Nader announces presidential campaign
From the AP:
Ralph Nader said Sunday he will run for president as a third-party candidate, criticizing the top White House contenders as too close to big business and pledging to repeat a bid that will "shift the power from the few to the many."Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, speaking shortly before Nader's announcement, said Nader's past runs have shown that he usually pulls votes from the Democratic nominee. "So naturally, Republicans would welcome his entry into the race," the former Arkansas governor said on CNN.
Nader also ran as a third-party candidate in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Though he won 2.7 percent of the national vote as the Green Party candidate in 2000, his percentage dropped to just 0.3 percent as an independent in 2004, when he appeared on the ballot in only 34 states.
Here's one reaction to a Nader candidacy from YouTube:
Discuss.
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February 24, 2008 |
in the news | Comments (110 so far)
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Comments
Posted by: Kari Chisholm | Feb 24, 2008 9:12:52 AM
Oh fuck.
Posted by: andy | Feb 24, 2008 9:20:05 AM
Hey, even whack job lefties deserve a candidate. All the fruitcakes who think Castro is an economic genius will flock to crazy Ralph. He should do well in many parts of CA, Berkeley seems to be a Nader neighborhood.
Posted by: ThanksRalph | Feb 24, 2008 9:52:40 AM
We have Ralph to thank for the Iraq War and the mortgage of America's future. Now he's going to give us 100 more years in Iraq and bombing Iran as an encore?
He used to be such a hero of mine. His last twenty years are now eclipsing the good stuff that I think he once did . . . but can now only vaguely recall.
Posted by: Kevin | Feb 24, 2008 9:58:20 AM
I wonder how the Kafoury clan will react? A significant portion of the clan has traditionally backed Nader very strongly. Although in fairness, I've been unable to find anything which suggests that the rest of the clan was ever onboard the Nader wagon. Still, they are a significant local political family and have been intimately associated with Nader's various runs at the White House going back to the mid-90s.
Posted by: lin qiao | Feb 24, 2008 10:03:44 AM
Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
I suggest ignoring him and his supporters. He doesn't want to be president; he just wants to be a nuisance. Let him get back to seatbelts.
Posted by: Kristin | Feb 24, 2008 10:23:35 AM
Make it stop! Make it stop! For the first time in a long, long, long mofo time, there's a candidate I feel truly and deeply thrilled about (Obama) and if this man ruins it, so help me.
Posted by: Andrew Plambeck | Feb 24, 2008 10:30:20 AM
Called it. Although I had him pegged to only enter if Hillary got the nomination. This sucks.
Posted by: Michael M. | Feb 24, 2008 10:33:37 AM
W00t! Finally, someone I can feel good about voting for in this election.
Posted by: Charlie Burr | Feb 24, 2008 10:42:23 AM
I guess Gordon Smith won't be the only candidate for federal office opposing Oregon's Death with Dignity law.
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Feb 24, 2008 10:50:04 AM
Overall I thought the YouTube piece was tacky and flawed, but it had one good point when it suggested that the people had a chance to choose a progressive candidate and they turned him down. Unfortunately, that was spoiled by the follow-up about Kucinich looking like someone drawn by Charles Schulz. That's what happens when young techies master technology before they are fully matured and remain enamored with their ability to concoct cute but tasteless phrases.
If Democrats and independents wanted progressive policies they would have selected Kucinich. They didn't so that means the Democratic party may have some progressives in its ranks, but the party cannot claim to be progressive just as the Republican Party cannot claim to be moderate because it has a few moderates among its members. It also suggests that the American people are not progressive or they don't have enough sense to get behind a progressive candidate when they have the chance.
So that leaves us with three lemons from which to choose the one most likely to give us lemonade. The only one with a hope of doing that is Obama. Early on he had some good points that he abandoned, such as recognizing Palestinians as people, but he compromised and has sold them down the Jordan River, at least for the time being. Presumably he found that a necessary tactic to win the election. Hopefully, he may return to a position where he can become the first honest broker in the Israel-Palestine horror show. Zbigniew Brzezinski, who had an atrocious record with Carter, is now making sense on the Middle East so perhaps he could tilt Obama back in the right direction on this issue.
Obama offers a chance for the change he is touting, but people supporting him must be realistic and demand that he deliver. If not, the corporate forces that have attached themselves to him and those that will join if he become president will prevail. In other words and to translate a famous French saying, "All that change, but all remains the same."
Will the people rise to the occasion and demand that Obama live up to his rhetoric? I wouldn't bet on it, but we will get a clue when it comes time to elect senators and representatives to Congress who will also offer change and will support or push Obama to do what is right. My faith in Oregonians will be boosted if we send Steve Novick to the U.S. Senate to add to the few progressively-inclined, independent and principled people in Congress.
Posted by: Steve Bucknum | Feb 24, 2008 10:58:51 AM
I think this is great news!
Points:
The Republicans have very little money this time.
They were behind Nader's 2004 campaign, attempting to use a divide and conquer approach to Democrats.
Any Nader campaign will draw 5 or 10 votes away from the Democratic candidate, but more importantly, will draw some of those scarce Republican dollars away from their under-funded campaign as an attempt to do back door damage to Democrats.
Due to Nader's declining influence, and advanced age (he is older than McCain), he will have little effect on this election, and it will be his last.
My only surprise is that Meet the Press gave him time for one last rant.
Posted by: Sal Peralta | Feb 24, 2008 10:59:39 AM
Unsurprisingly, Obama's response was better than Clinton's
Posted by: Sal Peralta | Feb 24, 2008 11:03:09 AM
I agree with Steve. This time, Nader's campaign will have very little effect, and he is going to have a much tougher time getting ballot access than in year's past.
It's too bad. Eight short years and the legacy of the greatest consumer advocate in the history of the United States is effectively dead.
Posted by: Kevin | Feb 24, 2008 11:14:58 AM
If Democrats and independents wanted progressive policies they would have selected Kucinich.
That's a highly questionable conclusion to draw, Bill. It assumes that every Democrat and independent has the exact same set of values that you do and, more importantly, that they all weight those values precisely as you do.
They didn't so that means the Democratic party may have some progressives in its ranks, but the party cannot claim to be progressive just as the Republican Party cannot claim to be moderate because it has a few moderates among its members.
More flawed conclusions. Principly because you have no way of knowing precisely why the majority of either party have voted the way that they have. Particularly against the backdrop of very long-standing conventional wisdom being that huge numbers of voters temper their ideological values with perceived electibility of the candidate choices before them - ala "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."
It also suggests that the American people are not progressive or they don't have enough sense to get behind a progressive candidate when they have the chance.
To what extent can any given American disagree with you and still be considered by you to be "progressive"?
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Feb 24, 2008 11:42:12 AM
Kevin: I suggest that the votes for Kucinich and the polls that kept him in the low single digits make my point. My interpretation of progressive means they support the kind of issues the Kucinich promoted and make statements accordingly, not having electability as their first consideration. If, say, 20 percent or so of the people had rallied right off the bat in support of Kucinich that would have made a statement that a significant portion of the people believed in his platform. If it eventually proved that Kucinich was unelectable and dropped out, as did Edwards, then the message would still have remained. A lot of people want single-payer health care and other issues promoted by Kucinich and they could have influenced the remaining candidates.
Posted by: darrelplant | Feb 24, 2008 11:45:04 AM
Sal, you're so right about the Obama response. It's time the Democrats spent some time telling the American people why their policies are a vast improvement over those of the Republicans and not trying to finesse the middle ground to eke out a win.
Posted by: Bill R. | Feb 24, 2008 11:55:40 AM
Ralph Nader has become the Alfred E. Neuman of American Politics. I think he will run every four years until he croaks, and maybe after. They will dust off his carcass and haul him out for another go. We already know the routine and the speeches so it will be a familiar part of Americana. And maybe the Repubs will just keep funding him post mortem.
Posted by: Pat Malach | Feb 24, 2008 12:02:31 PM
"We have Ralph to thank for the Iraq War and the mortgage of America's future"
I've never voted for Nader, but that's ridiculous ((most especially because it lets all those enabling Democrats off the hook).
Posted by: Kevin | Feb 24, 2008 12:19:00 PM
Bill,
I don't know about you but I saw many comments on many blogs by Lefties expressing admiration for Kucinich while also indicating that they favored another candidate. Having run in 2004 and done poorly, it seems to me that Kucinich was largely written off as unelectable this time around.
It is, in my view, a mistake to disregard the breadth and depth of desire among progressives and lefty moderates alike to get the GOP out of power as their collective top priority this election, with just about everything coming afterwards.
Health care is a great example. The most recent SurveyUSA general election poll in Oregon shows Obama besting Clinton, when pitted against McCain, on everything but health care. That was her second strongest issue after the environment, but Obama absolutely toasts her on the environment. Yet the very clear preference shown for Hillary on health care didn't help her anywhere else and she convincingly lost that match-up with McCain while Obama narrowly won his. Clinton and Obama both scored outright majorities with both moderates and liberals in the poll. But Obama scored significantly higher among liberals (82% to her 68%) even though she won well outside the margin of error on health care.
Posted by: LT | Feb 24, 2008 12:22:18 PM
I agree with Sal and with BilL R.
And here is one more thing to think about:
Was the Gore campaign impeccably run, or should they have been well organized enough that Florida didn't matter?
I think that is what's wrong with Hillary's response---someone who didn't run a well managed campaign implying it is Nader's fault that even someone who has met members of the Gore family would wince at how poorly the 2000 campaign was managed. In both cases, it appears the candidate believed "I know best and no one else should question how this campaign is being run".
Ultimately, the candidate is responsible for how the campaign is run.
Posted by: Jeff Alworth | Feb 24, 2008 12:30:51 PM
I'm not too concerned by this: Nader got just 411,304 votes in 2004--fewer than Gore beat Bush by in 2000--and I suspect it'll be less this year.
It's a sad day for Ralph, though. The guy had done a great deal for consumer protections and even after the debacle in 2000, could easily have become a senior statesman of the liberal left. Instead, he appears intent on making his life's work a footnote to an obituary that will lead with his sad, narcissistic failures to become presient. (Exactly who is calling for his candidacy this year?)
Posted by: Jeff Alworth | Feb 24, 2008 12:33:10 PM
I meant "president" there--since "prescient" is clearly something to which Ralph has no claim.
Posted by: Bill R. | Feb 24, 2008 12:42:01 PM
Main thing here is to focus on making the case to the voter and not make excuses, rather than focus on the Naderite annoyance. The guy has issues.. in my view. He is like the Lucifer character in Milton's Paradise Lost. He would rather rule in his private little hell of resentment and victimization than make common cause and common ground with other progressives, to have half an apple rather than none. Having had his ego so slighted, his only power remains in hurting those, including the entire USA, whom he believes have not given him proper deference. Perhaps he qualifies as a "purity troll."
Regarding Kucinich. He is going to have a tough time holding on to his seat in Ohio. Not every one appreciates his tilting at windmills. I like his message but he's not an adequate or competent messenger. It's not enough to be right about the issues. Heck, I think I'm right about the issues but I would be a lousy, disastrous, and incompetent president. If Nader has become the Alfred E. Neuman of American Politics, then Dennis Kucinich has become the Harold Stassen of the Democratic party. I think he shall be held in much greater affection and respect than Nader, however.
Posted by: mamabigdog | Feb 24, 2008 12:45:37 PM
The bigger problem is this- the actual numbers. In 2000, this was the vote split that gave us eight years of Bush:
Bush 47.87% 50,456,002
Gore 48.38% 50,999,897
Nader 2.74% 2,882,995
Right now, 2008 is polling like this (2/19-20):
McCain 47%
Clinton 44%
McCain 43%
Obama 47%
Any way you slice it, Nader's candidacy is a threat to a Democratic presidency. Nader could once again become responsible for at least four more years of the GOP in the White House. He will only draw votes away from the Dems, and while he feels he's raising the bar on the debate, he only serves to distract voters from real choices. At least Kucinich recognized that fact and got out when he should have. Nader has no shame, no sense of decency on this. Nader had lots of OR support in 2000, and the Dems will have to work hard to ensure he doesn't erode Democratic support in 2008.
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Feb 24, 2008 12:49:53 PM
I don't know about you but I saw many comments on many blogs by Lefties expressing admiration for Kucinich while also indicating that they favored another candidate. Having run in 2004 and done poorly, it seems to me that Kucinich was largely written off as unelectable this time around.
Kevin: Your point is valid, but the people (Lefties) you are talking about made a strategic mistake. They basically might have said in polls that they wanted what was on Kucinich's platform but by not supporting him they said they weren't prepared to fight for those issues, and the other candidates took them for granted and rightly assumed they could offer less on health care, for example, because these "Lefties" left Kucinich's tent and essentially had nowhere else to go.
I also wonder how many people in Congress ignored calls by Kucinich for impeachment and getting out of Iraq because of low voter support and poll numbers? So impeachment is still off the table for all practical purposes and we are still in Iraq blowing $12 billion a month.
That last sentence supports my earlier charge that the Democratic Party is not a progressive party.
Posted by: Sal Peralta | Feb 24, 2008 12:50:24 PM
It's highly unlikely that Nader will even be on the ballot in Oregon.
Posted by: Gordon Morehouse | Feb 24, 2008 1:09:30 PM
@Bill Bodden: It's important to understand that the video is a parody of the first Anonymous vs. Scientology video, therefore it's not really intended to be a formal or serious statement.
And if you've enjoyed watching the Scientology vids, it's HILARIOUS.
Posted by: Deborah Kafoury | Feb 24, 2008 1:13:25 PM
Kevin,
"A significant portion" of the Kafoury clan is NOT backing Nadar. Go Obama!
Posted by: Kevin | Feb 24, 2008 1:14:24 PM
I agree with Bill R. regarding Kucinich. He was and is an incompetent messenger. Which is much less a slam on him than it is an aknowledgement that it's going to take someone with a skill set and personality that Kucinich simply doesn't possess. Ditto for Nader, who also said things which resonated deeply with lefty Independents in particular.
Obama took a lot of flack from Clintonistas for his comments about Reagan. But the fact of the matter is that what he said was the truth. He didn't praise Reagan, he aknowledged reality. It's far too early to tell but maybe, just maybe Obama can replicate some of Reagan's feats. Edwards was, IMHO, the only other person running with a snowball's chance of maybe being capable of replicating those feats.
President Reagan was rightly knighted "the great communicator" because that was the key to his effectiveness. Just look at the extent to which he got Americans to pressure our Congressional representatives to vote against our own self-interests! Particularly with respect to our economic self-interests. Imagine how much easier it should prove to be for another great communicator to convince Americans to pressure our Congressional representatives to vote FOR our self-interests. It seems doable enough. But it's going to take an exceptional communicator and Kucinich simply isn't that person. Nor is Nader.
Posted by: torridjoe | Feb 24, 2008 1:14:55 PM
Yawn. Not even sure why this is considered news. It will have zero effect on the election.
Posted by: Kristin | Feb 24, 2008 1:17:46 PM
Bill R.,
Very insightful comment. The only time we hear of Nader is during the election season and instead of moving the debate forward, he's just draining energy away from vibrant progressive work. You totally hit it.
Posted by: Kristin | Feb 24, 2008 1:20:12 PM
Also, can someone smarter than me explain the process of getting on the ballot at this point? How many states does he have a chance in?
Posted by: David | Feb 24, 2008 1:20:39 PM
It's sad to say this because I used to really admire him but Ralph Nader has now become Lyndon LaRouche, a perennial presidential candidate who, beyond a small core of super-dedicated supporters, gets less votes each time they go out. Besides the fact that with Obama as the nominee, how exactly is Nader going to claim that there is no difference between the two candidates because there is on so many levels.
Posted by: Jack Roberts | Feb 24, 2008 1:21:42 PM
Heck, I'm just glad John McCain is no longer the oldest guy running.
Posted by: Kevin | Feb 24, 2008 1:22:48 PM
Thanks, Deborah! I suspected that was the case and confess to having been digging into old records for a while now trying to figure it out. It was only recently that it dawned on me from looking at past political contributions that, as you put it, a significant portion of the Kafoury clan doesn't appear to have ever backed Nader. But it's so hard to read much into donation patterns. So I finally pondered in public and now you've settled the question for me.
Thanks again!
Oh, and Go Obama!!
Posted by: David | Feb 24, 2008 1:23:22 PM
In Oregon you can get on the ballot either by holding a convention or by getting signatures. However, under 2006's HB 2614 (I think), if you choose signatures you many not choose anyone registered as an R or D who votes in the upcoming primary, making it more difficult for him to get on the ballot.
Posted by: Jesse B. | Feb 24, 2008 1:54:53 PM
It's easy to blame Ralph Nader for the 2000 election, and it's even easier to forget that the 2000 census clocked over 200 million people of voting-age in the United States, yet only 105 million people showed up to the polls. That's over 95 million people who didn't feel like any of the candidates had given them a reason to show up at the polls.
Posted by: LT | Feb 24, 2008 2:02:46 PM
Meet the Press had a discussion today about the way candidates frame their speeches--complete with a quote from Bill Safire who once admitted he stole the "I see an America where..." framing for a Nixon speech from FDR and later called up one of the authors of the FDR speech to apologize---only to have that author say he stole it from a speech shortly after the Civil War.
The point is that it is hard to imagine Nader, Kucinich, or for that matter McCain giving an inspirational "I see an America where...." speech.
Obama was right about Reagan. I recall a conversation in 1980 with one of my Mom's co-workers who was amazed to discover the waitress in his favorite lunch place was not a Reagan fan--he thought everyone was!
I said next time he should ask the waitress if she lived in Calif. when Reagan was Gov. because there were those of us who never forgave him for some of his actions as Gov. and resolved never to vote for him if he ran for federal office. This really startled him.
I suspect there are some in Illinois who oppose Obama for the same reason (something in his earlier political life), but that doesn't take away from his rhetorical skills. And Obama DID give a better response to Nader's announcement than Hillary Clinton did.
Years ago there was a book with a title like "In the Shadow of FDR" saying every president since had been compared to FDR and had a hard time getting out from his shadow. My guess is that Obama would have no problem with that.
Posted by: Jeff Alworth | Feb 24, 2008 2:15:45 PM
That's over 95 million people who didn't feel like any of the candidates had given them a reason to show up at the polls.
Oh come on.
Posted by: Bill R. | Feb 24, 2008 2:20:49 PM
Speaking of Nader having issues and wanting to bring injury to those who reject him... Perhaps Hillary would rather rule in her private hell than have a place in the Dem. party. She is flaming out. From today. Have a look:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/?tr=y&auid=872796
Posted by: Harry K | Feb 24, 2008 2:33:20 PM
Jesse B, and not the "progressives" demonizing Nader, is correct. I will vote for Ralph unless Obamary change their positions, not to the "far left", but to the CENTER from their present right-wing stands on: cutting the huge, bloated and wasteful military budget; adopting a single payer Canadian-style national health insurance system; impeaching Bush/Cheney; opposing nuclear power; ending the occupation of Iraq; withdrawing from corporate trade agreements like NAFTA; among many others.
You right-wingers railing against the La Rouchian, Lucifer-like, Alfred E. Newman-esque Nader seem pathetically unable to mount a serious political dialogue, and the intellectually empty hero-worship of Obamary is the confirmation of this.
Instead of wailing about how Nader now threatens to lose you the next election, maybe you should be working to force your candidate to represent the American center rather than the corporate and statist interests of which they are part and parcel.
Posted by: trent | Feb 24, 2008 3:28:28 PM
Nader will never support anyone else running for President. He would certainly never support anyone who actually could win. He indicated that Obama during this primary campaign should come out strongly in favor of Gazans and Palestinians against Israel. Brilliant strategy..to lose supporters against McCain...with no benefit to anyone.
And that he should suddenly adopt Nader's platform on a number of issues, discarding his own! If he had any shot of influencing the major candidates on the shaping of their campaign platforms and policy advocacy, he must have been sleeping as deeply as Rip Van Winkle ..only waking up now! For him to call Obama and try to get him to suddenly abandon his carefully considered position s on issues and then, when rebuffed, announce his own candidacy is either crazy or just selfjustifying his personal ego-driven inevitable run.
His completely unrealistic view of how to change public opinion or public policy is demonstrated by his ineffectiveness in the last 10 years.
Posted by: Displaced Oregano | Feb 24, 2008 3:43:23 PM
The 2000 election was so close that Gore's loss can be correcly blamed on dozens of things, among them his failure to take his own home state or Clinton's (AR).
Just in Florida there's a dozen possible legitimate explanations, my favorites being the intentional disenfrancisement of minority voters by Katherine Harris, the infamous butterfly ballot that diverted Gore votes to Buchanan, and the incredibly stupid Elian Gonzales episode that energized the single-issue Cubans.
That said, it cannot be denied that in the absense of the Nader campaign, righteous as it may have been, Bush would have a different mailing address today.
The correct fix for this problem, IMHO, is instant-runoff voting, wherein you rank the candidates on your ballot and if no candidate wins a simple majority the 1st place votes for the last candidate are reassigned to their 2nd choice, etc., until someone does win a simple majority. Do that by state or even by electoral college elector and enough of Nader's supporters' second-place votes for Gore would have carried the day.
As for 2008, think back in a month how many times you hear the word 'Nader' on any newscast after tomorrow. His candidacy will be an insignificant blip in the news or on the ballots. He announced a few weeks ago he was considering this, right after Edwards quit, and was never mentioned again till this weekend. He is be a vain fool, but very left-siders will be foolish enough to throw their vote away again after he gave us Bush.
Posted by: Grant Schott | Feb 24, 2008 4:07:06 PM
Although Nader could be a factor in a close election, his candidacy was largely ignored last time, and he will probably be weaker this time, maybe not even what he was in '96. However, he did win something like 4% in '96 in OR against Clinton and Dole, which as his strongest showing nationwide.
I think that Obama is popular enough among young people and progressives that Nader's base will virtually disappear with Obama as our nominee. Nader would probably pull more progressive votes if Hillary is the nominee.
The two Kafourys who are very active Nader backers are Portland attorney Greg Kafoury and his son, Jason. They organized the Nader mega rallies in PDX and others cities in 2000, which were impressive. The Kafourys who have been elected as Democratic officeholders, however, Stephen (Greg's brother), Gretchen, and their daughter, Deborah have always supported Democratic nominees, as far as I know.
Posted by: lin qiao | Feb 24, 2008 4:08:19 PM
I got to wondering about Kicinich (never my first choice) after reading the Kucinich/Nader comparisons in this thread, then went to this site for a few words about Kucinich's present Congressional race. Any comments on the following (not regarding $$ but regarding the criticism of Kucinich-as-congressman)?
"The usually underfunded Kucinich has done quite well in his money primary this time. Kucinich’s top opponent is Joe Cimperman, a Cleveland councilman endorsed by Cleveland's Mayor and the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. Cimperman’s issue? Kucinich as an absentee congressman with no major legislative initiatives in his 12-year House career. But for the first time in his 30 year political life, Kucinich is the top-dog in fundraising."
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Feb 24, 2008 4:19:03 PM
It looks like most of us will agree Kucinich didn't have a chance of becoming president, but he stood for issues that would appear to be progressive - single-payer health plan, getting out of Iraq, and, maybe, adhering to the Constitution. Either there are only two or three percent of people in the United States who are progressive or the rest threw away their votes without getting anything in exchange. Let's say there are around 20 percent who agreed with Kucinich's platform. That could have translated to maybe 40 or so delegates in Kucinich's pocket that he could have used as bargaining chips to improve on Obama's or Hillary's platform. No such luck. So most likely the corporatocracy will continue to rule without token gestures to the progressive community, no matter who becomes president. Our only hope is that Obama will be able to deliver on some of the promises he made and, maybe, be an honest broker on the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy. Chances for that will improve if the people elected to Congress can think and be independent. Vote for Steve Novick.
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Posted by: cobra | Feb 24, 2008 9:07:31 AM
In other news: The sun set in the West last night; Brittney Spears did something idiotic; and President Bush said something stupid.