My Two Cents: Ralph Nader Campaign

In Response To: All the media hype surrounding the announcement that Ralph Nader is running for President again, such as this NPR article here, this youtube video here, and many other similar pieces.

Honestly I don't see what the big deal is. Ralph Nader is running as a 3rd party candidate. So what? Every presidential election lots of people run as 3rd party candidates, as anyone who's ever been in a voting booth knows full well: the Workers World Party, The Libertarian Party, The Socialist Party, The Communist Party, The Natural Law Party, the Peace and Freedom Party, and of course the Green Party (you'll recall they split ways with Nader after 2000, and have been running their own separate presidential candidates since 2004).

Why does Nader get all the special attention? Of course because he acted as a spoiler in 2000. But so what? That was 8 long years ago. And there's nothing like 8 years of Bush to make us former Naderites realize the error of our ways. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am one of those repentant Naderites from 2000, who is now a little bit older and a little bit wiser and now believes that voting for the lesser of two evils might not be such a bad idea after all. Related blog entry from 2004 election here).

Ralph Nader got 0.34 percent of the popular vote in 2004, and there's no reason to think he'll do any better in 2008. So everyone should just lay off him. If he wants to run for president as a 3rd party candidate, let him run. He knows he's not going to win. He's running for the same reason every other 3rd party candidate is running. To raise issues that are important to him, and to try and pressure the more mainstream candidates. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I won't be voting for him this time around, but all this fuss being made about his candidacy is ridiculous.

Link of the Day
From Peter Bratt: Building a Democratic Kent County