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Nader Just Won’t Learn
Nader Just Won’t Learn
by Peter Funt
Despite nagging evidence to the contrary, Ralph Nader is basically a smart guy. Certainly he’s aware of the damage he wrought in 2000 by taking enough votes from Al Gore to hand the presidency to George W. Bush. So, you would assume he would never again gamble with the nation’s highest office.
But Nader is back, telling anyone with a microphone that he’d like a clutch of Democrats, perhaps a half-dozen, to challenge President Obama for the 2012 nomination. Nader doesn’t plan to run himself; in fact, he claims he doesn’t want any of his Trojan candidates to actually win the nomination. All he wants is a good brawl in the form of pre-convention debates.
As evidenced each of Nader’s three failed campaigns for the presidency, there are elements in his progressive agenda that would benefit the country. His frustration over President Obama’s inability to push back against the Republican-controlled Congress is shared by many Democrats who helped elect Obama in 2008.
“I just want all these liberal, progressive agendas to be robustly debated,” explained Nader. “Otherwise, there will be a de facto blackout of their discussion” during next year’s campaign.
Strategically, Nader has much in common with Michele Bachmann. As the darling of the Tea Party, she is ostensibly running for president while beating the drum for the group’s ultra-right brand of conservatism. For the party seeking to regain the White House that makes some sense — as long as GOP activists rally around the eventual candidate.
But among Democrats, an exercise like Nader envisions would be a circus, and a destructive one at that. The goal, after all, is retaining the White House while hoping that Republicans lose at least some of their muscle in the House. It serves no purpose to confront the president with a progressive agenda — much of which he personally subscribes to — that has no chance of succeeding on Capitol Hill.
The only certain result of such a process is that Republicans would have an arsenal of new video clips to use against Obama in the 2012 campaign.
As Nader’s own foolhardy efforts in the past have proved, there is no room for third-party candidates in the modern presidential system. They can’t be elected; they only siphon votes from their own side and push undecided voters in the wrong direction.
Compounding Nader’s mischief is the fact that he is joined by the noted Princeton professor Cornell West, an influential voice among African Americans, who has called the president, “a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.” Vermont’s crusading socialist, Sen. Bernie Sanders, also favors a challenge to Obama, as does the Ohio maverick, Rep. Dennis Kucinich.
Despair among progressives is understandable, but what’s the alternative? President Rick Perry?
What this flap reminds us is that it’s one thing to articulate policy in the abstract, and quite another thing to make it work in the real world of partisan politics — especially the form that has overrun Washington like an out-of-control virus.
That’s not to say progressives should become mute and stop articulating the grander visions. But it should not be done as a direct challenge to the party’s leader, who is also its certain nominee.
Recent polls show that 40 percent of voters identify themselves as “moderate.” President Obama needs to woo them, whether progressives like it or not. Republicans, meanwhile, will be hurt by the deepening fissure within their ranks, and the last thing Democrats need is to replicate that condition.
If Ralph Nader is as smart as he thinks he is, he’ll start campaigning for Obama and retreat from a plan that represents the nadir of foolishness.
©2011 Peter Funt. This column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc. newspaper syndicate. This column is licensed to run on TMV in full.
10 Responses to “Nader Just Won’t Learn”
Sorry, I just can’t get too excited over deciding which corporatist should be in office. Maybe Nader isn’t either.
People like Nader change the world. There are constant cries for a third party in American politics and there will never be a strong third party until a weak third party does well. Let’s be honest the country is way too far to the right at the moment and maybe Nader’s appearance will bring some issues to the forefront.
“So, you would assume he would never again gamble with the nation’s highest office.”
I don’t accept this at all. Running for POTUS is the right of every American born citizen.
Sure it’s the right of every citizen, and I have a great deal of respect for Ralph Nader too. That said, I doubt he will harness many on the left after the disaster (for all of us) of 2000.
[...] Nader Just Won’t Learn | The Moderate Voice But among Democrats, an exercise like Nader envisions would be a circus, and a destructive one at that. The goal, after all, is retaining the White House while hoping that Republicans lose at least some of their muscle in the House. It serves no purpose to confront the president with a progressive agenda — much of which he personally subscribes to — that has no chance of succeeding on Capitol Hill. [...]
Yes, every liberal who doesn’t like Obama’s policies should accept that they their views don’t count and not question whether voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for an evil. We should all be thankful that we get to pick between the two choices that the established parties allow us.
DS, of course none of us likes being held hostage to the 2 party system, but third parties (in the absence of something akin to ranked voting) do in fact have the potential to do more harm than good. We saw this in 2K and the results have been devastating.
Peter Funt wrote:
Taking votes from Al Gore? They weren’t Al Gore’s votes in the first place.
Sorry, but I have a real problem with any argument that is predicated on the notion that the Democratic candidate is entitled to any vote that goes to another liberal/progressive candidate (or the notion that the Republican candidate is entitled to any vote that goes to another conservative candidate).
Yes, it is a virtual certainty that Ralph Nader’s presence in the 2000 presidential election swung the election to George W. Bush. But it is unfair (not to mention–undemocratic) to suggest that Nader took votes from Al Gore.
As an Independent voter, I have very little sympathy when I hear Democrats and Republicans complaining about third party candidates stealing or taking votes away from their candidates, especially when I consider the blatantly unfair ballot access laws that Democrats and Republicans have imposed at the state level in order to make it extremely difficult for third parties to get on the ballot.
JSpencer wrote:
I consider the Iraq War to be the single most devastating policy of the Bush Adminsitration and probably the single biggest reason why I have little faith or trust in the Republican Party.
However, the fact of the matter is that when the Iraq War Resolution passed, the Democrats still controlled the U.S. Senate. Senate Democrats could have single-handledly prevented that war by voting again the resolution. Yet not only did they not use their minority to block the resolution; 58% of Senate Democrats voted in favor of it.
I don’t have a lot of faith with the Democratic Party due to my philosphical disgreements with it, but at the very least, I expect the Democratic Party to serve as a check against the very worst excesses of the Republican Party. If Democrats can’t be counted on voting against a Republican administration on what might have been the single most important vote of the last ten years (the Iraq War Resolution), then one has to begin wonder what good the Democratic Party actually is.
I don’t agree with many of Nader’s policies, and I would have preferred that the 2000 presidential election had not resulted in the election of George W. Bush. But I have a difficult time getting angry at Nader, who has shown conviction than the Democrats who voted in favor of the Iraq War, than the Democrats who voted in favor of the USA PATRIOT Act, than the Democrats who refused to defund the Iraq War when they regained control of the House and Senate in 2007, and than the Democrats who voted to reauthorize the USA PATRIOT Act.
Nick, I’m not angry with Nader, as I said, I have a great deal of respect for the man. My beef has to do with high probability that he tipped the election to Bush, and as you yourself said… “I expect the Democratic Party to serve as a check against the very worst excesses of the Republican Party” …well, so do I. I am disappointed in Obama for several reasons, but I am not disappointed in him for not being a republican. I happen to believe that the scale of damage the republicans are capable of far outweighs the damage democrats can do. In fact if dems didn’t have to spend so much time trying to mend the damage reps cause, maybe we’d see more universally acceptable governing. My 2 cents.