Ralph Nader announced his bid for the presidential nomination Sunday amidst much criticism from the Democratic party and others wishing to remove President Bush from office.
I have always liked Ralph Nader. He is a man with good convictions who has done much work for consumer protection and the environment. However, I had always been against him running in the 2004 presidential election. After watching his interview on “Meet the Press” Sunday morning, I changed my mind. I guess I just needed to hear him talk.
Nader responded to some issues Democratic candidates, John Edwards and John Kerry, would never address. Besides, I never really bought into the idea of Nader as the spoiler of the 2000 election. Let me explain.
The Gore campaign was pathetic at best. He managed to lose his home state of Tennessee. He and his fellow Democrats were screwed over by the First Brother, Jeb Bush and Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris.
Harris created a purge list of voters in the state, using a Florida law that prohibits felons from Florida and several other states from voting. The problem is that only a few thousand of over 90,000 that were not allowed to vote were felons. The majority of those purged being African-American and/or Democrats not convicted of felonies. They were guilty only of having a similar name or birthday to a felon.
Consider that Bush won Florida by 537 votes and you could see that maybe the candidates from other smaller parties, such as the Libertarian party, might have accounted for the difference. But that is all in the past. What can we expect from Nader later this year? First off, Nader will not have the support of the Green party —- he is running as an Independent. It will be more difficult for him to get on as many state ballots as in 2000.
Plus, citizens will be more hesitant to cast their votes for Nader if they are worried about Bush being re-elected. Which I think is pretty sad, and so does Nader.
People in our system are forced to vote for the lesser of two evils. I think it is important for Democrats to admit that Al Gore as president would not be as drastically different from President George Bush as they would like to think.
I think it is important to realize that Bush had his chance (and failed miserably) and that while either Kerry or Edwards would both be better presidents, neither would propose the drastic changes that Nader seeks.
Nader made a lot of sense during his Sunday morning interview with Tim Russert. Democrats want to force him out of the election. In essence, they want to remove a choice from voters and go against the very foundation of Democracy.
If voters feel like Nader better represents their beliefs, then they should have the option to vote for Nader and not compromise their values.
Nader suggested impeaching President Bush on national TV. Why not? Clinton lied about sex and Bush lied about nuclear weapons. I’d say the former is at least slightly less treasonous.
Kerry and Edwards are too afraid to make such a claim. They would also be too scared to run controlling corporations out of Washington.
Nader believes in equal rights for same-sex couples, U.N. authority in Iraq, keeping jobs in America and repealing Bush tax cuts: all things Kerry and Edwards have alluded to. With Nader as president you will have a man with a history of battling corporations and not succumbing to special interests —- we can’t speak for the other candidates.
I am not telling anyone to vote for Ralph Nader —- that is their business. Still, I don’t want another four years of Bush.
However, inevitably another “George Bush” will come to power under this political system, maybe even the aforementioned younger brother Jeb in 2008. There will undoubtedly be more “John Kerrys” and “John Edwards” in the future as well. Nader, however, sets himself apart and if he sparks your interest then give him a fair shake.
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