catapult magazine

I see that Ralph Nader has announced he’s running for president. Yeowch. This can’t make Democrats happy, as Nader is one of the main reasons Bush was elected. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

i think one of the main reasons bush was elected was that democrats didn’t have their act together in 2000 (and, to a certain extent, they still don’t).

i don’t think nader will be much of a factor in this election because 1) he doesn’t have the backing of a party to build a movement around and 2) most folks on the left, regardless of whether or not they agree with nader more than the democratic nominee, desperately want the republicans out of the white house. this practicality will probably trump any sort of leftist idealism nader represents.

having said that, i think it’s pathetic that electing one of the most powerful men on earth has come down to this strategic game. shouldn’t the person who is best for the job be elected? maybe that’s my hopeless idealism . . .

Apparently Nader thinks he will pull more votes from Bush than from Kerry—ie. republican-type voters who are disgusted with Bush’s performance but can’t bring themselves to vote for Kerry. Besides, hasn’t Nader got the Reform party behind him now? In a recent poll, he was pulling an equal amount from Bush and Kerry in a 3-way match up (vs. their numbers in a 2-way match-up.)

I don’t see it. First of all, an endorsement by the ultra-conservative Reform Party probably doesn’t carry as much weight with its own members as one would think compared to the Republican and Democrat parties, whose members and affiliators usually remain quite loyal to the party line. It’s not as cohesive as a party in general. It’s the anti-party.

Can’t see disgruntled conservatives voting for him. Nader is the only anti-war candidate, which is typically a position that appeals (mainly) to liberals, not fair weather conservatives. And I can’t see fair weather conservatives voting for someone who’s been endorsed by an ultra-conservative group. If that makes any sense. In the land of political theory, it does.

Of course, anything’s possible. I think it’s interesting that Bush and Kerry are pretty much the same when it comes to war policy as it pertains to the present. Sure, Kerry says he’d have done things differently PRE-war, but now that we’re in Iraq, Bush and Kerry’s ideas about moving forward are more similar than dissimilar. Kerry makes noise about internationalizing things, etc., but who the heck knows what he means by that? Rhetorical question.

It does seem a little farfetched, and I can’t speak for his claim that he’ll pull more from the right than the left, but I think I’m related by marriage to one of these aforementioned “disgruntled conservatives” who is at least considering a vote for Nader.

He lives in Florida. :)

update: my father-in-law accused me of spreading dirty lies when i told him what i’d posted. i guess i was wrong on that one.

also, nader may not be pulling more bush-votes than kerry-votes, but the nader factor seems to be close to nill.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52671-2004Oct21.html

A survey conducted this month for the Democratic National Committee by pollster Stanley Greenberg showed Nader averaging 1.5 percent of the vote in a dozen battleground states where his name appears on the ballot, compared with about 3 percent in the summer. It also showed that most of the support Nader lost had shifted to Kerry and indicated that his remaining backers would be as likely to vote for Bush as for the Massachusetts Democrat, if Nader were not running.

Yes, I agree. Nader hasn’t had much impact in the polls this time around. If he keeps running in the future he’ll need to step up his game and get serious about actually strengthening the Liberarian party as a whole, not just run on a more individual level, as he appears to be doing.

As for the DNC poll … it’s a DNC poll. Enough said. I don’t think former-Nader voters are strongly going either way, frankly, if you look at less-partisan poll sources. Polls are somewhat suspect to begin with, and one put out by the Democratic National Committee that claims the Nader voters are going pro-Kerry is even more highly suspect (as would a RNC poll showing they were going to Bush).

I’m sorry – I meant Green party, not Libertarian.