It takes a particularly high opinion of self to be Ralph Nader. A multiple-loser for the Presidency, he is at again with another political loser, Matt Gonzalez. Although he lead the San Francisco Board of Supervisors several years ago, I find it difficult to understand how these guys think they can win in 2008.
Yes, let us all repeat again that Nader did bring product safety to the forefront of the American consciousness – yes, Ralph, thanks for that. But looking back at the last 7 years of a Bush presidency, you campaign harmed the nation just as much (if not more) as you helped it decades earlier.
You had great karma, but your 2000 bid damaged the nation, maybe to the point it may not recover.
But that wasn’t enough. Oh hell no. Your ego required more stroking in 2004 and did nothing to help remove Bush from office. One would have thought that seeing how close the 2000 election was, you would have taken up the charge to restore voter rights and prevent that debacle from ever happening again. And it did happen again in the Great State of Ohio.
Thanks for that.
You may be a consumer advocate, but you can no longer claim to be an advocate for the American People. How many dead would still be living had Gore won in 2000? We needed you assistance instead of your resistance.
Don’t look to me to stroke your ego or boost your over-inflated level of self-importance. And don’t you dare ask for my campaign contribution.
Go masturbate on your own time.
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Uh – did you not hear that Al Gore actually won the 2000 election? Don’t blame Ralph Nader for that. Blame George Bush’s consigliere, Baker and the goon squads they sent to Florida.
I get so tired of good liberals going after Ralph Nader for things he did not do.
Sheesh.
Not Again! Ralph DIDN’T cost Gore the election! I’m with DanRiverDale on this one, stop blaming Ralph for all this 7-years of Bush Crap.
Let’s face the facts:
1) 250 Thousand Registered Democrats voted for Bush in Florida alone
2) EVERY 3rd Party in Florida got more than the difference of votes between Bush and Gore
3) There was no hand recount
4) Tens of Thousands of likely Democrats were denied or lied about where to go and vote
5) Long lines, missing voting machines and memory cards
6) Gore didn’t carry his own home state or Clinton’s which Presidents usually do at least 1, any one of them would’ve won it for him
7) He gave more voters to Gore, not the opposite. If you remember Lieberman was his VP (not a good choice) and Nader kept swaying Gore to take more Liberal positions even though Lieberman resisted and talk about corporate crime and abuse and polls showed that everytime Gore talked about Progressive issues his numbers rose
I can go on if you like… The fact is clear that Nader didn’t cost gore the election, it’s all there and i’m more than happy to debate these issues with anyone. Nader actually helpped Gore and met with him to take on certain issues in which he refused.
Ralph Nader has every right to run for president. All the Democrats have to do to keep him from taking significant numbers of votes from them is to act like real Democrats.
As a fellow Kucinich supporter, I’m surprised you take this position on Nader.
Ponder this… To sacrifice decades of hard work as a consumer activist to bring issues to the forefront with no chance of winning: is this ego, or is this quite the opposite — selfless thinking?
The egotistical thing to do would be to retire happily on a tropical island, be the founder of dozens of public policy non-profits, and occasionally be the toast of a party.
The egotistical thing to do would be to preserve your legacy. To run for president in order to bring out issues is not that.
I agree with DanRiverDale and libhomo. Gore won and Nader still has every right to run for president. It’s occured to me that people are really obsesses with partisan politics. All I hear now is Clinton that and Obama this, but if they were running as independents or Greens or SWPs, they wouldn’t be noticed at all. Learn to think outside the box and you may find candidates that follow news outside the mainstream media. Candidates like Obama and Clinton talk about very general things like, “Education is great!” (cue audience histerically screaming). The real reason why Obama is popular is because he’s a great speaker, but that’s just practice and luck. At least Clinton is honest about raising taxes so there would be enough money for all the programs she has proposed. I can’t talk about her or Obama anymore or it’ll make me puke. I always hear people say how tired they are of this two party system, but they refuse to vote outside of it. Why can’t we be informed voters? And by informed, I mean that we should look at all candidates and give them a chance to be covered in the media. Havne’t we learned that Democrats and Republicans are all equally capable of lying from this current Congress? Remember, think OUTSIDE the box.
While I agree that Nader has every right to run, if he actually cared about the politics of this country he would have done something about voter rights and counting all the votes sometime between 2000 and today. So, his ego does seem stronger than his desire to change anything.
In 2000, his “line” was that there was no real difference between the Democrats and the GOP. Well, GWB has proven that to be flat wrong, hasn’t he?
So, the egotistical thing is running for president, again. The selfless thing would have been to work for voter’s rights sometime in the past 7 years. Hell, run for congress! He might win there, but he’ll never win POTUS.