corrupt Republicans do.

djw:

Indeed, I do think third party voters are in a way in a different universe.

The most obvious example of this is pacifism. I am no pacifist. But if you are one, the two parties simply have not, in recent years, offered you a candidate that comes anywhere close to your views. So you have a choice of voting for guys who will sponsor murderous warfare that you oppose with every fibre of your being, or voting for someone who agrees with you in the hopes that in the long term, the pacifist cause will be served.

The point is, if you are not a pacifist, you will never understand this. You will say "how can you not vote for the Democrats, when you agree with 75 percent of what they want to do and only 5 percent of what the GOP wants to do?". But that ignores the importance of certain issues to certain people.

Of course, not all third party votes are pacifists. But all of them devoutly care about something that the 2 party system will never, in their judgment, provide for them.

And pacifism makes the comparison most vivid. Because it isn't the business of someone who supports sending the US military to bomb foreigners to tell the pacifist that he MUST vote for someone whom he sees as a murderer.

You could argue, of course, that in 2000, he didn't know better.

You could argue that, but you'd be wrong. In the closing weeks of the 2000 campaign, after explicitly promising his highest-profile supporters he would not, Nader focused his campaign entirely on the tightest of swing states. Maybe he didn't know just how tight Florida would get, or just how execrable George Bush would be, but his role as spoiler was no accident. And he was not building any enduring movement that could have greater significance than his own ego: he was not a member of the Green party, and he did not pass on his donor or mailing lists to the Green party.

Posted by: Warren Terra | November 5, 2008 4:49 PM

That's exactly right. I was there and I saw it. He promised to stay out of swing states in exchange for a lot of progressives supporting his efforts to get on ballots. Then he broke that promise. If he'd been trying to run up votes he would have campaigned in Austin and Athens. But he campaigned in Madison and Seattle.

The fact remains that we had to spend money to the last minute in places like Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin when we should have been using that money elsewhere.

And the idea that since Gore won Oregon that doesn't matter is just BS.

Ahh, Nader, the Democrats' bogeyman! Of course, if Gore could have done something amazing like, I don't know, carry his home state, then history would have gone much differently. But much easier to blame a shameless media whore with no actual power, or perhaps a GOP vote-stealing scheme whose existence is nebulous at best, rather than a candidate who ran a dismal, Clinton-esque campaign. And this is from someone who loves Gore's work with promoting the dangers of climate change.

But if you are one, the two parties simply have not, in recent years, offered you a candidate that comes anywhere close to your views,

True on many, many issues for me, and I would imagine for a lot of politically engaged people. There's nothing special about 3P voters here. The rest of us understand that choices are made between the options on the table. Plenty of pacifists vote democratic---I know several of them! The idea that war is really really bad so voting for people who start fewer of them isn't really that difficult to grasp.

Nader was similar to many activists in that he started confusing the movement with the cause. Famously he said that a Bush victory over Gore would be a good thing since it would "galvanize the environmental movement". But it would only galvanize the movement if Bush turned out to be as bad for the environment as feared. In other words, the environment had to be sacrificed for the good of the environmental movement. I've known civil rights activists who similarly argued that provoking more oppression would strengthen their movement. And I even know a communist who cheered on rising inequality because of the revolution it would ultimately bring.

As an environmentalist, I've severely disliked Nader ever since his spoiler role in 2000. The harm he caused to the planet will never be undone, not even if the "movement" is strengthened. But I have similar dislike for the Green Parties of France (where I live) and elsewhere, which use the environment far more than they serve it.

Nader ruined what was actually a valid point/question by using an ugly, racially-loaded slur, and then not taking the opportunity that was given to him to walk it back. "Uncle Tom" is an accusation that cannot be leveled across the racial line - it's like "n----r" in that sense.

The thing is, everyone will remember his choice of words, not the point he was trying to make.

True on many, many issues for me, and I would imagine for a lot of politically engaged people. There's nothing special about 3P voters here. The rest of us understand that choices are made between the options on the table. Plenty of pacifists vote democratic---I know several of them! The idea that war is really really bad so voting for people who start fewer of them isn't really that difficult to grasp.

1. The Democrats start just as many wars as Republicans do.

2. Of course plenty of pacifists vote Democratic. The question is whether hawks who vote Democratic have the right to bash on pacifists who vote for a 3rd party because they can't abide voting for a murderer.

Again, thanks for making my point. You really can't understand this, because you start out from the premise that the Democratic Party is good and should be elected whereas the third party supporters start from the premise that they can never get the change they want in either of the major parties. You assume that you are asking them to vote for people that they basically support; they view it as you asking them to support people they vehemently oppose.

As Bob Dylan instructed, "don't criticize what you can't understand".

Yes, we need more principled "progressives" like Kos, who condemn AT&T for spying then rush out like lemmings to sign contracts with them when the shiny new distraction comes out. They hate Nader the most.

1. The Democrats start just as many wars as Republicans do.

I'm aware of this, I was thinking about obama and McCain, which is what's relevant here.

You really can't understand this, because you start out from the premise that the Democratic Party is good and should be elected whereas the third party supporters start from the premise that they can never get the change they want in either of the major parties.

Plenty of people, left right and center, are perfectly aware that they can't get "the change they want" from either major party, and yet they vote for and participate in one of those parties because it's more likely to bring about some kind of positive change (or less negative change) than the alternative. That's what electoral politics is.

If you can't abide being constrained by the possibilities of the present moment, electoral politics probably isn't for you. There are plenty of other ways to change society for the better.

Plenty of people, left right and center, are perfectly aware that they can't get "the change they want" from either major party, and yet they vote for and participate in one of those parties because it's more likely to bring about some kind of positive change (or less negative change) than the alternative. That's what electoral politics is.

That is one conclusion one can make. But it isn't the only one.

Again, your conclusion only makes sense if one accepts your premises. Many Americans don't. And they have a right not to.

And here's the most important thing-- they have a complete right to vote or otherwise act in a way that will screw up your attaining your goals in the short term in order to force long term change in a direction they would prefer. The facts that that long term is a very long term, or that others with similar mindset don't do so, or that the electoral process isn't designed to accomodate their wishes, are all irrelevant. They have the right-- and if they are true to themselves, the DUTY-- to ensure that you don't get what you want from the electoral process. And if you don't like what they are doing, that's your problem. You never had the right to their votes in the first place.

Why on earth do you keep harping on rights? Of course such rights exist; I'm rather insulted that you keep bringing it up, as it somehow implies that I (or anyone in this thread) suggests otherwise. Were we to do so, we'd be advocating a fundamentally authoritarian and entirely despicable position.

But because one has the right to do something doesn't mean anyone else has any obligation to pretend that it makes any sense, or is anything other than a counterproductive waste of time, based on highly dubious assumptions about the nature of social and political change.

It's more than rights, djw. It's a fundamental clash of worldviews. Again, everything you have said has proven my point.

Look, here's a nice way of putting it. Suppose a man is really convinced that he could build a wonderful life together with a particular woman, whom he sees as totally compatible with him.

Suppose, however, the woman, despite having many things in common with the man, sees one or two particular issues standing in the way of ever building a future with the man.

Now, the man can grouse all he wants about her decision being a bad one, making her unhappy and less likely to attain her goals in the long term, etc. But those arguments are premised in their entirety on the assumption that she would rather attain those goals that she has in common with the man rather than avoiding the deal-breakers. And, from her worldview, what he is doing is trying to force her to compromise on principles that she does not, and should not, wish to compromise. And the fact that other women with her same views would be willing to make that compromise is, again, not relevant to what she does.

I would note that not only would we not defend the man's outlook on things in that situation-- I think most enlightened people would call him a jerk and say he needs to move on and find a woman who will reciprocate his feelings. And they would be right to do so.

It is the same thing with respect to participants in our two party system and third party voters. They don't love you. They are not interested in what you have to offer. They are not convinced that it is better to compromise their non-negotiable principles just because they agree with you on other issues, or because other people are willing to compromise theirs. And two-party voters who continue to berate them after being rejected are being possessive jerks and need to get over it, and perhaps even seek out therapy.