ill vote for him if he gets rid of his one suit that looks like he just pulled it from a GoodWill dumpster.
Originally posted by: Eeezee
Originally posted by: Lemon law
The real question is can Nader get in on any of the nationally televised debates in the general election? If he can't, many people will not even know he is running.
But it would be educational to see Nader and Ron Paul debate each other.
Now THAT would be interesting
Originally posted by: Lemon law
But it would be educational to see Nader and Ron Paul debate each other.
Originally posted by: marincounty
This guy is just a whacko egomaniac. Thanks for helping elect George W Bush.
Thousands of people have died because of his ego. Just die already.
Originally posted by: ericlp
Originally posted by: marincounty
This guy is just a whacko egomaniac. Thanks for helping elect George W Bush.
Thousands of people have died because of his ego. Just die already.
I think your wrong...
If anything we need more then this 2 party corrupted system we have. I don't think you should get mad at nader, you should be mad at the system for allowing it to squeeze out third party races. You should also be mad that there is an electoral vote....
Oh well, maybe one day we will have a perfect government but that day may never come.
Originally posted by: GroundedSailor
Originally posted by: Robor
Originally posted by: Pabster
Originally posted by: dphantom
Doubtful. He only pulled .3% of the vote in 2004. He is even less meaningful today.
In a very tight election though...
I hope you're right, but the fact of the matter is, Republicans aren't voting for Nader. So he's siphoning votes from the Democratic Nominee.
Yep... Pretty much 100% of any Nader votes are going to come from the Dem's pool.
I doubt he's getting any votes this time around after 2000 & 2004. All the independents seem to be for Obama. Only the lunatic fringe will vote for Nader this time - and good riddance to them.
Mr. Nader?s Unforgivable Wrong
With Ralph Nader?s announcement of a fourth (or maybe fifth) run for president, it is worth taking a minute to recall his most infamous previous campaign: his 2000 presidential bid. The rosy and imprecise glow of memory might lead one to remember it as a well-intentioned effort to make a point that simply went awry. But such a view is far, far more benign than the reality of the Nader 2000 campaign, and therefore a review of that effort is in order to put his current campaign in context.
When I made a passing, disparaging reference to Mr. Nader?s 2000 campaign in an earlier post on this blog, it drew a lot of negative comments, accusing me of wrongly blaming Mr. Nader for the Bush presidency. As a logical matter, in an election as close as 2000, and decided as oddly as it was, it is hard to point to any one thing as the ?but for? cause of the result.
But the fact that the Nader vote was larger than the Gore-Bush margin of difference ? not just in Florida, but also in New Hampshire ? is grating and significant. So let?s just put it this way, as neutrally as possible: while there are several reasons why Al Gore was not sworn in on Jan. 20, 2001, one of them certainly is because Ralph Nader drew votes that would have given Mr. Gore the election ? in not just one state, but two ? making Katherine Harris, dimpled chads and the Supreme Court wholly irrelevant.
But, some Nader sympathizers object, who could have known back then that Mr. Nader?s campaign would help throw the presidency to George Bush? Who could have seen it coming? The answer is that Mr. Nader did, which is why he initially promised supporters that he would not campaign in swing states or take other steps that might make him the ?spoiler? in the race ? a promise he inexplicably broke, to the chagrin of many environmentalists, in the final weeks of the campaign.
The risk that Mr. Nader might cost Mr. Gore the election was so well understood that one of the country?s most creative progressives, Jamin Raskin, hatched an elaborate plan to try to minimize this risk while preserving a chance for Naderites to make their voices heard ? a plan that Mr. Nader refused to back. There?s simply no escaping the fact that Mr. Nader knew the risks he was taking, and did not care, believing that a vote for Mr. Gore was a vote for Mr. Bush, and that there were ?few major differences? between the two major party candidates.
And that?s not the worst of it.
Even more inexcusably, there were indications that Mr. Nader not only knew that his campaign might throw the election to Mr. Bush, he actually preferred this result. As he told The Times, in a piece that ran on Nov. 1, 2000, under the headline ?Nader Sees a Bright Side to a Bush Victory,? Mr. Nader believed that a ?bumbling Texas governor would galvanize the environmental community as never before.? He said that ?the Sierra Club doubled its membership under James Watt.? This view, which was rejected by the president of the Sierra Club, nonetheless won some credence among Nader followers, making the recent efforts by Mr. Nader to reject any responsibility for President Bush?s victory in 2000 all the more disingenuous and incredible.
And still, that?s not the worst of it.
For what remains unforgivable in my view are the harsh, mean-spirited, hugely wrong and unfair things he told voters about Al Gore in 2000. Even if one believes that Mr. Nader?s electoral impact was an unintended result, his words in the 2000 campaign were carefully chosen weapons and horribly deceptive ones. They included:
* Calling Al Gore ?a coward? and saying his environmental supporters had a ?servile mentality.?
* Saying that Al Gore was a ?broker of environmental voters on corporate terms? and an ?environmental poseur, prepared to attract, barter and mollify environmental support for corporate cash?
* Asserting (as summarized by one reporter) that there would not be ?much difference between the justices Mr. Gore would choose and those Mr. Bush would appoint? because one ?can?t really predict how Supreme Court justices will behave.?
These statements weren?t accidents or unintended consequences: they were wrong in 2000 and are unbelievably wrong today. Of course, given the acclaim by the world community, Al Gore hardly needs me to defend his record.
Even Mr. Nader must know in his heart that he was wrong about Mr. Gore eight years ago. And yet, as far as I know, Mr. Nader has never retracted his earlier statements, never apologized, never admitted error. Why any voter would listen to a candidate today who was so profoundly misguided before is beyond me.
There was a time when Ralph Nader was my hero. As a young staffer on Capitol Hill in the early 1980s, I was working on a pro-consumer amendment to telecommunications legislation when my phone rang. Ralph Nader was on the line. I was awestruck.
?You?re doing great work,? he told me, ?keep doing the right thing.?
Ralph Nader should heed that same advice now and abandon his futile and convoluted 2008 campaign. And whatever else he does this year, an apology for the misguided direction he gave in 2000 is the very least he owes the nearly three million voters who supported him ? and the rest of us who have lived with the consequences ever since.
Originally posted by: loki8481
really dug this article the other day...
Mr. Nader?s Unforgivable Wrong
With Ralph Nader?s announcement of a fourth (or maybe fifth) run for president, it is worth taking a minute to recall his most infamous previous campaign: his 2000 presidential bid. The rosy and imprecise glow of memory might lead one to remember it as a well-intentioned effort to make a point that simply went awry. But such a view is far, far more benign than the reality of the Nader 2000 campaign, and therefore a review of that effort is in order to put his current campaign in context.
When I made a passing, disparaging reference to Mr. Nader?s 2000 campaign in an earlier post on this blog, it drew a lot of negative comments, accusing me of wrongly blaming Mr. Nader for the Bush presidency. As a logical matter, in an election as close as 2000, and decided as oddly as it was, it is hard to point to any one thing as the ?but for? cause of the result.
But the fact that the Nader vote was larger than the Gore-Bush margin of difference ? not just in Florida, but also in New Hampshire ? is grating and significant. So let?s just put it this way, as neutrally as possible: while there are several reasons why Al Gore was not sworn in on Jan. 20, 2001, one of them certainly is because Ralph Nader drew votes that would have given Mr. Gore the election ? in not just one state, but two ? making Katherine Harris, dimpled chads and the Supreme Court wholly irrelevant.
But, some Nader sympathizers object, who could have known back then that Mr. Nader?s campaign would help throw the presidency to George Bush? Who could have seen it coming? The answer is that Mr. Nader did, which is why he initially promised supporters that he would not campaign in swing states or take other steps that might make him the ?spoiler? in the race ? a promise he inexplicably broke, to the chagrin of many environmentalists, in the final weeks of the campaign.
The risk that Mr. Nader might cost Mr. Gore the election was so well understood that one of the country?s most creative progressives, Jamin Raskin, hatched an elaborate plan to try to minimize this risk while preserving a chance for Naderites to make their voices heard ? a plan that Mr. Nader refused to back. There?s simply no escaping the fact that Mr. Nader knew the risks he was taking, and did not care, believing that a vote for Mr. Gore was a vote for Mr. Bush, and that there were ?few major differences? between the two major party candidates.
And that?s not the worst of it.
Even more inexcusably, there were indications that Mr. Nader not only knew that his campaign might throw the election to Mr. Bush, he actually preferred this result. As he told The Times, in a piece that ran on Nov. 1, 2000, under the headline ?Nader Sees a Bright Side to a Bush Victory,? Mr. Nader believed that a ?bumbling Texas governor would galvanize the environmental community as never before.? He said that ?the Sierra Club doubled its membership under James Watt.? This view, which was rejected by the president of the Sierra Club, nonetheless won some credence among Nader followers, making the recent efforts by Mr. Nader to reject any responsibility for President Bush?s victory in 2000 all the more disingenuous and incredible.
And still, that?s not the worst of it.
For what remains unforgivable in my view are the harsh, mean-spirited, hugely wrong and unfair things he told voters about Al Gore in 2000. Even if one believes that Mr. Nader?s electoral impact was an unintended result, his words in the 2000 campaign were carefully chosen weapons and horribly deceptive ones. They included:
* Calling Al Gore ?a coward? and saying his environmental supporters had a ?servile mentality.?
* Saying that Al Gore was a ?broker of environmental voters on corporate terms? and an ?environmental poseur, prepared to attract, barter and mollify environmental support for corporate cash?
* Asserting (as summarized by one reporter) that there would not be ?much difference between the justices Mr. Gore would choose and those Mr. Bush would appoint? because one ?can?t really predict how Supreme Court justices will behave.?
These statements weren?t accidents or unintended consequences: they were wrong in 2000 and are unbelievably wrong today. Of course, given the acclaim by the world community, Al Gore hardly needs me to defend his record.
Even Mr. Nader must know in his heart that he was wrong about Mr. Gore eight years ago. And yet, as far as I know, Mr. Nader has never retracted his earlier statements, never apologized, never admitted error. Why any voter would listen to a candidate today who was so profoundly misguided before is beyond me.
There was a time when Ralph Nader was my hero. As a young staffer on Capitol Hill in the early 1980s, I was working on a pro-consumer amendment to telecommunications legislation when my phone rang. Ralph Nader was on the line. I was awestruck.
?You?re doing great work,? he told me, ?keep doing the right thing.?
Ralph Nader should heed that same advice now and abandon his futile and convoluted 2008 campaign. And whatever else he does this year, an apology for the misguided direction he gave in 2000 is the very least he owes the nearly three million voters who supported him ? and the rest of us who have lived with the consequences ever since.
http://campaignstops.blogs.nyt...vable-wrong/index.html
I voted for Bush in 2000 and don't regret it based on the information I had at the time -- if I can borrow a page from Hillary's playbook, at least. but man... he really comes across as a DB.
Originally posted by: Mxylplyx
Originally posted by: Robor
Originally posted by: Mxylplyx
Originally posted by: Robor
Originally posted by: Pabster
Originally posted by: dphantom
Doubtful. He only pulled .3% of the vote in 2004. He is even less meaningful today.
In a very tight election though...
I hope you're right, but the fact of the matter is, Republicans aren't voting for Nader. So he's siphoning votes from the Democratic Nominee.
Yep... Pretty much 100% of any Nader votes are going to come from the Dem's pool.
Is this how dems justify themselves using their crony's in the courts to get Nader off the ballot? I find it incredibly arrogant that the dems think Nader is taking their votes. Nader is making a statement about the two party system when he runs, and the dems give credibility to it when they try to force him off the ballot.
Are you serious? Do you think (R)'s are going to vote for Nader in droves? The common sense answer is 'No'. Do you think Nader actually thinks he can beat Hillary or Obama? Again, the common sense answer is 'No'. So if Nader is going to jump in knowing he can't win and he's only going to siphon votes from the (D)'s - what's his point?
Nader helped GWB beat Gore before so I think the 'A vote for Nader is a vote for McCain' statement is correct.
I'm sure Nader has no illusions of winning, and he obviously does no favors for the Democratic party, but he nonetheless has every right to run in order to bring attention to his cause. The democratic party is not the rightful owner of any persons vote who considers themselves left of center, just as the Republican party isnt the rightful owner of every conservative leaning person. That mindset is what is wrong with politics in this country.
Originally posted by: marincounty
You don't regret voting for Bush "based on the information I had at the time"?
How about based on the information you have now?
All of the information I had indicated he was an idiot and a failed businessman.
I certainly don't regret not voting for him twice.
And I will bet that even though Hillary has made some stupid decisions, she wasn't stupid enough to vote for Bush.