Ralph Nader enters US presidential race

[mas-36]

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader has once again entered the US presidential race. Many feel he has become to the Democrats what Ross Perot was to the Republicans.

Will he force a repeat of his last two runs by leaching votes, or will he be ignored? Your thoughts?

[gaijinsamurai]

I don't think he'll get much support this time around. If he fvcks this up for the Dems, I can see him becoming an even greater pariah amongst progressives, even though I doubt McCain will be the disaster that Bush has become.

[Power_serj]

Hahahah, this is soooo great. He's just going to steal votes from Obama! GO MCCAIN!

[Freedom-Fries]

LOL here we go again

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i45/FloydAnderson/Ralph_Nader.jpg
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hdZUJP8-gz42-gMFNsfoHzcHTcfQ

Nader mixes up 2008 race with new White House run





WASHINGTON (AFP) — Consumer champion Ralph Nader announced Sunday a fresh tilt at the White House, eight years after earning the acid hatred of Democrats for dividing the anti-Republican camp in a razor-thin vote.
Denying that he was running as a "spoiler" who could hand the presidency to Republican John McCain, Nader accused both the main parties of shutting out the US public and handing the nation over to corporate interests.
"Dissent is the mother of assent, and in that context I have decided to run for president," Nader, who turns 74 on Wednesday, said on the NBC program "Meet the Press."
As Nader railed against the "political bigotry" of Democrats still smarting from their 2000 loss, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton girded for a four-state battle March 4 that could decide the former first lady's political fate.
Pundits had detected a hint of farewell in Clinton's closing remarks at a debate with Obama last week. But the New York senator came out firing Saturday, declaring "shame" on her rival for attacking her healthcare and trade policies.
Amid the Democratic infighting, Nader declared: "If the Democrats can't landslide the election this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down."
But Nader, who rose to prominence by campaigning for auto safety in the 1960s, said he still had a message to offer for those "locked out" by the perennial Republican-Democratic duel.
Whether it was the war in Iraq, the Palestinian issue, environmental threats or the power of Wall Street, "you have to ask yourself as a citizen, should we elaborate the issues the two are not talking about?"
Standing as a Green party candidate in 2000, Nader took more than 97,000 votes in Florida, outraging Democrats who said he had siphoned off enough support from former vice president Al Gore to hand victory to George W. Bush.
But he won just 0.3 percent of the national vote as an independent in 2004, when he appeared on the presidential ballot in only 34 states.
Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, an Obama supporter, was derisory about Nader's latest intervention.
"I mean, when you get into running for your third or fourth time, I don't think people will pay that much attention to it, and I wouldn't see it having any effect on the race," he said on Fox News.
Pundits said the billionaire mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, would pose a greater threat to the main parties. Bloomberg has denied he is planning a White House run but his protests have done little to silence the media buzz.
Obama, who is bidding to knock Clinton out of the race when Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont vote on March 4, said Saturday anybody had the right to run for president if they qualified.
"And I think the job of the Democratic Party is to be so compelling that a few percentage of the vote going to another candidate is not going to make any difference," he told reporters.
Obama said Nader had telephoned him on Friday and "reached out to my campaign," and cast his opponent as a "heroic figure" for blazing a trail for environmental protection and consumer rights.
But the Illinois senator, who is riding high after 11 nominating wins in a row over Clinton, added of Nader: "He seems to have a pretty high opinion of his own work."
Nader described Obama as a "person of substance" but said the senator had allowed his own "better instincts" to be compromised in the White House battle.
McCain was meanwhile "the candidate for perpetual war," Nader said, calling for the impeachment of the "criminal recidivist regime of George Bush and (Vice President) **** Cheney."
McCain has enjoyed a bounce in support from hardline conservatives after The New York Times last week insinuated an improper relationship between the maverick Republican front-runner and a female lobbyist eight years ago.
Obama campaigned Sunday in Ohio while Clinton headed to Rhode Island. The pair were to meet for a final televised debate on Tuesday in Cleveland, Ohio.
A spate of reports said Clinton's advisors were eyeing the potential end of her White House campaign. Her spokesman dismissed as "nonsense" one such report in The Washington Post.

[Stonewall71]

Is this guy paid by the republicans or what?

[Euroamerican]

He sure took some swipes at the Bush Administration during the Meet the Press TV show.

I'm all for getting more candidates into the mix. I'm not satisfied with the three main choices at this time. Neither McCain, Obama, nor Clinton really make me want to get out and vote.

I'll take a look at the planks in his platform.

[Mofreaka]

LOL here we go again

Here it goes, here it goes, here it goes again. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI)

[ronnieraygun]

One thing is for certain: this man has a hell of an ego.

[maw]

One thing is for certain: this man has a hell of an ego.

wtf are you talking about? nader is a selfless adherent to his cause. he's probably saved more lives then any politician in recent memory. he was leading the charge against corporate hegemony and corporate welfare in washington before either edwards or obama could even read. do you know anything about him? he lives a rent controlled apartment that last i heard didn't even have a land line, he was using the communal phone in the corridor. love him or hate him, he's serious about his beliefs and convictions, he's not about the money or the ego stroke.

have you read any of his books, he criticizes the dems as much as the republicans. he sees both parties as two sides of the same coin. you want to talk about real change? read some of his books. don't despise him just because you've drunk from the mainstream media candidate favoring kool-aid fountain. as far as i can see, the only candidates that truly offered radical changes have been ron paul, nader and perhaps alan keyes. the rest just offer a variation of business as usual.

fwiw, of the three leading candidates we have presently i'll reluctantly pick obama, but don't kid yourself. everything is broken, therefore everything has to be fixed. obama's scope at this point is far too limited to put him in the savior category.

ego my a$$. he is within his rights to run, so deal with it.

[Mastermind]

Headline "Nader Enters Political Race for President" is the same as headline "Scientists Discover Ice is Cold" or "Cat's Found to Be Felines"

[ronnieraygun]

wtf are you talking about? nader is a selfless adherent to his cause. he's probably saved more lives then any politician in recent memory. he was leading the charge against corporate hegemony and corporate welfare in washington before either edwards or obama could even read. do you know anything about him? he lives a rent controlled apartment that last i heard didn't even have a land line, he was using the communal phone in the corridor. i'm serious.

have you read any of his books, he criticizes the dems as much as the republicans. he sees both parties as two sides of the same coin. you want to talk about real change? read some of his books. don't despise him just because you've drunk from the mainstream media candidate favoring kool-aid fountain. as far as i can see, the only candidates that truly offered radical changes have been ron paul, nader and perhaps alan keyes. the rest just offer a variation of business as usual.

fwiw, of the three leading candidates we have presently i'll reluctantly pick obama, but don't kid yourself. everything is broken, therefore everything has to be fixed. obama's scope at this point is far too limited to put him in the savior category.

ego my a$$. he is within his rights to run, so deal with it.

No offense, but you've packed a lot of assumptions in your post from one sentence of mine. It's nice that you feel so strongly about him, though. He very well may be a great guy with lots of principles, but my point stands. If he did not have an ego he would have coalesced with others for a viable third-party candidacy and canvassed for the best person to run for the third party, not play this tired old schtick every election year about how he is the great white knight coming to save our broken-down system. BTW, I probably read Unsafe at Any Speed when you were in diapers.

[Mastermind]

wtf are you talking about? nader is a selfless adherent to his cause. he's probably saved more lives then any politician in recent memory. he was leading the charge against corporate hegemony and corporate welfare in washington before either edwards or obama could even read. do you know anything about him? he lives a rent controlled apartment that last i heard didn't even have a land line, he was using the communal phone in the corridor. love him or hate him, he's serious about his beliefs and convictions, he's not about the money or the ego stroke.

have you read any of his books, he criticizes the dems as much as the republicans. he sees both parties as two sides of the same coin. you want to talk about real change? read some of his books. don't despise him just because you've drunk from the mainstream media candidate favoring kool-aid fountain. as far as i can see, the only candidates that truly offered radical changes have been ron paul, nader and perhaps alan keyes. the rest just offer a variation of business as usual.

fwiw, of the three leading candidates we have presently i'll reluctantly pick obama, but don't kid yourself. everything is broken, therefore everything has to be fixed. obama's scope at this point is far too limited to put him in the savior category.

ego my a$$. he is within his rights to run, so deal with it.
Might as well pick the candidate whose every living blood relative lives in Africa and are Muslims.

Funny, I recall a few years ago when the line was dropped about Arnold running for Prez...and the outrage that followed was over "What if we had a problem with Austria?"

Now, almost total silence over a man running for POTUS who has written in his own book that Islam is what gave him his manhood and how sympathetic he is to the Islamic problems with the west...Most folks Gag on that for at least a little while...And then he marries a raice baiting black bigot who has never been proud of her nation, the United States of America until a few weeks ago...go figure.

Ralph Nader is actually starting to look pretty good to me, now considering the fools we have at the lead for candidacy. At least he's full blooded American.

[maw]

No offense, but you've packed a lot of assumptions in your post from one sentence of mine. It's nice that you feel so strongly about him, though. He very well may be a great guy with lots of principles, but my point stands. If he did not have an ego he would have coalesced with others for a viable third-party candidacy and canvassed for the best person to run for the third party, not play this tired old schtick every election year about how he is the great white knight coming to save our broken-down system. BTW, I probably read Unsafe at Any Speed when you were in diapers.

fair enough, i apologize if i shot too fast. i'll tone it down a couple of notches. what gets my goat is dems who whine about losing the election because nader stole some votes. perhaps their candidates should have addressed the issues that nader voters cared about. also, it peeves me when i see edwards preaching his "new" religon of anti-corporatism when nader literally wrote the book on the topic.
regarding "viable third-party candidacy and canvassed", that's what i thought the whole dog and pony show with keyes was last time round.
regarding the reading, of his more contemporary writings i'd highly recommend "the ralph nader reader". it contains a good selection of his essays and thoughts on a varied selection of topics. frankly, i'm not sure nader is ideally equipped to manage running the country and as such i don't i could vote for him as president. however, the topics he cares and talks about fundamentally important to us as a nation.

btw, i'm fairly crusty myself.

[maw]

Ralph Nader is actually starting to look pretty good to me, now considering the fools we have at the lead for candidacy. At least he's full blooded American.

not that it matters, but as an fyi his ancestry is lebanese.

[Mastermind]

It does not matter...he's born here and has never said how ashamed he was of this nation or stated how embarrassed he is to be an American. He has stayed American all the way....and to my knowledge, he is not a flaming commie rat bsatrad or a racist or a closet Muslim..

[Invisigoth]

It does not matter...he's born here and has never said how ashamed he was of this nation or stated how embarrassed he is to be an American. He has stayed American all the way....and to my knowledge, he is not a flaming commie rat bsatrad or a racist or a closet Muslim..

You have serious anger issues. Do you even listen to yourself? Closet Muslim? rofl

[Indianer]

No...he doesn't have any anger issues...

[fmj43]

Nader's like a damn tripwire....he can bleed votes from either party bucket if the candidates don't avoid him or his loony platform.

[Albatross]

Go nader, thank god. I kept praying for this to come. McCain will get his shot . I didn't know who I was going to vote for until the Dem's finally showed up to the race. Obama is scary, Clinton is spineless, and McCain is a good man. Was worried that he might not win until I saw this gem. Bush is such a complete and utter failure as our President that I didn't think the GOP could ever win again. Thank you Ralph Nader, for my safety and new president.

[Freedom-Fries]

Nader Calls Out Obama's "Pro-Palestinian" Past

http://www.rjchq.org/News.asp?FormMode=Detail&ID=1283

[gaijinsamurai]

I'ver got no problem with the fact that Obama has expressed support for the legitimate rights of Palestinians. He is, at the same time, a supporter of Israel, and rightly so.

The two are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to feel sympathy for people who have been largely confined to refugee camps for 40-some years and at the same time, recognize the rights of Israelis to live in security.

I've also have no problem with Obama, or any other candidate for that matter, modifying their views on issues over time, as long as they aren't doing it for strictly political (cough*HILL-cough-ARY*cough-cough) reasons, and are doing it because they have matured or gained new information or appreciation for something.

Nader is a tool, and at this point, is not doing anything constructive with his life.

[gaijinsamurai]

not that it matters, but as an fyi his ancestry is lebanese.

As a whole, the Lebanese-American community has been very productive and have contributed a lot to the US. They have much to be proud of.

[budgie]

Hahahah, this is soooo great. He's just going to steal votes from Obama! GO MCCAIN!


That was the danger back when a hard-right Republican nominee could be sure of his base and the Dems had uninspiring candidates, but the field is different this time around. Obama has new voters and moderates all fired up in a way rarely seen among the apathetic American electorate. Clinton and McCain are both pretty centrist: if people bother making what they know will be merely a protest vote for Nader, they're as likely to come from the moderate Republicans as from the Dems. And with a candidate as popular as Obama, the Dems this year will be on no mood for 'protest votes'.

[Satellite Weapon]

God Bless Ralph Nader (http://globalpolitician.com/24238-nader-elections)