The Ralphmeister is on the campaign trail

[Colleen Thomas]

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Arizona, considered a swing state in the upcoming presidential election, could be the first in the nation to put independent candidate Ralph Nader (news - web sites) on its Nov. 2 election ballot, officials said on Friday.

State election officials have received petitions with 21,185 signatures, nearly 6,500 more than required for his name to appear on the ballot and opponents only have 10 days to challenge the signatures.


"We're running a 50-state campaign," said Kevin Zeese, Nader's national campaign spokesman. "We're not shying away from any battleground states like Arizona."


State Democrats have vowed to launch a stiff challenge to keep Nader off the Arizona ballot, fearing that the consumer advocate would siphon votes away from Democratic Party hopeful John Kerry (news - web sites) and help tilt the election to Republican President Bush (news - web sites).


Nader, then a Green Party candidate, claimed 3 percent of the state's vote in the 2000 presidential election. Bush won the state by 6 percentage points over Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites).


The western state has 10 electoral votes.


Nader also has filed more than 80,000 signatures to get on the ballot in Texas, about 15,000 more than needed. His campaign is actively collecting signatures in 25 states.


He already has the Reform Party's backing and is working on an endorsement from his former Green Party to help him secure more spots on other state ballots, Zeese said.


For those who haven't seen it.

http://www.markfiore.com/animation/again.html


-Colly

 

[Guest]

Nader doesn't have a chance in hell.

So, what's his game anyway?

I hope it's not vanity.

 

[cantdog]

Colly

The flash animation demolishes old Ralph on the issue of: is he running? Has he waffled or changed his position in four years?

Yep, they got him dead to rights. Despite what people in the other party universally say he should do, he is indeed running. They positively endorse Bush, by contrast. No one over there is saying Bush ought not to run, on the grounds that his candidacy would take some votes away from their candidate. But of all the votes Gore didn't get, it does seem as though most of them went to Bush.

Also, they mention in the animation that his position has not substantially altered in four years. Bingo again. Damn, guess Ralph will have to 'fess up to that one.

Your article, too, mentions that he is running in all 50 states. Duh! So is everyone else, right? Or am I missing something?

Should this surprise you? Should Ralph have revamped his politics and embraced Christian puritanism?

cantdog

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Nader doesn't have a chance in hell.

So, what's his game anyway?

I hope it's not vanity.

To be honest, I don't really know. I suppose it's possible that he is hoping he will become a big enough threat to the dems that they will offer him the Vp spot? Beyond that remote possiblilty, I just don't have any clue. Unless he is being secretly financed by the GOP?

-Colly

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Re: Colly

The flash animation demolishes old Ralph on the issue of: is he running? Has he waffled or changed his position in four years?

Yep, they got him dead to rights. Despite what people in the other party universally say he should do, he is indeed running. They positively endorse Bush, by contrast. No one over there is saying Bush ought not to run, on the grounds that his candidacy would take some votes away from their candidate. But of all the votes Gore didn't get, it does seem as though most of them went to Bush.

Also, they mention in the animation that his position has not substantially altered in four years. Bingo again. Damn, guess Ralph will have to 'fess up to that one.

Your article, too, mentions that he is running in all 50 states. Duh! So is everyone else, right? Or am I missing something?

Should this surprise you? Should Ralph have revamped his politics and embraced Christian puritanism?

cantdog

To be honest cant, I'm kinda baffled by Ralph. Last time he ran on the green ticket. Usually, a third party hopes to accomplish exactly what they did, make a big enough impact that one of the major parties takes up at least some of their platform. I've never even heard of the reform party.

-Colly

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Nader made the mistake of believing his own press years ago. The man's an egomaniac now, and probably always was.

Nothing against egomaniacs. They're capable of doing good as well as evil. The problem is they can rarely tell one from the other.

---dr.M.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Nader made the mistake of believing his own press years ago. The man's an egomaniac now, and probably always was.

Nothing against egomaniacs. They're capable of doing good as well as evil. The problem is they can rarely tell one from the other.

---dr.M.

that would explain it I suppose. What's his claim to fame? I have heard his name beofre he ran, but it was something like a sonsumer advocate. Maybe something about the covair?

-Colly

 

[Guest]

The problem is they can rarely tell one from the other.

---dr.M.

LOL

Sad and despearing.

But, Lol.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

that would explain it I suppose. What's his claim to fame? I have heard his name beofre he ran, but it was something like a sonsumer advocate. Maybe something about the covair?

-Colly

Nader worked as an exec at GM (I think) and quit or was fired over safety concerns in GM cars. He wrote a book called "Unsafe At Any Speed" which was a big expose and indictment of automaker's total disregard for passenger and product safety. At the time he wrote it, he was right on the money. Cars were just terrible. They didn't even have seat belts, and some of them, like the Chevy Corvair, were in the habit of flipping over even in moderate turns. They had no crumple zones, no passenger protection, safety doorlocks, none of that stuff. Even minor accidents could be fatal.

Nader got the safety dialog started, and probably more than anyone else brought about the entire consumer movement and the idea of manufacturer responsibility for the safety of their products. From there he went on to environmental stuff, but was always taking the side of the little guy against Big Business.

He always did have something of a Messiah complex, and somewhere along the line he started beliveing his own hype, and here he is.

---dr.M.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Nader worked as an exec at GM (I think) and quit or was fired over safety concerns in GM cars. He wrote a book called "Unsafe At Any Speed" which was a big expose and indictment of automaker's total disregard for passenger and product safety. At the time he wrote it, he was right on the money. Cars were just terrible. They didn't even have seat belts, and some of them, like the Chevy Corvair, were in the habit of flipping over even in moderate turns. They had no crumple zones, no passenger protection, safety doorlocks, none of that stuff. Even minor accidents could be fatal.

Nader got the safety dialog started, and probably more than anyone else brought about the entire consumer movement and the idea of manufacturer responsibility for the safety of their products. From there he went on to environmental stuff, but was always taking the side of the little guy against Big Business.

He always did have something of a Messiah complex, and somewhere along the line he started beliveing his own hype, and here he is.

---dr.M.

Thaks Doc. Do you think he thinks he has any possibility of winning or is he just running on the none of the above ticket?

-Colly

 

[KarenAM]

I think Nader's an egomaniac. I have one friend who is a strong Nader supporter, and he's about the most politically negative person I know (can't find anything good to say about any politician, anywhere, anytime). It's sort of a nihilism, as though he actually wants things to get worse so he can say that he "tried" to save the world with his messiah Nader, but it's everyone else's fault for not seeing the light, so he can feel better about himself as things get worse.

Myself, I see Nader as being even more authoritarian and convinced of his infallibility than Bush. Scary guys, the both of them.

 

[cantdog]

But Nader's a genuine American hero, a champion for the schnooks against the greedheads.

The egomaniac talk is all from the Dems, who blame him for their weak ass candidate losing last itme.

There's been nothing but how egomaniacal Ralph is since they decided to take this line. Pure crap.

The third party thing is one place where the two major parties are completely together. It was illegal to vote third party in North Carolina in the last election. Not just Draconian requirements to get on the ballot. If you voted a third poarty, your whole ballot was invalid, by state law, and was thrown out.

Unconstitutional? Of course, but by the time anyone took it to a court to have it declared unconstitutional, the election would be over. And who was going to take it to court? A Democrat? A Republican? (No, the ACLU. Thy're the only motherfuckers who give two shits about the constitution anyway.)

He's confident; you have to be to run for fucking President. Casper Milquetoast doesn't run for President. But they had to call him egomaniacal because they couldn't find a corruption scandal or a sex scandal to nail him with.

Tell me. If EVERYBODY in the opposing party said it was clearly counter-productive for you to run, would you imagine they meant cpounter-productive for you? For the country? No, they mean for them. Well, they're the opposition, of course they don't want you to run against them.

 

[minsue]

Nader isn't running because he has a chance in hell of winning. He's running because it's the only way to force debate on important issues. Not debate among the candidates, mind you. The Democrats will do everything in their power to keep him out of sanctioned debates. Public debate.

As much as I hate that his running makes it that much easier for Bush to take the election, I have a definite respect for Nader. (And I cringed inside when the AZ Democrats announced that they were calling for every single fucking signature on his petitions to be checked in the hopes of keeping him off our ballots.)

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Nader isn't running because he has a chance in hell of winning. He's running because it's the only way to force debate on important issues. Not debate among the candidates, mind you. The Democrats will do everything in their power to keep him out of sanctioned debates. Public debate.

As much as I hate that his running makes it that much easier for Bush to take the election, I have a definite respect for Nader. (And I cringed inside when the AZ Democrats announced that they were calling for every single fucking signature on his petitions to be checked in the hopes of keeping him off our ballots.)

It does look bad, that the Dems are fighting so hard to keep a thrid party candidate from running. But I suspect the GOP fought just as hard to keep Perrot off them.

I wa sorta leaning towards the theory that Nader was hoping to force the Dems into giving him the nod for VP, but from all that's been said here, I don't think that's the case now.

-Colly

 

[minsue]

It does look bad, that the Dems are fighting so hard to keep a thrid party candidate from running. But I suspect the GOP fought just as hard to keep Perrot off them.

I wa sorta leaning towards the theory that Nader was hoping to force the Dems into giving him the nod for VP, but from all that's been said here, I don't think that's the case now.

-Colly

It did amaze me that the GOP was shoulder-to-shoulder with the Dems in the effort to keep Nader out of the debates on the last go-round. I'm guessing they'll be delivering him a gold-plated invite this time.

 

[KarenAM]

I should be clearer about this: Nader's megalomania served us well when he did consumer advocacy. He's a pain in the ass and that's what we need for that job. The problem is that it means he's good at criticzing, but not so good at actually solving problems (which as a consumer advocate he doesn't have to be; fixing problems with their cars was GM's responsibility, not his). But a president has to solve problems, not merely identify them, and I see no evidence that Nader is interested in doing that. My assessment of the man is not based on whether or not he can win in November, but his qualifications as a candidate; I wouldn't vote for him if mine was the deciding vote, based on the fact that I think he'd be a terrible president.

As to third parties, you're preaching to the choir. I voted for Jesse Ventura and am proud to say so, even though I don't agree with many of the things he did. I also voted for John Anderson in 1980. But we must be realistic about what we want to happen in an election, even if we don't like all the choices. This time around, I feel that getting Bush and his team out of power serves the national interest (and the world interest), and although I'm not thrilled with Kerry, I find him an acceptable alternative. Because Nader's nihilism attracts votes from folks who would never vote for Bush but who might at least vote for Kerry to oppose Bush, I believe that in this case Nader's candidacy helps Bush, which I feel in this election is not in the interests of the United States.

This would of course all be academic if the election of our president was actually done by popular vote. What the two big parties really cling to is the Electoral College, which is what really gave Bush the presidency. I'd have far less complaint about Nader's candidacy if I felt my vote actually counted regardless of which state I live in. But as long as this bit of oligarchy remains (and the Democrats haven't raised a peep about doing away with it, even after the 2000 election debacle), third parties will be irrelevent except as spoilers, which helps no one.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

It did amaze me that the GOP was shoulder-to-shoulder with the Dems in the effort to keep Nader out of the debates on the last go-round. I'm guessing they'll be delivering him a gold-plated invite this time.

I wouldn't be surprised if the GOP found a way to delcine any debates. Public speaking isn't one of GW's strong suits.

-Colly

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Thaks Doc. Do you think he thinks he has any possibility of winning or is he just running on the none of the above ticket?

-Colly

I agree pretty much 100% with what KarenAM said about him. he's an egomaniac and always has been, even when he was fighting GM, whihc required a good dose of egomania. And like I said, egomaniacs can do good as well as bad, and Nader's done quite a bit of good.

He's a True Believer and an idealist, and has never been pragmatic, and I think he's running on his sense of inflated ego as well as his convictions. In his wildest flights of fancy he probably sees himself leading a kind of Green/Consumer's Rights Party, which is not exactly what America needs at this point in history, but that goes right by him. In my opinion--and I'm pretty sure Colly disagrees with me about this--idealists make very bad and even dangerous political leaders, whether they're on the right or the left.

Nader's been against things for so long that I can't really tell you what he's for, but I would expect his agenda would be ultra-ultra-liberal.

And whatever happened to Lyndon LaRouche and the plans to crisscross America with shipping canals?

---dr.M.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I agree pretty much 100% with what KarenAM said about him. he's an egomaniac and always has been, even when he was fighting GM, whihc required a good dose of egomania. And like I said, egomaniacs can do good as well as bad, and Nader's done quite a bit of good.

He's a True Believer and an idealist, and has never been pragmatic, and I think he's running on his sense of inflated ego as well as his convictions. In his wildest flights of fancy he probably sees himself leading a kind of Green/Consumer's Rights Party, which is not exactly what America needs at this point in history, but that goes right by him. In my opinion--and I'm pretty sure Colly disagrees with me about this--idealists make very bad and even dangerous political leaders, whether they're on the right or the left.

Nader's been against things for so long that I can't really tell you what he's for, but I would expect his agenda would be ultra-ultra-liberal.

And whatever happened to Lyndon LaRouche and the plans to crisscross America with shipping canals?

---dr.M.

Actually Doc, I'm in 100% agreement with you. Idealists don't make good political leaders right or left. Politics is a place for pragmatists.

-Colly

 

[Pure]

This stuff on Nader as egomaniac, as having messiah complex, seems a bit much. No evidence presented. Didn't Bush say he was chosen by God?

Let us start with the most obvious reason for running: to put an issue on the ballot, be it consumer safety/rights/ environmental concerns.

Can anyone say why that can't be true?

If the guy gets a significant percentage, then those folks think the dems are weak in those areas. Probably they are. (Do they really want the gov questioning what goes into Heinz Ketchup.)

It's the same reason that people would vote for Perot, or the Judge Roy Moore from Alabama; an issue is not covered.

These candidates are like 'wake up' calls to the main parties: Hey you're not addressing my concerns.

So arguably it improves the two parties, in that they'll try to capture the votes next time, ie incorporate some of those concernts.

However, mightn't it undermine the two party system? Yes. But maybe someone can explain why that's bad.

Now the Electoral College system is wonky, but that's another issue. Hey, even the US Senate is a pretty weird, implausible institution.

 

[Pure]

here's what the nader site says are his issues.

To the right is a growing list of issue statements. Below are some initial summaries of many of Mr. Nader's positions, as you can see, unlike President Bush and the Democratic Party, Ralph Nader :
Wants Equal Rights for Women
Ralph Nader endorses the full eleven-point agenda for economic, social and political rights of women put forward by the National Organization for Women. The NOW platform is reprinted below. The Nader Campaign also announced that it would have a contingent . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Supports the Proposals of the Ad Hoc Coalition to Restore Retirement Security
In recent years, hundreds of large companies have broken long-standing pension and health insurance promises to their loyal, longtime employees and retirees. These unfair practices are accelerating, rather than diminishing, and are undercutting the retire . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Wants to make health care universally available
We need to get the insurance companies out of administering health care, increase patient choice, expand coverage and save money. The United States spends far more on health care per capita than any other country in the world, but more than an 45 million Ame . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Wants electoral reform that creates a vibrant, active, participatory Democracy.
Our democracy is in a descending crisis. Voter turnout is among the lowest in the western world. Redistricting ensures very few incumbents are at risk in one-party districts. Barriers to full participation of candidates proliferate making it very obstru . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Wants open and accountable electronic voting
A bedrock of democracy is making sure that every vote counts. The counting of votes needs to be transparent so people can trust that their vote is counted as they cast it. Paperless electronic voting on touch screen machines does not provide confidence to ensure votes are counted the way voters intend.

The software on which votes are counted is protected as a corporate trade secret and the software is so complex that if malicious code was embedded no analysis could discover it. Further, because there is no voter verified paper record, it is not possible to audit the electronic vote for accuracy, nor is it possible to conduct an independent recount. This Primary Day six million voters will be voting on paperless electronic voting machines. This is a grotesquely designed, over-complicated expensive system fraught with the potential for mistakes and undetected fraud.
[Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Wants a crackdown on corporate crime and abuse
The US needs to crack down on corporate crime, fraud and abuse that have just in the last four years looted and drained trillions of dollars from workers, investors, pension holders and consumers. Among the reforms needed are resources to prosecute and c . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Wants a fair tax where the wealthiest and corporations pay their fair share, tax wealth more than work, and tax activities we dislike more than necessities
The complexity and distortions of the federal tax code produces distributions of tax incidence and payroll tax burdens that are skewed in favor of the wealthy and the corporations further garnished by tax shelters, insufficient enforcement and other avoid . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Opposes media bias and media concentration
The mass media in the United States is extremely concentrated, and the messages that they send are too broadly uniform. Six global corporations control more than half of all mass media in our country: newspapers, magazines, books, radio and television. Ou . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

A family farm-consumer agriculture policy
American agriculture is being dominated by two contrary trends in the 21st Century. First, conventional family farm agricultural production is being destroyed by low prices and lack of market access due to mergers, acquisitions by big agribusinesses and . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Wants to end poverty in the United States
As the wealthiest country in the world, with high productivity per capita, a country that produces an abundance of capital, credit, technology and food, we can end poverty. Yet, according to the Bureau of the Census poverty and hunger for children and ad . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Wants to create jobs by investing in America's future, invest in Americans
Since January 2001, 2.7 million jobs have been lost and more than 75% of those jobs have been high wage, high productivity manufacturing jobs. Overall 5.6% of Americans are unemployed while 10.5% of African Americans are unemployed. Unemployment among La . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Wants to expand worker's rights by developing an employee bill of rights
The rights of workers' have been on the decline. It is time to reverse that trend and begin to give worker's – the backbone of the US economy – the rights they deserve. Workers need a living wage – not a minimum wage; access to health care and no unila . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Wants fair trade that protects the environment, labor rights and consumer needs
NAFTA and the WTO makes commercial trade supreme over environmental, labor, and consumer standards and need to be replaced with open agreements that pull-up rather than pull down these standards. These forms of secret autocratic governance and their detai . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

A federal budget that puts human needs before corporate greed and corporate militarism
The United States needs a redirected federal budget that adequately funds the crucial priorities like infrastructure, transit and other public works, schools, clinics, libraries, forests, parks, sustainable energy and pollution controls. The budget shoul . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Corporations should not be given equal rights with humans
A national debate is needed regarding the necessity to reverse the dicta in the 1886 Supreme Court Case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad that first awarded the corporation constitutional status as a person and in subsequent decision. Cor . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Education for everyone
Education is primarily the responsibility of state and local governments. The federal government has a critical supporting role to play in ensuring that all children -- irrespective of the income of their parents, or their race -- are provided with rich l . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq
The quagmire of the Iraq war and occupation could have been averted and needs to be ended expeditiously, replacing US forces with a UN peacekeeping force, prompt supervised elections and humanitarian assistance before we sink deeper into this occupation, . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Wants to restore and expand civil liberties and constitutional rights
Civil liberties and due process of law are eroding due to the “war on terrorism” and new technology that allows easy invasion of privacy. Americans of Arab descent and Muslim-Americans are feeling the brunt of these dragnet, arbitrary practices. Mr. Nade . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Supports Equal Rights for Gays and Lesbians
Ralph supports equal rights for gays and lesbians, including equal rights for same-sex couples. He opposes President Bush’s proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages as adults should be treated equally under the law on this matter. Ral . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Wants to reform the criminal injustice system
We need to get smart on preventing crime, invest in education, rehabilitation and restore safe neighborhoods and communities. The United States prison binge has resulted in over 2 million people being incarcerated – the US now holds one out of four of th . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Wants to end the war on drugs
The drug war has failed – we spend nearly $50 billion annually on the drug war and problems related to drug abuse continue to worsen. We need to acknowledge that drug abuse is a health problem with social and economic consequences. Therefore, the solutio . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Environment
The epidemic of silent environmental violence continues. Whether it is the 65,000 Americans who die every year from air pollution, or the 80,000 estimated annual fatalities from hospital malpractice, or the 100,000 Americans whose demise comes from occupa . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Wants to create a new energy policy
We urge a new clean energy policy that no longer subsidizes entrenched oil, nuclear, electric and coal mining interests -- an energy policy that is efficient, sustainable and environmentally friendly. We need to invest in a diversified energy policy inclu . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Toward consumer justice
The enforcement of consumer protection laws, especially against the terrible abuses in low-income communities, needs to be given the leadership and resources required. Neither Party in control of our city or national government has concerned itself with s . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Toward saving lives by increasing motor vehicle safety
About 800 Americans die on the roads every week on the average or over 40,000 a year, plus hundreds of thousands of injuries and tens of billion in economic losses. Since 1966 the irregular implementation of the federal motor vehicle and safety laws have . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Toward a world of peace, justice, and fulfillment of human possibilities within a sustainable environment
Our foreign policy must redefine the elements of global security, peace, arms control, an end to nuclear weapons and expand the many assets of our country to launch, with other nations, major initiatives against global infections diseases (such as AIDS, m . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Favors Youth Voting: Lowering the Voting Age to 16
Ralph Nader favors lowering the voting age to 16 years old. He recognizes that 16 year olds work, pay taxes and more and more often are subjected to criminal laws passed that treat them like adults. In addition, democracy in the United States needs to b . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

Supports Civil Rights of Muslim and Arab Americans
According to a report released on March 3 by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, "The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the United States 2004," Muslims in the United States experienced more than 1,000 incidents of asserted harassment, violence and . . . [Full Text >> ] | [to Top ^ ]

 

[cantdog]

And you won't see Dems or Reps trying to break the stranglehold of the corporations on the political discourse in this country. Not to protect people from being poisoned, not to protect people from being exploited, not to keep people from being enslaved into the prison industrial system. The enormous crimes committed in the name of profit here and abroad do not concern the major parties for the very good reason that their campaigns are funded by the criminals themselves.

That is why they close ranks to shut Nader out, to shut Kucinich out, and so on. Any progressive populist who wants the decisions about mercury in the air and water, shit in the meat, mad cow, organic chlorides, education or anything else you can name to be actually made by the people of the United States is shut out, shouted down, lied about, imprisoned, and sometimes killed outright.

The people are there to work for low wages and to act as consumers. Decisions are made by corporations for no nobler purpose than to enrich themselves.

But you don't want this debate any more, because you've bought that shit. Go to one of his stops on his campaign and meet the man. Listen to his supporters one time. It's your children who are having to get breast cancers, lowered sperm counts, and all the other things resulting from the incredible amounts of toxic chemicals spread around in the name of a few billionaires being able to fatten their bank accounts.

But parrot the lines they give you to say, people. The feds will allow you to fly in an airline if you do. The police won't be knocking on your door and hauling you off someplace to be indefinitely detained if you do. Be safe. Be careful. Be obedient. Breathe the fuckin air and wish you had health insurance. But don't for God's sake rock the boat.

That would be a very egomaniacal thing to do.

cantdog