Ralph Nader's Candidacy 2004



So... Ralph Nader is running for president. This is in spite of the fact that many Democrats don't want him to run, fearing he would take votes away from John Kerry , possibly giving a victory to George W. Bush . Maybe they've got a point. Truth be told, I'm not sure.

Many Democrats blame Nader's candidacy in 2000 for the fact that Al Gore lost to George W. Bush. The evidence they cite is that in several states that Bush won, including Florida and his home state of Tennessee, the margin of victory for Bush was less than the number of votes that Nader took. I suppose that you need some degree of common sense and logic to establish that Gore might have won those states had Nader's name not been on the ballot, but it's a somewhat simplistic argument. In all actuality, someone who voted for Nader in 2000 would have done one of four things had he not been on the ballot. In increasing likelihood, they are:

1. Voted for some other third party candidate
2. Voted for Bush
3. Voted for Gore
4. Not voted at all

This is not a scientific poll by any stretch of the imagination, and it is entirely possible that item number 1 above, which I put as "least likely" could in fact be the second most likely and therefore it would fall closer to item number 3.

Personally, I think the reason Gore lost was because he didn't run as good a campaign as he easily could have.

Anyway, back to 2004. Obviously, a lot of Democrats think that Nader should not be running. If it's that widespread a belief, then I think it's safe to say that they won't vote for him, regardless of whether his name's on the ballot, and that's their prerogative.

I'll say this much. Irrespective of what else is happening, Nader has given us little reason to actually vote for him. In the opening paragraph to this blog item, I linked my page to all three candidates' websites. Although Ralph Nader's website this year is much more user-friendly than the one he had four years ago, it appears that the sum and substance of his message is that Washington, DC is under the control of large corporations.

Thinking back to Dan Quayle's speech on election night, 1992, he said that if Bill Clinton runs the country the same way he ran his campaign, we'll be fine. I really liked that speech (as did a lot of people, from my understanding... Judging everything simply on the way he's running his campaign, I don't see a single reason to vote for Nader.

Still, a Nader candidacy should at least shine a glaring light on the fact that the constitution generally makes third party candidates non-entities and spoilers of elections. True reform to allow third party and independent candidates should start with constitutional amendments.

Until then, we might just be hostages to the corporate interests, controlling Washington, DC.

Posted: Fri - August 13, 2004 at 07:39 AM        

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