Darth Nader

You know, there are a number of more interesting stories out there than Ralph Nader's entry into the 2008 presidential race. But since this is first and foremost a political blog let's address it and be done with it.

Yesterday on Meet The Press, Nader gave his usual rant on the corporatization of both parties and voter dissatisfaction as valid reasons to run. He brushed off the criticism that Democrats hold him responsible for eight years of George Bush (he got 97,000 votes in Florida, 60% of which were projected to have gone to Gore, giving Gore a clear victory in that state and the election). Then he went down his admirable but Utopian checklist of progressive issues that he wants to address: worker disenfranchisement; corporate greed; bloated military spending; the Palestinian question and climate change. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23319215/

So, what's the problem here? It's a free country. Shouldn't we encourage people who want to run for office? Doesn't the two party system stifle debate on many issues? And isn't this just a Democratic issue? I mean, Republicans, have no problem because they see this as a boon to their chances in November. It's just Democrats who are afraid that Nader will once again siphon away a small but critical portion of their vote. So what is the problem?

I see four of them:
1. Nader can't win. It's not just his agenda. America, rightly or wrongly, is not going to vote for a 74 year old dude with a droopy eye who has never held political office. I'm sorry. And after eight years of George Bush a large section of the electorate is not in a very charitable mood. This was a point Tim Russert unbelievably never raised. Why run if you have no chance of winning? To bring issues to the forefront of the political debate? There are many other ways to do that. And if you can't even make it close in a Presidential election, why not try to influence local or Congressional races where Naderites might actually get elected?
2. In a huge country with such divergent interests, politics is all about compromise. As worthy as Nader's agenda may be, reform needs to be incremental. It will not come from a top down figure, it needs to be a grass roots deal.
3. As Hillary Clinton said when told that Nader ran as a Green Party candidate in 2000, “Well, you know, his being on the Green Party prevented Al Gore from being the greenest president we’ve ever had”. Precisely.
4. Finally, if you want to inject an agenda into the Presidential race, run early, not now. Now, is just a coward's game, the equivalent of crying wolf.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/the-candidates-on-nader/index.html?hp

The point is, presidential elections often present less than perfect choices. In elections, as in life, you can't have everything. So you compromise to get the best possible outcome, as reflected by the will of the people. But without a straight popular vote, the electoral structure makes it possible for a third party candidate to skew the will of the people. Eugene McCarthy gave us Richard Nixon. Nader gave us George Bush. In both cases, one thing was clear: the majority of Americans didn't want Nixon or Bush as President. But that's who we got. And history has not looked kindly on those choices.

So, as I see it, Ralph Nader once again runs the risk of obscuring the will of the people. But this time should be much different for Nader. He will see an energized Democratic electorate who may nod to him deferentially for the outstanding service he has performed as a consumer and worker advocate. But he can forget 2.7% of the vote. As Barack Obama noted, “...his function as a perennial candidate is not putting food on the table of workers...He seems to have a pretty high opinion of his own work."

In other words, the jig is up. Dems aren't going over to that dark side again.

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