With George W. Bush’s approval ratings hovering in the low 30s, the Iraq war grinding on with no end in sight and costs spiraling into the stratosphere, and a field of Republican Presidential candidates as inspiring as corned beef, the Republican base finally has something to cheer about: Ralph Nader is back. This is the same Nader, you may remember, who handed the 2000 election to Bush on a silver platter. If not for Nader, there would have been no recount, no Katherine Harris, no 5-4 Supreme Court decision, and no Iraq war.
The 72-year-old activist, self-promoter, and multimillionaire, rose to fame with his 1965 work Unsafe at any Speed, a very poorly-conducted study of automobile safety that purported to show how horrible many cars were, heaping gratuitous abuse on General Motors. Rather than argue the safety of their vehicles or dispute the study, GM foolishly decided to go after Nader personally, and in comically inept fashion: They tapped his phone, they followed him around, they hired hookers to try and entice him into sexual escapades they could use for blackmail. Nader won a lawsuit against GM easily, garnered just under $300,000 for himself, got tort law rewritten in the process, and landed himself in the spotlight. And like a grinning high school girl at her Sweet 16 birthday party, Nader has loved the spotlight ever since.
His foray into presidential politics began in 1980 when he urged voters not to support President Jimmy Carter, his reasoning being that "Reagan is going to breed the biggest resurgence in nonpartisan citizen activism in history." Actually, Reagan’s election led to the birth of the Reagan Youth, who were very active in moving this country far to the right. Reaganomics devastated the working class. Support of the paramilitary death squads in El Salvador left tens of thousands dead. Plus we financed a costly war and gave illegal support to the Contras in Nicaragua, which led to trading arms for hostages in the Iran-Contra scandal. As in Iran, that pesky soon-to-be Nuclear Iran, which is currently using weapons technology supplied by the US against US soldiers in Iraq. Nader proved to be as wrong about the harm that Reagan could do as he was about most things. But being wrong never stopped Nader.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Just curious, Dr. Tim,
Do you dislike Ralph Nader for some reason?
2 - Briana
There are more factual claims in this that I would dispute than I have time for, but there's only one, as someone who has read a lot of Nader-bashing that I have to pause and drop my jaw at because it's the first time I've heard it. Gore "an outspoken critic of the Iraq war from its beginning"???? Then I must be legally deaf. And by the way the Gore of "An Inconvenient Truth" only seems to come out when it's convenient for him.
3 - Dave Nalle
It's interesting to see this article so far out from the election. I guess the anti-Nader bots don't want to waste any time looking for excuses why the Democrats lose in 2008.
Nader and his less than 1% of the popular vote didn't really change anything in any of the elections he ran in, any more than the Libertarians made a difference on their end of the spectrum.
Plus, there's a fundamental flaw in the thinking of this article, which assumes that Nader drew votes only from the left, when indications are that he drew heavily from independents and substantially from the right as well ss the left. His issues and his appeal are to some extent at right angles to the normal political divisions.
But by all means, bash on. I think we can all agree that Nader is an irritating egomaniac.
Dave
4 - MCH
"I think we can all agree that Nader is an irritating egomaniac."
- Dave Nalle
Second only to Vox Populi.
5 - Mark Schannon
Hey MCH, if you're going to try to be clever, take a course or something. You could bore a corpse to death.
As to Nader, he simply doesn't have the following or credibility he once had to play spoiler. He, like MCH, should just be ignored.
In Jameson Veritas
6 - Mohjho
I still think the Corvair was the ultimate "car before it's time". Damn you Nadar.
7 - Nancy
Fortunately, IMO, Dr. Tim is right: those who would vote for Nader have dwindled to an insignificant few, at least I sure hope so. Dave, remember that both Gore & Kerry "lost" by the most infintesimal of margins, whether YOU want to believe it or not. Had Nader kept his big nose out of it instead of insisting on a 3-way, Gore/Kerry would probably have squeaked in, regardless of Bush/Rove's dirty tricks & election-rigging - and our situation & the world would be vastly different & probably better than it is now under Dolfie Cheney & his Bush baby.
Dr. T: I like yer writing. Good to see another article.
8 - Arch Conservative
Asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer if he would support Clinton's candidacy, he called her a panderer and flatterer, then went onvto say that he was more likely to run his own campaign if she wins the Democratic nomination. In other words, he'd much rather have Romney or McCain for another four years. Surely this time it will lead to a progressive revolution. His conscience is clear. But for those of us who will be the ones to suffer under such an administration, Ralph Nader should stand down, stay home, and shut up.
Oh where to being...........
Hillary is a panderer and a flatterer. She will do or say anything to get elected. She does not have an honest bone in her body and is a completely reprehensible human being in every way.
Second..........of course Romany or Mccain would be the best way to go in 2008.
Compared to Hillary "I want to take those profits and let the government use them." "we're going to take things away from you for the common good." Clinton. These Freudian slips prove what all of those opposed to her already know. That is that despite all of her posturing to appear moderate she is in fact a left wing socialist.
Or how about Barack Obama. Mr. 'if anyone actually looked at my 2 year but the MSM keeps describing me as an articulate visionary so many ignorant Americans will be fooled into thinking I'm actually a moderate.
Then you claim that Nader is really anti democracy Dr. Tim and in the same breath you say Nader should sit down shut up and stay home? Really that doesn't make you sound like too much of a hypocrite.
At least have the decency to be honest in your post Dr. Tim and say that your opposition to Nader has nothing to do with the man's views or anything that he stands for but if Nader were going to take more votes away from republicans than democrats you'd be all for him running in 2008.
Lastly is the "progressive revolution" remark. If I didn't know how deeply steeped in leftist moonbatism you are I'd be tempted to say something like "you're kidding right." But since you are a moonbat I know you believe what you said about a "progressive revolution" even though it will never happen. The only chance the Dems have of winning in 2008 is running a true moderate Dem, not someone with a long history of being leftist who has suddenly remodeled their image to appear as a centrist (aka Hillary). The majority of this nation is neither "progressive," which is code for far left, nor far right. Oh and this past election was was a referendum on the Iraq war and the shoddy Republican leadership and not an endorsement of the Democratic party or "progressive" values. So keep dreaming of that pipe dream "progressive revolution" and writing about it on BC. I find it very entertaining.
9 - Nancy
Of COURSE Hillary is a panderer & a flatterer: she's a goddamned POLITICIAN & CONGRESSMAGGOT, what the hell does anyone expect???!!! To be a whore IS the nature of a politician. Get real, people.
10 - Arch Conservative
Yeah but Hillary is such a whore that she makes every other whore look like a Catholic nun.
There's just something about her that makes rational people hate her.
11 - Nancy
You know, even some on the left don't like her enough not to vote for her; I really don't know why except that for some reason her personality grates. It isn't the whore-ishness; ALL pols as I said are that, and a lot of the men are a lot worse - like McCain, for example, or our current Slut-In-Chief, Dubya. There's just something ... I should be ashamed: she's a fellow woman, but I just don't trust her, any more than I trust Shit-For-Brains or Dirty Dick.
12 - Nancy
Arch, go to the Virtue of Offense thread & take that test; I'm curious as to where you end up placing.
13 - Dave Nalle
I imagine any of us could take the test for him and produce accurate and unflattering results somewhere in the upper right corner of the chart.
Dave
14 - Christopher Rose
From an outsider's perspective, I could find it entirely believable if Hilary Clinton was standing for the Republican Party...
15 - Clavos
Chris #14:
Care to elaborate? That's a provocative (and interesting) statement.
16 - Christopher Rose
Well, I'm certainly no expert or policy wonk, Clavos, indeed I tend to think the importance of politics is seriously over-rated most of the time, but let's see.
Firstly, even though folk like Dave Nalle and others don't seem able to accept it, to my way of thinking the entire US political spectrum is offset to the right compared to the broad spectrum of global politics, which is probably due in large part to the influence of organised religion on your local political scene.
Certainly from a European perspective, the peculiar American interest in things like punishment, both capital and otherwise, seems totally Old Testament eye-for-an-eye thinking and totally lacking in any of the sense of love and compassion that I associate with true Christianity.
There are other socio-political issues which have a uniquely American dimension to them too and which your still young nation is working through.
This means that the Democrats, notionally of the left, are more of a centrist party, whilst the Republicans have moved further to the right to accommodate that religious extremism. In that context, Hilary, or indeed her husband, could just as easily belong to a more centralist Republican party, possibly more like the Republican Party of old, before it sold it's ass to the Christian devil!
As I've touched on this topic before and been accused, mostly by Dave as it happens, of being anti-US, I'd just like to state for the record that it is entirely untrue. If I do say anything critical, it's not anti-Americanism, it's your good buddy telling you the things that others wouldn't dare!
17 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Clavos,
Speaking as someone born in America, but as someone who was given a leftist education by his old man (which supplemented the "non" partisan education I supposedly received in the Brooklyn school system), I have to agree with Chris' general statement that American politics is "offset to the right" as he puts it. Since the "Red Scare" of 1919-20, there has been no realistic political organization on what most of the world would call the left, in America. For the most part, the Democratic party is a party of the center right, while the Republican party is a party further to the right, with a small fringe in the center.
In America, socialism is a dirty word, often accompanied with a sneer or a hiss, or the snort of dismissing treason.
I do not agree with Chris' assessment that this is because America is yet a juvenile society that needs to mature, but that is irrelevant. From the point of view of a western European or an Australian, American politics is definitely off-set to the right. There is just no no left wing on the American political chicken...
18 - Daithí
Rubbish!
Hillary, Inc.'s vote for this damned war, enthusiasm for military "solutions", her politically expedient distain for Palestinians and her participation on the board of Walmart make her a Right Winger. In Progressive garb perhaps, but an empty-suit Right Winger nonetheless.
19 - Bliffle
Archie sez: "There's just something about her that makes rational people hate her."
Isn't that a contradiction? Hateful people have abandoned rationality, it would seem. At least when 'rational' is used in the modern laudatory sense, i.e., as a synonym for 'reasonable'.
20 - Arch Conservative
Christopher and Ruvy.....
Well you may be correct in saying that American politics and culture may be to the right of European and most other national politics and culture, what you fail to realize or even acknowledge is that most Americans don't care.
We like capitalism and shun socialism and that's the way we like it. We don't need to be lectured to by Europeans on the evils of our nation and we certainly don't need to take steps to become more like you.
When we say Hillary Clinton is a leftist that's because in an American context she is. I find your comparisons of American politics to European politics completely worthless in terms of practical applications.
Nancy where is the test you were talking about on the other thread? I don't see it.
21 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Bing,
"...Ruvy.....
Well you may be correct in saying that American politics and culture may be to the right of European and most other national politics and culture, what you fail to realize or even acknowledge is that most Americans don't care."
This rooster is fully aware of how self-absorbed Americans are, and how little Americans care. It contributes to your ignorance of most of world events. Add to that a dumbed down education system burdened with political correctness, and a porn-laden entertainment base, and you get an ignorant and sleazy youth that admires sluts like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.
I watched my kids slowly being sucked into this sick mix and am grateful for our refuge here.
22 - Christopher Rose
Arch, I have known for ages that most Americans don't really care about what goes on in the wider world, it's all part of the process of growing up as a country. At the moment the USA is like a strong, attractive teenager, full of confidence in it's own abilities and not needing, or seeming to need, any external validation.
However, I digress. My remarks were to Clavos, who asked why I thought of Hilary Clinton as capable of standing for the Republicans. Nobody was suggesting that you (love the way you suddenly speak for your whole country when talking to a foreigner by the way, right after arguing with your fellow Americans, but let's leave that for another thread) "need to be lectured to by Europeans on the evils of our nation and we certainly don't need to take steps to become more like you".
There are two links to that test on the other thread, Archie, one by D'oh and one by me.
23 - Heloise
I have been watching the Nader interviews, while recovering from oral surgery.
He does not pass the grandparents test for me. He and Barack don't have grandparents, from both sides, born in this country. For that reason alone I would not vote for either.
Nader needs to go to the Middle East and fix, ha ha, fix things up there.
He said that Bloomberg could stop Hillary. He hinted that Mike was thinking of running, maybe.
But that aside, if a person goes into take a test knowing only enough to pass it, then guess what? They probably won't pass the test. Same with candidates. If all you can garner are less than 50% then you are in for an uphill fight.
Let's see: Barack could have been tending goats, and Nader tending olive trees if it were not for the generosity and largess of USA immigration laws. So much for democracy. They are NOT our people.
There are too many Americans to chose from. Join unity 08...
Heloise
24 - Clavos
Chris and Ruvy,
Thanks for your explication of Hillary as Republican.
I actually agree with both of your opinions that America as a nation is to the right of much of the rest of the world. As to whether that's a bad thing or not, well, that would, I think, depend on one's political POV.
While we certainly have our flaws and have been known to make some monumental mistakes (Vietnam, Iraq, giving women the vote :>)) in our short, but eventful history, the way I see it, to simultaneously be one of the youngest nations on Earth and currently the richest and most powerful one as well, has to mean that we have done some things well.
Because of my personal beliefs, I think one of those things is our embracing of a "free market" (another discussion there) economic system. It, along with our wealth in natural resources, and the industry of our immigrant people, account for the wealth. And this, of course, is right wing.
Another of our strengths, our Constitution (and here, a tip of the hat to our British heritage and their Magna Carta), AND our consecration and vigorous defense of it, have provided our people with one of the most politically stable and freely open societies in history. This I see as liberal, "Classic liberal," as opposed to modern "left" liberalism, but still with appeal to both right and left.
I think, Chris, that you're right about our religious emphasis. Some of it is our Puritan heritage, but there are modern influences as well: The USA is the largest Roman Catholic nation in the world, last I heard.
And, of course, the increase in importance and power of the Fundamentalist Christian sects has wrought profound changes in the political landscape in recent years. I am not comfortable with this "right wing" aspect of our culture.
I am adamantly opposed to socialism. I think a free market system creates vastly more wealth for a society. In this particular one, for all our talk of poverty, even our welfare recipients have higher incomes than millions of people in the rest of the world.
We do have a distribution problem. It's being addressed, though not yet adequately, but the goading of the left to convince the more extreme right that the problem is there and must be addressed, is a good thing. I DO hope, however, that in our zeal to fix this problem, we stop short of socialism.
Finally, I would say: for all our "adolescence," at bottom, we're good kids (even shark), and will probably grow up to be "somebody" one day.
(Steps off soapbox)
25 - Nancy
Clavos, I would hardly call the Catholic church "modern"! In attitude as well as practice & policies, it's antediluvian & becoming more so as the extreme right among the clergy dig in their heels. I'm surprised the current pope admits that women have souls; he certainly doesn't believe that they should have equality, in the RC church or out of it. Also if you examine the adherents of the RC church, you'll find that the preponderance of them around the world are - save for a small, socially-minded, radical minority - are conservative to the point of reactionary in their various societies, & tend to be the most uneducated and poorest segment of the society they inhabit, easily controlled by the extremely archaic church heirarchy. Hardly a recommendation of an institution to be "modern".