I love your stuff, Todd. But your interest in Nader has me a bit confused.

Am I naive to think that Nader, now kind of known as a spoiler, just won't have that much impact if he does run? I feel like he only had the impact in 2000 because some people on the left were feeling comfortable enough to believe that pushing the party leftward was a more important mission than turning Bush back. These days, that comfort doesn't seem to exist.

In that sense, a Nader candidacy strikes me as harmless. Maybe I'm missing something?

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

That should have been a reply to Destor, not Todd. Sorry.

Todd,
What other recourse do we have in a democracy than to support someone who represents our views? Hold-your-nose-voting doesn't appeal to me. You? What do you stand for? Voting for the lesser of two evils as the USA spirals downward?

from Arthur Silber:
"The Republicans proudly assert their support of our aggressively interventionist foreign policy -- a policy which includes "preemptive" war against nations that constitute no serious threat to us.

"Meanwhile, the Democrats say that they now oppose the invasion and occupation of Iraq. But they consistently and adamantly refuse to recognize the criminal nature of what the U.S. has done. The Democrats say they oppose an authoritarian executive branch, and that they oppose the incipient dictatorship at home. Despite these protestations, they permitted the Military Commissions Act to pass -- and they have provided no indication whatsoever that they propose to repeal it. The Democrats helped pass the FISA bill several months ago -- an act that significantly increases the government's surveillance powers. At every opportunity, the Democrats either fail to mount any serious opposition or they actively support the further means to a more oppressive government.

"The only fact that matters is that Republicans and Democrats -- two or three honorable exceptions aside -- all act to destroy liberty and to further criminal war abroad."
(Read the whole essay) http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/

ecotourism
WeGoEco.com

Nader was once famous for being the lone crusader. It seems to have gone to his head. He seems to be another public person who's ego has run amok. Nader may provide a place for the far left to go and thus help elect Republicans. However, if the Democrats pander to Nader voters Bush may allow a Democrat to win in '08 but in all likelihood it will be a temporary triumph not a trend.

Nader just shows the danger of being too enamored with any one political leader.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Nader's 2000 campaign is responsible for everything that has gone wrong in this country for the past 6 years. Maybe someone with similar views should run but he himself is radioactive.

I still don't buy the theory that Nader's candidacy pulled then or would pull now the Democratic candidate to the left. One might even think his perception that they've moved further right and thus need him again a disproof. Our guest 17-year-old was able to use falsifiable in a sentence. We grown-ups probably could learn how to as well. 

Arguably, they'd move right because they would lose people those unwilling to settle. More important, as I keep saying, if they lose to the GOP, and right-wing nuts run the country, then the whole debate is again moved to the right, along with the citizenry and the media. And then don't be surprised if the Democrats do, too, sad as it is to see it.

As I keep saying, Nader's candidacy may have certain very fine justifications, such as his platform. But it shouldn't ever be justified on political grounds. There it rested on assumptions that losing or the threat thereof pulls the debate to the left and that there is no difference between the parties. And those are just plain false.

Don's every right to say Nader should run because they think alike and because he should support someone he agrees with. But if we want a chance for a more liberal party and a less fascistic government, we don't want a third party candidate.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

"What other recourse do we have in a democracy than to support someone who represents our views? Hold-your-nose-voting doesn't appeal to me."

There are lots of tasks in life that may not appeal but are imperative.  Perform this thought experiment:  Ask whether democracy would have been strengthened if Nader voters had held their noses and voted for Gore rather than jumping from the top of Ralph Nader's ego. 

If you think that the consequences of "representing our views" are a matter of indifference--that all you are obliged to do is "vote your conscience"--and you act in such a way as to keep pure by rejecting big-tent politics, and the outcome, the election of George W. Bush, offends your conscience, as I assume it did, then perhaps you should reconsider the way your conscience sends its messages to you.

Sincerely. 

Todd Gitlin

Does Nader think his candidacy pulled the party to the left in 2000?? He is, in part, responsible for this ultra-right wing government we have now!!

Don't do us any more favors, Ralph.

The place for maverick candidates is the party primaries. I Kusinich cannot get the Democratic nomination, how could someone like him hope to win in a general election?

You have to suspect that your views are the ones that are outside the mainstream.

Well stated, Todd. Thanks for that.

On other threads I've read many arguments by Nader supporters who say that the outcome of the 2000 election is not Nader's fault, and (apparently) it does not weigh on their consciences. But I haven't heard any of them willing to defend the pre-election statement that "there's not a dime's worth of difference" between Bush and Gore. (Maybe now one could argue that it's not a dime, it's more like half a trillion dollars.)

I don't much care for Hillary. I'm supporting Dennis Kucinich in the primaries. I'll vote for him, and I'll send him money.

But a year from now, whomever the nominees are, I will cast the most effective vote I can AGAINST the Republican. While I'd much rather cast a vote FOR somebody I like, I'll do what I think is best for the country.

-- ARG

This conversation continues to be painful and sad as a good and decent man is so caustically attacked. Ralph Nader did not lose Gore the 2000 election, the election was stolen by the Republican Party. It is true that Nader's votes in Florida tightened the race, but the GOP was determined and would have found a way, and the Democrats would have rolled over. What Nader's candidacy provided, was a convenient cover for Democrats too cowardly to face their real adversary. This same fear of the Right leads Democrats to disavow Moveon.org, CodePink and Kucinich's impeachment efforts.

Professor Gitlin in a later post refers to Nader's ego. The Presidency is an expression of our national narcissism. To say that a person is running for President is to say that she is an egotist. Gitlin points out that we would rather lobby the Demos than the GOP, but consider this:
Clinton promised us any number of things from Health Care to Gay and Lesbian Marines to climate change and some how, though he tried, the big bad republicans stood their ground and he failed. There was no such failure in his promise to centrists on welfare and crime. I assume I would prefer Hillary Clinton to any Republican, but not if she sees me and people like me as lumpen activists with no other options. I respect all those who have posted here the strong evidence that Nader did not pull the democratic party to the left, perhaps he is the wrong person to accomplish this task. But I believe it is essential that those of us on the left raise some element of fear in Democratic hearts.
In 2000 Republican congressional staff members threatened Vote counters in Florida. I think if the Democrats had not alienated the Labor and Activist wings of the party, wouldn't lose street fights.

I doubt this time Nader could take enough votes away from a Democrat to tip the election. But he could easily make the Democrat play so far to the left to protect her-- I mean, his or her-- base that she loses enough of the middle to lose the race. For all the apparent advantages of the Democratic side at the moment, it's still a fact that they haven't broken 50% of the vote in 30 years. (Of course, in 2000 they would have...) To do that in 2008, the nominee will have to run right. A significant figure on the left makes that nearly impossible.

ARG,
Using the 'lesser of evils' argument, looking at the long run, which is the way that I look (even though I'm no spring chicken), I feel that the tiny bit better that Kerry MAY have been (not certain) compared to Bush is out-weighed by the prospect of casting a vote for someone who doesn't come close to representing my views, thus endorsing his views.

The USA is supposed to be a democracy, a nation of laws, with the Congress passing laws and the President executing them. In this sense a much larger factor than any individual president's views is supposed to be the people working their will through their elected representatives. I believe that fora such as TPMCafe give us a new opportunity to shape and motivate public opinion. I know that it's helped me and educated me on the issues.

Thus my long-term goal is to work toward a 'corporate takeover'--to take our country back from the liars,cheaters and crooks. And in that effort I don't want to sacrifice my values. What else do we have that we can call our own? Creditors own the house and car . . .I jest.

Next year? I'll probably do something that again won't make sense to a lot of people.

"I know my own nation best. That's why I despise it the most. And know and love my own people, too, the swine. I'm a patriot. A dangerous man." --Edward Abbey

Don

To do that in 2008, the nominee will have to run right.

As the country is trending left, this makes no sense at all. We've got a significant majority in opposition to war (a favorite of the right), against discriminating against gays, for so-called socialized medicine, with more and more progressive candidates winning all over the country, and you say run right?

That's lovely conventional wisdom - from the year 2000, and it didn't work then, either. Gore ran right and lost. Democrats ran right and lost in 2000, 2002, and 2004. Even in 2006, when the wave of Democrats taking the Senate and House, Democrats like Harold Ford Jr who ran right lost.

Nader made it close enough to steal.

As for raising fear in Democratic hearts, there's only one way to do that and that is to first provide and then withhold money. Not votes or time or support or even street fighting. It's money. And before you can threaten them with it, first you have to make them dependent on it.

We can't skip ahead 10 years and start withholding the money before they've ever grown addicted to it. The first step is to work for them and get them elected. Win for them.

Then remind them how they got there.

All the Dems had to do in 2000 was to represent a few voters on the left. They'll make the same mistake in 2008.

I campaigned for and voted for Kerry but I won't vote for Clinton. Four years on, still in Iraq, and Hillary voting for Kyl-Lieberman. No way.

I can never understand the logic here that a) lefties are too out there to be represented by a major party and b)lefties alone have the power to determine the fate of America.

Which is it? Are we insignificant or are we a constituency the party can't afford to lose? You know if you can't afford to lose us, maybe you ought to represent us.

Unencumbered by relevant facts or logic of any sort, Todd Gitlin again reprises the tired canard that Ralph Nader "cost" Democrat Al Gore the 2000 presidential election. This tired, tendentious tripe illustrates nothing so much as George Orwell's famous dictum that enforced factional allegiance, "like the use of scapegoats, is a way of attaining salvation without altering one's conduct." The Democratic Party elite desires entrance to electoral paradise but doesn't want to stop sinning against its own core constituency in order to get there.

Orwell also noted that "the whole argument that one musn't speak plainly [or campaign for election] because it 'plays into the hands of' this or that sinister influence is dishonest in the sense that people only use it when it suits them." Hence, Mr. Gitlin doesn't give Ross Perot his just credit, because doing so would effectively refute the canard Mr. Gitlin continually wishes to level at Ralph Nader. For without Ross Perot and his reactionary third-party candidacy splitting the Republican ticket in 1992, America would have had four additional years of the responsible but unpopular Republican President George H. W. Bush followed by an innocuous "time for a change" Democrat not named Bubba or Dubya. See how anyone can play this game of "what would have happened if only ..."?

Third-party candidates can indeed move a "major" party's position in a desired direction at the cost of only one or two election cycles out of office. That Ralph Nader failed to move enough terrified and easily browbeaten Democrats in the proper leftward direction says nothing of significance at all about him and his authentic anti-crony-corporate program. It does, however, speak volumes about the Republican Party's responsiveness to its core constituencies. Unlike the Republicans, though, the Democratic Party establishment simply takes its core constituencies and potential working-class voters for granted as "owned" and therefore of no importance. Understanding this disdain correctly but resentfully, most Americans don't vote at all because no Republican represents their interests and no Democrat wants their vote badly enough to earn it. Somewhere in that vast, untapped ocean of potential American voters, Ralph Nader earned a few that would otherwise never have voted at all.

Ralph Nader never got anywhere near as many votes as Ross Perot; but nonetheless, he earned every one of them. This requirement that political candidates have to "earn" the votes they get -- by actively espousing the programs and policies that voters want rather than demand to have them delivered up under threat of scapegoating by Stockholm Syndrome Democrats -- separates Mr. Gitlin's views from mine. As well, I never respond to cheap threats: especially by confirmed invertebrates who negotiate with their own fears first, then take their best cards off the table, then announce that they intend to lose anyway, and then attack anyone else who challenges them for their craven capitulation. And I would never, ever, ever, ever vote for any ticket that contains a Zionist Likudnik Neoconservative Moralizer like Senator/Vice Presidential candidate Holy Joe Lieberman. If Mr. Gitlin really wants to bloviate about third-party tickets and what cost Al Gore the 2000 Presidential election, I submit that 2000 confused members of "Blind Florida Jews for Pat Buchanan" did the trick as well as any other of all the eight candidates on the Florida ballot that got more than 526 votes -- including "other" who scored 3,000. Floridians don't take their elections seriously or honestly enough to even have them -- and no one can blame Ralph Nader for that, nor for the even more brutal truth that Al Gore's own "home state" of Tennessee rejected him. Et cetera, ad infinitum.

I understand that Mr. Gitlin wishes to intimidate the typically fearful and conformist Democrat into rejecting Ralph Nader's critique and slavishly following the Democratic Party line -- even when the Democratic Party hasn't got one. I understand the appeal of this time-dishonored gambit, since it has proven all too easy -- indeed child's play, really -- since the Democratic Party appears more attuned to Republican Party slander and libel than to any demands by its own constituents for a government that represents them.

Not for nothing did Gore Vidal call Americans "among the most easily frightened people on earth." This certainly holds true for Americans in the currently hapless Democratic Party. And worst of all: just look at who did the frightening, and how effortlessly a little primitive word magic did it for them.

Mr. Gitlin should not talk of reasoning, in brief or otherwise, for he gives no sign that he has engaged in any. Dialectical sophistry, on the other hand, would probably serve as a more honest characterization of what he has to offer. Thin and shabby, certainly, but usually good enough to cow Democrats into lining up behind another triangulating loser because "only he or she can win" what Republicans want won.