The little boy that democracy forgot
So, the knives are being sharpened for Ralph Nader now that he’s announced his intention to run for US president as an independent candidate.
“I remember when he did this before, it didn’t turn out too well, for anyone, especially our country,” Mrs Clinton said.
“I hope it’s kind of a just a passing fancy that people won’t take too seriously.”
There you go: Back off Nader, there’s no place for you in the world’s greatest democracy. The American democratic process is like the ‘No Homers Club’ from Simpsons episode ‘Homer The Great‘.
Democrats like to blame Nader for splitting the vote and Al Gore getting beaten in 2000 like it wasn’t Gore’s job to provide the requisite appeal to voters. That Gore didn’t have what it takes to inspire and fire voters’ imaginations is hardly Nader’s fault. That Gore in 2000 was a dullard who couldn’t even out-debate George Bush seems to have passed everybody by.
‘If it wasn’t for Nader,’ people whine, ‘they’d have had no choice but to vote for our guy’. Taking votes and voters for granted – it’s a trait you see the world over. Yay, democracy.
It’s like New Labour over here when left-wing voters look in the direction of the Liberal Democrats. A vote for the Lib Dems will let the Conservatives in via the back door they tell us. What they conveniently forget is that a (supposedly) left-wing party doing its moral and ideological job properly wouldn’t have to worry about defectors and protest voters. And its the same for the Democrats.
The trick to politics should be how tell people why they should vote for you, not issue dire warnings about what will happen if they don’t. If people don’t want to vote for you, you’ve got nobody to blame but yourself. If people want to vote for Nader then Clinton and Obama need to ask why and say why not. And give better reasons than ‘Wah! Your votes belong to me!’
Posted on February 25th, 2008 at 3:34pm under New Labour, US Politics
| Related posts... • On Message • A Proportional Response • By the numbers |
• Permalink • Trackback • Subscribe |
|
|
|
• 11 Comments |
I agree that the sight of New Labour and the Democrats taking their vote for granted is truly nausiating (hmm, that’s spelt wrong I’m sure) but it is not quite the same thing as being an argument for him to actually run thoough is it?
I mean what is he getting out of it – and why is it so difficult for him to seek the nomination of the Green Party like he did in 2000 when he got the highest vote he’s ever likely to get?
Well, I don’t think anyone believes he’d actually win but he’d bring subjects to the debates that the other candidates might like to avoid. Aside from issues of splitting the vote, you can see why the Democrats might not want him to run.
It’s like John McDonnell running against Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership. Brown couldn’t afford to let McDonnell into the contest – not because he was afraid McDonnell might win but because the underdog might make him publicly debate issues Brown would rather were left buried.
I’m counting on Nader to keep Obama honest (ie from swinging too far to the right in the run for republican votes), if/when he gets the nomination.
I agree with most of the above. However, I’ve been reading a lot of bloggers and commenters who have voted for him in the past saying; sorry, not this time. He hasn’t, by all accounts, done anything much since 2004 and done jack-shit to help the grassroots growth of a third party in the US so many people are just wondering why he is bothering beyond self-aggrandisement.
I did have quite a lot to say about this post but, in the end, I think I’ll leave it at: “What Katherine said”.
Interesting that Hilary is doing the “moaning”. She feels it could affect her if she got the nomination.
Dearie dearie me! – has no one been paying attention? Nader didn`t lose Gore the election in 2000; the Republicans stole it with a spectrum of cheats and ballot rigging which the Dems didn`t have the spine to stand up to and fight against. In Florida, Gore won – Greg Palast proved it, and in 2004 in Ohio, Kerry also won but wouldn`t go mano-a-mano with the Busheviks. Nader`s small percentage of the vote would not have mattered a damn if the Democrats had run exit polls and stuck to their guns when the fixed votes began to show. And we might not be in the manure we`re in now.
Whatever Nader achieved in 2000 there was nothing positive or ‘progressive’ in it that’s for sure. And a vote for Nader will achieve nothing positive or progressive this time either. But he has a right to stand and people have a right to vote for him. So democracy can breath easy
Phew! But democracy requires more than the opportunity to put a cross on a ballot paper – see purple fingered peope, Iraq. The cross has to have at least some chance of achieving something.
He’s no progressive. He believes there is nothing to choose between the Democrats and Republicans therefore he has no real interest in the outcome of this election. ‘Little boy’ is an apt description for this faded, irrelevant party-pooper who wants his Screaming Lord Sutch moment again. But he’s a busted flush. He’ll have no impact whatsoever this time around. He’ll just be an annoying prick for a few months.
Good point about the purple fingers, Mike. It’s true that my argument doesn’t include any qualitative judgement on whether Nader’s the man on this occasion.
But I stand by the principle and if he gets within spitting distance of a debate with the other candidates, I’d say that that would be A Good Thing.
In a closely aligned two party system like America there’s always a tacit omerta on certain issues (see also the UK). Somebody needs to have a crack at it and Nader’s the only guy to stand up and say so. In that sense, Nader’s providing an important service whether anybody votes for him or not.
Justin, I agree that any chance of a meaningful debate with the candidates is to be welcomed. If Nader made it clear that this was his motivation, and recommended his progressive supporters to vote for a particular candidate when the time came I’d have no real problem with what he’s doing. But this isn’t 2000. The country is a very different place and the political imperatives are very different also.
When a ‘progressive’ voter, whether a sometime Democrat supporter, a Green or a left-leaning libertarian stands in that voting booth pondering eight years of Republican misrule he/she has a very simple choice: to try and end the neo-con farce or not. Only a vote for the Democrat candidate, Obama, Clinton or Mickey Mouse come to that, has any chance of achieving that and, at this stage in American history, any ‘progressive’ who isn’t working towards ousting the Republicans at all costs is deeply suspect and deserves any derision and opprobrium aimed aimed at them.
Obama on Nader:
“Ralph Nader’s view is, unless it’s Ralph Nader, then you’re not tough enough on any of these issues,” he said. “He thought there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush. I think eight years later, people realize Ralph doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”