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I luv Ralph Nader
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| igottaknow |
Just saw him on Cspan tonight announcing his candidacy and answering questions from the press. He is the only presidential candidate who is free of corporate handcuffs to speak his mind about subversive topics like:
Environment
Government for and by the people
Freedom of choice
Universal health care
Anti-corporate and special interest government
And a million other things that I care about...
Too bad he makes too much sense to be elect able. I don't care its still a free country, so I'm voting my conscience.
http://votenader.org/
Spread the word... |
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| Arbiter |
Good for you.
Democracy can't function if people don't vote for the candidate they think is best. People who lower themselves to choosing the lesser of two evils are a cancer upon our society. |
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| NYCTrancefan |
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
Good for you.
Democracy can't function if people don't vote for the candidate they think is best. People who lower themselves to choosing the lesser of two evils are a cancer upon our society. |
The question then becomes in the current state of affairs under one G.W.Bush how much more can America take. We have a deficit that is not being addressed, a nobless oblige(upper class) that benefits handsomely from G.W's tax cuts and his administration stating how the loss of service sector jobs in America to underpaid wages in India and China is a good thing for America, question is which America.
If the Democrats are the lesser of two evils then I will take them to save my beautiful America any day of the week over G.W.Bush and Co. This is one time that Nader should have devoted his efforts to seeing Bush ousted instead of plunking himself into the mix. What happens when Bush is re-elected, heaven help us all. Let's just hope he learned from the Iraq experience. |
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| Arbiter |
| The two major parties are the pawns of the same chessmaster. As long as we keep voting for them, things will just keep getting worse. |
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| Galapidate |
| Nader. He's the reason why Bush is in office anyway. Had he not won 100,000 votes in New Hampshire during the 2000 election, Gore could have won in that state, in which he only trailed Bush by 57,000 votes. |
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| igottaknow |
| quote: | Originally posted by NYCTrancefan
If the Democrats are the lesser of two evils then I will take them to save my beautiful America any day of the week over G.W.Bush and Co. This is one time that Nader should have devoted his efforts to seeing Bush ousted instead of plunking himself into the mix. What happens when Bush is re-elected, heaven help us all. |
I'll let Ralph address this issue of aiding bush winning:
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Did Ralph cost Al Gore the election in 2000?
No.
Al Gore won the election in 2000.
George W. Bush cost Al Gore the election.
No one is entitled to votes, they must be earned.
To say someone is a "spoiler" is to relegate all third-party and independent candidates to second class citizenship. American does not belong to two parties.
The Constitution does not mention parties.
This country had a rich history of third parties.
George W. Bush’s recount strategy in Florida cost Gore the election.
The deceptive butterfly ballot, which Democratic officials approved, cost Al Gore the election.
Katherine Harris-style purging of tens of thousands of non ex-felons from the voter roles cost the election.
A 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court stop of the recount cost Gore the election. (See Jeffrey Toobin’s book Too Close to Call).
Playing the "what if" game, Gore cost Gore the election in Tennessee, Arkansas, and each of the presidential debates.
Buchanan cost Bush four states (Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Mexico).
Except for brief, progressive moments, such as at the convention, which helped his polls, Gore ran the usual, lackluster corporate Democratic campaign.
And they did. They voted for Bush, including more than 250,000 self-identified Democrats in Florida.
Moreover, a Democratic exit poll showed that Ralph’s votes came 25% from Republicans, 38% from Democrats, and the rest were nonvoters who would have only voted for Ralph.
In other words, more than sixty percent of Ralph’s voters would NOT have voted for Gore.
In New Hampshire, exit polls showed that Ralph "took more votes" from Republicans than Democrats, by a 2 to 1 margin.
CNN’s polling data said that if neither Nader nor Buchanan had run, Bush would have beat Gore 48 to 47 percent, with 4 percent who voted not voting. |
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| Galapidate |
| I remember reading another article on CNN.com back when Nader was deciding whether he'd run or not. Kerry said we can't have this because having Bush for 8 years will be the biggest disappointment Americans have ever brought upon itself, or something like that. |
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| Verona^My |
| quote: | Originally posted by NYCTrancefan
The question then becomes in the current state of affairs under one G.W.Bush how much more can America take. We have a deficit that is not being addressed, a nobless oblige(upper class) that benefits handsomely from G.W's tax cuts and his administration stating how the loss of service sector jobs in America to underpaid wages in India and China is a good thing for America, question is which America.
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Feudalism seems to be the new political paradigm. The wealthy nobles vs. the peasants. Oh, did I say new. Sorry my mistake. |
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| NeoPhono |
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
The two major parties are the pawns of the same chessmaster. As long as we keep voting for them, things will just keep getting worse. |
I totally agree. Democrats and Republicans are the same people, with the same politics. They both slowly trudge along the same path while putting up a facade of difference. If I was oblivious to whether the sitting president was democrat or republican I would not be able to tell by their actions or politics alone. It's disheartening that we have a "two party system" that is really only one. |
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| rizen |
| quote: | Originally posted by igottaknow
Just saw him on Cspan tonight announcing his candidacy and answering questions from the press. He is the only presidential candidate who is free of corporate handcuffs to speak his mind about subversive topics like:
Environment
Government for and by the people
Freedom of choice
Universal health care
Anti-corporate and special interest government
And a million other things that I care about...
Too bad he makes too much sense to be elect able. I don't care its still a free country, so I'm voting my conscience.
http://votenader.org/
Spread the word... |
Wow! It's almost the same as Dean... oh thats right, IIRC Nader said he wouldn't run if Dean was the Democrat candidate.
Don't waste your vote on Nader though, unless you were going to vote for Bush which I doubt. |
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| DaveSZ |
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ht...72_froma24.html
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Froma Harrop / Syndicated columnist
Democrats will survive Nader's final closeup
Ralph Nader is having his Norma Desmond moment.
Desmond, you'll remember, is the faded Hollywood star of "Sunset Boulevard." Unable to accept that her fans have moved on, she descends into madness and murder. In the last, great scene, with lights and cameras trained on her, she dramatically moves down the staircase into the hands of the police. "All right, Mr. DeMille," Desmond says, thinking she's making a movie, "I'm ready for my closeup."
Nader did his last closeup on "Meet the Press," where he announced he would run for president. Nader had made a name for himself in the golden age of consumer activism, but that was 30 years ago.
His significance now is as a potential spoiler able to siphon enough liberal votes away from Democrats to help elect the Republican candidate. That happened in the 2000 election, when George W. Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore by a hair.
With this history in mind, frightened Democrats have begged Nader not to run as an independent in 2004. The lefty magazine, The Nation, has published "An Open Letter to Ralph Nader" in which it pleaded with him to stay out of the race.
Several writers associated with the magazine had backed Nader's candidacy in 2000, and the ninnies have never lived down this act of supreme stupidity. In a face-saving gesture, the letter said, "Ralph, this is the wrong year for you to run: 2004 is not 2000" — as though it really didn't matter four years ago who won.
This deference toward Nader is unnecessary. He's not going to make any difference. The 2004 election may be close, but the last one was freakishly close. Many of the people who did vote for Nader in 2000 lived to regret it — and since Nader isn't running as a Green Party candidate this time, his voter base will be smaller still.
In any event, the voters the Democrats must go after aren't the ones who supported Nader, but the swing voters who went for Bush. The president now has a record, and can no longer pretend moderation on budget matters, the environment and a variety of social issues. Several battleground states — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio — are suffering the hemorrhage of manufacturing jobs, and their voters are in a bad mood.
Like Norma Desmond, Nader is yesterday's news, and his run for president against the wishes of so many former supporters has taken on an air of desperation. Never married, humorless, workaholic — Nader the human being has always seemed rather two-dimensional.
He has expended much of his energy cultivating the image of a tireless crusader for consumer rights. When a wire service photographer caught him tobogganing with some kids in his hometown of Winsted, Conn., and having fun, Nader angrily complained that his privacy was invaded.
When Nader still mattered in public policy, a lazy media just went along with the myth-making. The story of an ascetic Nader living in a spare $80-a-month room in Washington was repeated endlessly — even after it was demonstrated that he spent most of his time in an upscale, family-owned house on Bancroft Place.
Celebrities with no personal life cling to TV appearances and press notices to confirm their existence. Nowhere was that more obvious than on "Meet the Press." Nader was brittle and defensive in the manner of someone who had nothing real to sell the electorate. He needed the public more than the public needed him.
"Meet the Press" host Tim Russert surely did not intend to pull off the kind of character contrast Hollywood directors work so hard for. But he did, in putting California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on the same program as Nader. Here was Schwarzenegger, a Hollywood creation, developing into an impressive political leader. And he was followed by Nader, a Washington has-been, gasping for publicity.
How interesting that the guy we all called Arnold — or, humorously, Ahnold — is now referred to by his last name, Schwarzenegger. But the once super-businesslike Nader is now called simply Ralph.
"I am big," Norma Desmond says. "It's the pictures that got small."
Had Nader uttered the same words on "Meet the Press" substituting "politics" for "pictures," no one would have been surprised. Some people just can't make a dignified exit.
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| Dopey |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
I totally agree. Democrats and Republicans are the same people, with the same politics. They both slowly trudge along the same path while putting up a facade of difference. If I was oblivious to whether the sitting president was democrat or republican I would not be able to tell by their actions or politics alone. It's disheartening that we have a "two party system" that is really only one. |
You can't be serious. You honestly think that Dems and Reps have the same policies and priorities? |
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