Ralph Nader in 2004?

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

As Will Rogers once said, "I do not belong to any organized party of politics. I am a Democrat."

 

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/04/...eens/print.html

 

Nader in 2004?

 

It's the most divisive issue on the left. But some Greens now say we're in a "national emergency" -- and it's time to join forces with the Democrats to beat Bush.

 

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By David Talbot

 

April 23, 2003 | Did Ralph Nader and the Green Party put George W. Bush in the White House in 2000? There's only one more hotly debated question on the American left these days: Will Nader and the Greens do it again in 2004?

 

Nader, who many Democrats and progressives blame for tipping the last presidential election to Bush in key states like Florida (where Nader won 96,000 votes), has not yet announced his decision about 2004. But according to national Green Party officials, Nader probably will run. "I'm getting that sense," says Ben Manski, one of five national Green Party co-chairs. Juscha Robinson, a member of the party's presidential exploratory committee, agrees: "The co-chairs of the committee met with Ralph a couple weeks ago -- it was a very comfortable discussion. It does look like he's leaning in that direction."

 

The surprisingly bellicose and hard-right direction of the Bush administration has given many Greens pause about running a third-party presidential campaign next year. One prominent Green Party activist -- journalist and former Nader confidant Ronnie Dugger -- has publicly and privately pleaded with his old friend not to run for president, urging him instead to run for senator or governor. Dugger argues that the extremism of the Bush presidency has created a "national emergency" that requires a unified effort on the left to beat the Republican ticket in 2004.

 

"What if Nader runs again and gets only a million votes this time, less than [the 2.8 million] he got last time, but still enough to give Bush the election? There will be a widespread revulsion against his campaign -- is that building the Green Party?" asks Dugger. "To elect Bush at a time when he's waging war on the human race, that to me is insane. The Greens would be denying their moral responsibility for this disastrous outcome. If Ralph runs again and tips it for Bush, it would not only be a worldwide tragedy, the prospect of building the Green Party would be radically doomed."

 

Nader did not respond to Salon's requests for an interview. But longtime Green Party organizers say he has not been swayed by those who have pleaded with him to abandon his presidential ambitions. "Ralph has been committed to the third-party strategy since the 1950s," says Howie Hawkins, who has been active in the Green Party since 1984 and who ran unsuccessfully on the Green ticket for New York state comptroller in 2002. "He's congenitally unintimidated. The Gore campaign came to him and said, 'Drop out and we'll make sure your organizations get funded. If not, we'll smash you.' It was just like the Mafia. But it just strengthened his resolve."

 

If Nader surprises Green Party officials and decides against another run, they are still prepared to mount a presidential campaign without him. Last summer, the party's presidential exploratory committee asked state party organizations for their candidate recommendations. Based on the states' responses, the exploratory committee sent out letters to 40 prospective candidates and began discussions with them to gauge their interest. According to Manski, the state organizations ranked Nader as their No. 1 choice, former Democratic congresswoman Cynthia McKinney No. 2, and Global Exchange founder and 2000 California Green Party candidate for Senate Medea Benjamin. Filmmaker Michael Moore also made the list.

 

"Nader doesn't have it locked up," insists the 28-year-old Manski, who worked on the staff of Nader 2000 and is studying law at the University of Wisconsin. Robinson agrees: "We had a great partnership with Ralph in 2000. But there's a feeling among some people that it's time to look for new faces. Even if he decides he wants it, he won't necessarily get it. It's a sign of the Greens' growing sophistication, that there are people willing to challenge him."

 

But other Greens point out there are no presidential prospects in the party who have Nader's financial clout and national recognition. "No one's in his league," says Hawkins. "He's been on the road since the 1960s. He raised $8 million in 2000. Who else can do that?"

 

No other Green candidate could hurt the Democrats as much, either. Which is why former supporters like Dugger, who presented Nader at the Green Party conventions that nominated him in 1996 and 2000, are working hard to convince him to back a progressive Democrat in 2004. "The only vehicle to defeat Bush next year is the Democratic Party -- you start there, or you don't start with reality," says Dugger. "Not running a Green candidate for president does not mean abandoning party building, as I've told people like Medea. That's denying the history of the Green Party in Europe -- they built their party by running for local offices, and now they have power at the cabinet level in countries like Germany."

 

Dugger argued his position at the Cooper Union in New York last month, joining forces with writer Katha Pollitt and historian Lawrence Goodwyn to debate Howie Hawkins and writer Jeff Gates over the Nader 2004 question. He says he left the event feeling very discouraged. "We were just ships passing each other in the night without even feeling each other's ripples -- we simply talked right past each other. The other side was fixed on berating the Democrats with excessive zeal, while we were trying vainly to root the discussion in the political reality of defeating Bush.

 

"This is the most emotionally ragged fissure in the American left in my lifetime," says the veteran populist organizer, who founded the Texas Observer. "It's an astonishing split and it's very deep."

 

Far from being chastened by the way life has turned out under Bush -- the U.S. launched on neo-imperial expansionism and a massive military buildup, civil liberties under wide assault, deficits soaring and government programs being slashed, and the influence of the Christian right being demonstrated in everything from judicial appointments to Pentagon prayer meetings -- many Green Party officials still cling to their line that there's little difference between Republicans and Democrats. "I've never been so disgusted in my life as seeing how the Democrats contributed to going to war in Iraq," says Medea Benjamin. "They simply capitulated, with the leadership telling the party that they should vote for Bush's war resolution to get the whole Iraq thing behind them. It was a repeat of the Florida debacle, where the Gore campaign refused to let their supporters take to the streets. They told Jesse to go home -- I was there, I was flabbergasted! They're not interested in activating people, they're interested in raising money."

 

Some even advocate running Greens against progressive Democrats, as the California Green Party is considering doing against Barbara Boxer in next year's Senate race. "It can push the campaign dialogue away from the right, by making left-wing Democrats run to the left," says Robinson.

 

As for running a Green Party candidate for president in 2004, Robinson admits that "Bush has certainly given me pause; in fact I think Greens everywhere are thinking about it." But in the end, she says, it's more important to build the party than to defeat Bush -- and to do that, the Greens need to run a national campaign. "If we didn't run a presidential candidate, our organizing efforts would be set back years," says Robinson, who divides her time between the Green Party and law school at the University of Michigan. "Under state election laws, you need to field a candidate to maintain your line on the ballot. Running a national race also gives you invaluable exposure. If we didn't run a candidate next year, it would just confirm in voters' minds their suspicion that we're simply a different shade of Democrat."

 

But some high-profile Greens, like Medea Benjamin, are clearly more torn over 2004. "I wonder if we would have gone to war under Gore. I certainly think we would have had a better chance of stopping it. Seeing what Bush is doing to this country and our standing in the international community, I'm having great dilemmas about the next race. Never before have I felt the need for a multiparty system, but never before have I felt so afraid of another Republican presidency. I'm stunned by how extremist the Bush presidency has become on foreign policy. We never could have predicted this."

 

Benjamin says she continues to feel loyal toward Nader and she would vote for him again next year if he runs -- "but if there were a chance that a Democrat who was significantly different could beat Bush, I wouldn't put my energy into working on the Green campaign. I really do want to knock off Bush. But November 2004 is a long way away and I don't know how things are going to shake down. At this stage, when we're at war in Iraq and who knows where next, I'm more passionate about getting Bush out of office than in getting another 3 percent of the vote for the Greens."

 

Robinson concedes that a number of Greens are now advocating for the party to put its efforts into state and local campaigns -- where they have shown some success, holding about 180 offices nationwide -- but not the presidential race. These people's views, she insists, do not represent a majority of the party. But the party is obviously embroiled in an internal debate over the question. Dugger says he has been asked by the Greens to speak on the subject at the end of the month at a meeting in Detroit.

 

According to Dugger, Lawrence Goodwyn, a respected historian of populist movements, has floated the idea of a national unity meeting of progressives to lock arms behind a Democratic presidential candidate that Greens could vote for. "Someone like Michael Moore could easily call such a meeting," says Dugger, who adds that he is trying to track down Moore to get him onboard.

 

Moore was one of Nader's more celebrated campaigners in 2000, but when "things at Nader Central went crazy," as Moore wrote in his book "Stupid White Men," and it was decided to target swing states where Gore might win or lose by a razor-thin margin, Moore got off the bandwagon. In the final days of the race, Moore writes in his book, he wisely advised the Nader campaign to cut a deal with Gore, throwing him its support in return for major progressive concessions in a Gore administration. A Nader campaign official told the filmmaker that the party could not abandon its goal of getting 5 percent of the vote, which would trigger federal matching funds. But the day after the election, Moore pointed out, "that's all you'll have -- five percent of the vote, and zero percent of the power." In fact, Nader won less than 3 percent -- and the undying enmity of thousands, if not millions, of his former admirers on the left.

 

Moore, among others, has reportedly been advising Greens and other progressives to imitate what the Christian right did in the GOP -- to build a base within the Democratic Party by working to take over its moribund precinct organizations. Dugger says this influx of grass-roots energy is precisely what the listless, money-dominated party needs.

 

"It's absolutely up to the Democrats whether they will see this opportunity to draw many Greens and progressives back in. There are people at the top of the party who are, of course, essentially Republicans and simply want to maintain the status quo -- historically it was men like Robert Strauss. Those people want [Joe] Lieberman or [John] Edwards. But the [Howard] Dean and [Dennis] Kucinich campaigns are being energized by a lot of progressives who have returned to the party in an enraged force. This opens up an opportunity for the Greens and Democrats to join forces at least on the presidential campaign." Even John Kerry, says Dugger, might be acceptable to many Greens like himself, "if he stopped talking out of both sides of his mouth."

 

Will Greens and progressive Democrats, sharing a mutual alarm about the state of the nation under George W. Bush, begin exploring a marriage of convenience in 2004 -- or as Dugger puts it, "a national emergency coalition"? Medea Benjamin does not expect to hear any such overtures from the Democrats, who continue to treat Greens "as if we didn't have the right to exercise our own minds" -- or in Robinson's words, simply as a "wayward constituency."

 

There is something self-defeating about the Democrats' refusal to open a dialogue with the Green Party. While some lower-level discussions between Greens and lefty Democrats have taken place, reconciliation has never become a priority of party leaders, who seem to have written off their left flank as irrelevant.

 

Benjamin thinks that's arrogant. "We've been approached more by Republicans than Democrats," she laughs. "You'd think they would at least talk to us about issues that should be of mutual concern -- like instant-runoff voting [which would allow voters to rank their choices of candidates and therefore avoid splitting the progressive vote]."

 

Which Democrats could help broker such a political détente? Benjamin quickly reels off a list as if she has already given it some thought: Bill Clinton; Reps. Charles Rangel, Jesse Jackson Jr. or John Conyers; Barbra Streisand; feminists Kim Gandy, Ellie Smeal or Gloria Steinem.

 

Without this initiative from progressive Democrats, warns Dugger, "It could all drift back to a bunch of disenchanted Greens and Ralph running again, and the makings of a major human tragedy. But if you could peel off a couple million Green voters and add them to the half-million advantage that Gore had over Bush, then you win the election."

 

Oh, and I just loved that that fucknut during the 2000 elections was HOPING that Bush would win because it would show the country how fucked up things are with Republicans in charge. i.e. He wants the country to suffer for his political views. Dickhead.

 

Florida.Votes("Gore") + Florida.Votes("Nader") > Florida.Votes("Bush")

 

That's really all that should be on the left's mind.

[Guest Powerplay]

Well, I wouldn't say we've been 'suffering', but yeah, Ralph Nader has outlived his 15 minutes of fame by a few weeks. I doubt that he'll make a difference because I don't see a candidate on the Dems side that has either the strength (He wasn't too weak) or name recognition as Gore. Maybe Kerry, but it definitely won't be close enough for the Green party vote to matter. I forsee a solid victory for whoever wins, and I'm picking G.W. at the moment.

[Guest NoCalMike]

Well if the democrat voters did their homework maybe they would sway and vote third party. If you don't like Bush and feel your only option is a Democrat, than you are either really lazy, or just too stupid to do some reading and research. I voted for Nader last time. I voted for him because of his political ideals, not because I thought he would win. You don't vote as if it is a horse race, ala, you don't vote for someone because you think they will win. You vote for someone who represents your own political views the best. I am realistic about it, I know Nader is not going to win in his lifetime, but if he can get a bigger percentage it brings more money for campaigning and allows him to participate in the debates. I live in CA, so my vote really didn't affect the election anyway. Nader didn't cost the democrats a damn thing. The democrats can blame themselves for basically fucking up what should have been a CAKEWALK into the whitehouse, but Gore had to distance himself from Clinton like a moron that ended up hurting more than it helped.

 

I know if anyone unseats Bush in 2004, it will be a democrat, but I am not really inspired by any democrats, but hey, the elections is over a year away so only time can tell if the democrats nominee can inspire me and pull me back into voting for them(I doubt it)

[Guest MarvinisaLunatic]

I voted for him in 2000, and depending on who the Democratic Candidate is, I might vote for him in 2004.

 

Im not voting for Bush next year.

 

And don't forget about the candidate that will come from that stupid show on Fox. God forbid, if say 18-20 million people watch that show, and even 1/4 of them vote for whoever wins the stupid show, thats still a good chunk of votes, although not enough to win any EC votes. If Bush wins again without the majority Popular vote, they had better drop the EC system...

[Guest Hogan Made Wrestling]

2004 is actually just about the perfect year for Nader to run:

 

1. If Bush wins in a landslide, then Nader can't take any heat. And if the Dems can't field a likeable candidate (at this point it's hit or miss) then Nader could grab a good portion of the vote.

 

2. If things turn really badly for Bush, then it's unlikely the votes Nader takes will prevent the democratic challenger from winning.

 

So, the only thing that could "hurt" Nader is a close election, which I don't see as a possibility.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

Well if the democrat voters did their homework maybe they would sway and vote third party.

I think it's time to trot out the Instant Runoff Voting option again.

 

If you don't like IRV, then you just don't know how it works. People vote for the party they PREFER, but have a reserve in case that candidate is completely decimated in the polls. Some rather confused people think this gives a citizen two votes, when it really doesn't. It gives the third parties a chance.

 

Of course, even if everyone understood it perfectly, the leaders both parties don't like it, so don't expect to see it anytime soon.

 

the elections is over a year away so only time can tell if the democrats nominee can inspire me and pull me back into voting for them(I doubt it)

 

See this is the problem. And once again the left collides head on with itself and loses the battle to....itself. I want this administration out of office as much as anyone, and no matter who runs on the dem side I'd vote for them. But thanks to all the liberal fools who think voting your conscience and losing the election is better than lowering the expectations and voting as a block, there's a decent chance that they'll do the trick to keep their favorite neo-con administration in office. Thanks again lefties! Good job!

 

Evil will always win because good is dumb.

[Guest MD2020]

If Bush wins again without the majority Popular vote, they had better drop the EC system...

 

 

Just for clarification, do you mean Majority as in more than 50%, or just the most votes? Thanks.

[Guest Kingpk]

If Bush wins again without the majority Popular vote, they had better drop the EC system...

Clinton only got 43.3% of the vote in 1992 (he got 50% in 1996)

 

Reagan only got 50% of the vote in 1980

 

Carter only got 50% of the vote in 1976

 

See where I'm going with this? You don't necessarily need 75% of the popular vote to become President. Plus, the winner not getting the majority of the popular vote has happened before. What needs to change is dumbfuck Floridians actually coming out of the booth and saying "I may have screwed up, may I have another ballot?" or actually reading the instructions on how to vote. So you have to wait in line longer, you're in Florida, the weather's nice, suck it up.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

I've never understood where the hell all this garbage about the "popular vote" comes from. As Kingpk rightly pointed out, no one cried foul when Clinton won without it. And since we don't live in a single indivisible country anyway, federal elections must safeguard the rights of the states instead of marginalising them merely because of whatever population trend happens to be current at the time.

[Guest EricMM]

I'll probably vote for nader if he runs again, but maybe not.

 

I can't support his uber taxes, but I really like his environmental stance. We'll see. Either way, MD is not about to vote Republican either way so...

[Guest MD2020]

I'll probably vote for nader if he runs again, but maybe not.

 

I can't support his uber taxes, but I really like his environmental stance. We'll see. Either way, MD is not about to vote Republican either way so...

Hey, I'll vote for whoever the hell I want! You have no right to tell me...

 

Oh, you meant the state. Carry on.

[Guest NoCalMike]

2004 seems like a good target for The Green party. The democrats obvious wussy attempts to "oppose" the right over the last couple of years will be rather easy to exploit. I just hope Nader is allowed into the debates because everytime his name is brought up, the Democrats break out into cold sweats.

[Guest DrTom]

Either way, MD is not about to vote Republican either way so... 

Don't be so quick to presume that, Eric. You'll probably end up being right, but MD elected a Republican governor last year, for the first time in a dog's age, so stranger things have happened.

 

I really don't see what the point of this article was. It's obvious Ross Perot, by dropping out and returning as the Conquering Hero like he did, cost Bush Sr. that election. If Nader cost Gore the White House in 2000, I'd say that makes things even in terms of unelectable 3rd-party candidates costing their larger party the Presidency.

[Guest EricMM]

They SHOULD let him onto debates. The dems should be strong enough to convince everyone to vote for them, ditto the reps, libs, greens, and anyone else.

 

I would welcome more lengthy and just MORE political debates. If there's 6 people instead of two, have three of them instead of one or two. Five of them, I don't care.

[Guest NoCalMike]

I still don't see Bush doing anything but the bare minimum in debates. Unless the questions are pre-screened and there is MINIMAL interaction between the candidates. I don't think Bush is that great at coming up with things on the spot......

[Guest Powerplay]

I still don't see Bush doing anything but the bare minimum in debates. Unless the questions are pre-screened and there is MINIMAL interaction between the candidates. I don't think Bush is that great at coming up with things on the spot......

Admittedly, he doesn't. Even I'll admit he's a horrible speaker, but then again it doesn't mean he's an idiot. Personally, I think it would be in his best interests to have Nader at the debates. Sure, Nader might hit him on a few issues, but I don't think that the Republican base will shift towards Nader anytime soon. On the other hand, all the disgruntled Dems from the 2002 election might shift towards him since he's actually fighting against the current administration rather than just going along.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

A lot of Nader's popularity base has grown to resent him since the 2000 election, specifically because everything he stood for was absolutely annihilated with the Bush administration's focus on destroying the environment. Even Gore wouldn't have gone to these lengths, and by practically costing Gore the election, he ensured that the enviroment would be assraped for the next few years.

[Guest NoCalMike]

Nader didn't cost Gore a thing. The mess in Florida was what cost Gore the election. Everyone knows that Bush came out of that state by being selected/appointed. I hate bringing up the 2000 elections, but I guess it is inevitable.

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

Bush got 2,909,176 votes to Gore's 2,907,451 votes.

 

Nader got 96,837 votes.

 

Regardless of what you think about whether Bush won fairly or not. There would have been no question that Gore would have won Florida if Nader didn't run. Nader cost Gore everything.

[Guest MrRant]

Boo hoo. Concentrate on 2004 and make a difference instead of whining about the past. It doesn't matter anymore. Dems lost. Bottom line.

 

Grow up and vote for what you want in the next election or continue on your quest to build a fucking time machine to go back and change the 2000 election.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Whoa, no way... a stupid and mean spirited comment from Rant.

[Guest MrRant]

The thread started out fine without all the 2000 bullshit. It's the past and doesn't matter for the 2004 elections. I enjoyed the discussion on the upcoming elections but I don't need to read more idiotic whining of a PAST election.

[Guest stardust]

See this is the problem. And once again the left collides head on with itself and loses the battle to....itself. I want this administration out of office as much as anyone, and no matter who runs on the dem side I'd vote for them. But thanks to all the liberal fools who think voting your conscience and losing the election is better than lowering the expectations and voting as a block, there's a decent chance that they'll do the trick to keep their favorite neo-con administration in office. Thanks again lefties! Good job!

 

Evil will always win because good is dumb.

*is a lefty who voted for Gore*

 

Why? Because I knew there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell Nader would win, and out of Gore and Bush, Gore was definitely the lesser of two evils. And like someone pointed out, Gore wouldn't have assraped the environment the way Bush has. I still don't know why people didn't look at the state Texas' environment is in and realize that if Bush didn't care about the quality of our drinking water and air here in Texas, he sure as hell wouldn't care about the country's drinking water and air (don't get me started on Bush and the environment and how fucked up Texas is because of his administration while the governor).

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Except it has relevance to the topic.

 

That is a valid argument, and it has not helped Nader's popularity. As I said, he alienated his voters by costing Gore the election. The Green party is environmentally focused, and by aiding Bush in the election, he ensured his issues would be trampled upon for 4 years.

[Guest Kingpk]

Nader didn't cost Gore a thing. The mess in Florida was what cost Gore the election. Everyone knows that Bush came out of that state by being selected/appointed. I hate bringing up the 2000 elections, but I guess it is inevitable.

Last thing about 2000, I promise.

 

Remember, none of this would have happened if:

 

A) The voters in Palm Beach still had brain cells that WEREN'T fried by the sun

 

and

 

B) They had a uniform way of counting disputed ballots instead of this hanging, pregnant, bloated, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, so you can rest chad shit.

[Guest stardust]

True. Although I would also say that you could view the stupid Florida voters and all those hanging chads costed Gore the election. You can look at it either way, or even possibly combine the two. I'm not sure if one thing necessarily costed Gore the election singlehandedly, I think it was a combination of Nader getting those votes in Florida, but also because of the whole voting ballot debacle.

[Guest Hogan Made Wrestling]

The 2000 stuff is absolutely relevant because even if one wants to argue that Nader didn't cost Gore the election (which is a perfectly defendable viewpoint) there is a belief or perception that he did among many people, and this is something that could be a problem for Nader.

[Guest Some Guy]

Did they ever count the military absentee votes in Florida? Just a question.

 

Now then, Nader did at teh very least hurt Gore badly at the polls, but to say that he absolutely cost Gore the elction might be jumping to conclusions. A lot of people who aer way left just don't vote and Nader gave them a reason to.

 

It seems to me that Nader should do what he wants and teh voters should decide who they should vote for. I don't remember Bush 41 cryiong the blues publically about Perot. It happens, Bush 41 lost fair and square, so did Gore and so will whoever the left sends out in '04.

[Guest NoCalMike]

So what are people to do if they don't like a Democrat or a Republican running for the election? Vote for one of them anyway? Look, I don't know where this crap about "Nader alienated his popularity by costing Gore the election" hogwash came from. I mean duh, where did everyone think most of Nader's voters would come from(besides new voters), Democrat detractors that feel the DNC has lost focus and is not the way to go. Boo Fucking Hoo. Like I said, I haven't and NEVER will vote for someone based on hoping someone else doesn't win aka "The lesser of two evils" you are really just wasting your vote. I could not go to the polls and vote for someone that I counciously didn't want in office. If you do that, you are just being sucked into the same old tired machine. If it took the Green Part 20 years(starting from 2000) to get enough notice and press and popularity to get into the whitehouse in 2020.....it would be worth it to me, however people's attitudes need to change about why you go and vote.

[Guest Some Guy]

I think 20 years is a little too optimistic. The more people learn about the party the more mainstream America will dislike them. If slightly less than half the popualtion voted for Bush then how do tehy expect to win an election? The GOP voters are not going Green anytime. All that might happen is that the Greens might splinter off a few more Dems and get a few more college students to vote for them. They will never pose a threat to the Oval Office. They are too left wing for the country to vote in.