Please Nader, Don't Hurt 'Em

Nick posted last week about a piece in The Nation imploring Ralph Nader not to run. Now someone has created a spiffy Flash animation making the case.

Comments

[J]

Heard Ralph Nader on NPR (All Things Considered?) a couple weeks ago saying that the people who were urging him not to run were violating his constitutional right to run. Apparently his constitutional right to run for office includes a gaurantee that no one will oppose him. What a maroon!

Also, I remember after the 2000 election someone arguing that Pat Buchanan actually had a comparable effect in terms of electoral college votes. Obviously Nader got more popular votes, but based on how Buchanan did in close states, and asssuming Buchanan voters would have been more likely to vote for Bush than Gore, he cost Bush a meaningful number of electoral votes too and made the election closer than it would have otherwise been (or so the argument goes). Anyone know if there's any truth to this?

[Douglas Fletcher]

I don't know, Gore looks like a scary vampire in that photo they used. And all this time I thought he was related to Gore Vidal, not Gore Devol.

[Dylan]

I was following the guy until the Gilmore Girls-esque happy-song at the end. Bad Flash animator.

[Andy D.]

I heard Ralph Nader talking about his possible election-spoiler status back in 2000. He said he didn't care because he's not a Democrat and from his vantage point, there really wasn't all that much relevant difference between Gore and Bush.

[Eric Atkinson]

Run Ralphie, run!
See the Donks cry.
Cry, cry, cry.
Run Ralphie, run!

[B.P.]

Per the bullet points in the flash animation, which social programs in particular has Bush gutted?

[Jason Ligon]

B.P. asks a good question. If he'd gutted a bunch of programs, I'd like him more.

[Overlord]

I love the part about Bush, "Gutting Social Welfare Programs". We could only wish that it were true. This shows the complete stupidity of Republican administrations, they all throw money into the gaping maw of the welfare state and hope that will appease the left, but it gains them nothing and only alienates their own supporters.

[dhex]

for an overlord, yer pretty easily surprised there.

sure yer not a middlemanagementlord or assistantdirectorlord instead?

[dj of raleigh]

Axiom: that which is rotten cannot be spoiled anew.
It is not the good that spoils the bad,
but the bad that spoils the good.

NADER should ask that the Democrats NOT run this year!
NADER should get a Website saying that IF the DEMOCRATS
hadn't have run in 2000, those votes would have been his,
and he would be president today. Shame on the Demi's!

If Nader doesn't run this year he will be empty handed
come election 2008, and will be dead in the water in 2012.
Unless Nader gives it all up, he has to run this time.

The Demi's are begging. They don't want to pay.
They don't want to change, won't change,
but are the same as Republicans, worse,
for they pretend to be what Ralph is, liberal, up front
in politics & policy by philosophy not polls.
Nader has them squirming and wiggling.
Letting him have a speech at the convention isn't enough.

[Overlord]

dhex,

I'm not surprised at Republican stupidity, but it is amazing that they never seem to learn from their mistakes.

[Just me]

>"they pretend to be what Ralph is, liberal..."

Nader is liberal? I thought he was an autocrat. And a crazy one at that.

[Andrew]

I am not at all sure that a Nader run would cause net harm to the Democrats this year. An enthusiastic early campaign by the Greens (energised by Nader on the ballot) would likely round up a fair number of unregistered campus types, many of whom would have better thoughts when they got to the polls, in any state where the race was close.

Traditionally this has been the function of third parties in America-- either to transition a bloc of voters from one party to another (not relevant in this instance), or to bring marginal voters to the polls and get them accustomed to voting.