Will someone please tell me what we ever did to Ralph Nader to make him attempt to sentence us to four more years of Bush/Cheney?
Ralph Nader, a consumer advocate and former Green Party presidential candidate, said Sunday he will run for president as an independent in the 2004 election.
“After careful thought and my desire to retire our supremely selected president, I’ve decided to run as an independent candidate for president,” Nader said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Nader’s announcement was widely watched by Democrats, many who blame him for siphoning off votes in Florida in the 2000 election that might have gone to Democratic nominee Al Gore, who lost the state and the overall election in a split decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Democrats also fear a Nader campaign could swing the election to President Bush in this election year.
He can’t possibly win. Even he has to know that. He won’t siphon votes from the Republicans. He’s far more likely to take votes from the Democratic nominee, thus narrowing the margin of victory for Bush. Why on earth would he want to do that? Why would anybody want to do that?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m the first to admit that I’m less than perfectly happy with what’s left of the Democratic field. But anyone who’s honest with themselves knows that it’s either going to be the Democratic nominee or Bush who gets sworn in come January 2005. Why do anything that remotely increases the chances that it ends up being Bush? Are people actually convinced that another four years of Bush won’t make that much of a difference?
One bright spot in this is that Nader is not running as a Green Party candidate.
In December, Nader said he would not run for the Green Party nomination in 2004. That decision means he will have to go through the process of getting ballot access in all 50 states as an independent, a daunting and expensive task.
With any luck, he won’t have the resources to get on the ballot in all 50 states. With any luck, most people will see that that the last thing we need is a spoiler in this presidential race. What we need more than anything else is to get Bush out of office. Nader isn’t going to help us do that.
Somewhere, right now, Karl Rove is grinning from ear to ear.
I can’t say I understand what Nader’s up to, but I have to point out that it was not people who voted for Nader who got Bush into office. It was people who didn’t vote at all (and the Supreme Court, of course). I think this one will be a high turnout, so here’s hoping it will get him out of office. High turnouts are always in the best interest of Democratic candidates, so rather than letting the right divide the left and conquor us while we squabble over who’s a “spoiler,” let’s get out the vote!
My theory is that he’s the victim of Republican body snatching. It’s just too crazy and I’m not happy about it. Unlike Shannon, I do blame him in part for the last election (most of the blame I lay neatly at the feet of our nation’s shoddy election practices especially — obviously — in Florida). I had several friends who voted for him instead of voting for a Democrat.