OKAY, first things first: Ralph Nader can kiss my ass.
What else can you say about a man who, for the explicit purpose of ego gratification, has likely put in office a candidate whose principles he vehemently opposes? Whatever the final result of this Florida debacle, Ralph Nader has cost Al Gore a clear victory, and more likely cost him the election outright. Gary Sellers, a former member of Nader's Raiders, the consumer activist team, gave the best eulogy for Nader's successful hijacking of an election: "He's dead politically. People won't return his phone calls. He has alienated his closest friend. And he has done it with clear understanding of the consequences" ("Nader Falls Short of the 5% Needed for the Green Party to Get Federal Campaign Funds" The New York Times, Nov. 8).
It is an increasingly popular habit around election time for people to complain - although "bitch" is a more accurate term - about the lack of a third party. Occasionally, a popular third party movement will spring up, but it usually dies just as quickly. A viable third party candidate - Ross Perot in 1992 and Jesse Ventura in Minnesota in 1998 - has to espouse ideas that appeal to a large portion of the voting public. In no way did Ralph Nader - living in his leftist fantasy world - come close to fulfilling this element of third party success.
In the end, his campaign was never about building, as he terms it, "the third largest party in America." Ralph Nader's campaign was, from its inception, about one thing: Ralph Nader. This formerly admirable man has visited serious damage upon our country in the name of his ego, and for that he deserves nothing but scorn.
If you want proof that personal attention was at the forefront in Nader's ego-driven quest, look no further than the way he ran his campaign. On the surface, Nader claimed his goal was 5 percent of the national vote, enough for the Green Party to qualify for federal matching funds in 2004. One would assume that Nader would focus his campaign in places where left-leaning voters would be most willing to vote for him instead of Gore - states where either Bush or Gore were overwhelmingly in the lead. But that would make too much sense.
Rather than take the more promising route to 5 percent, Nader chose to behave - and campaign - as if he were a viable candidate. He campaigned in states like Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin and Minnesota - all states that should have been easy Gore wins, but ended up as battleground states due to Nader. Nader chose this course because it gave him more media attention, despite failing miserably in getting him to 5 percent of the popular vote. And as we all know by now, his presence in Florida was the main factor in the likely Bush win there.
|
Nader misled voters into believing that both parties are the same. You would not hear a word of criticism from me if he had said something to this effect: "The Republicans take Position X on this issue, the Democrats take Position Y, and I take Position Z." That would be the honest truth. Truth is always welcome in any political discussion. But Nader preached the more fashionable - if patently false - view that X and Y are the same. They absolutely are not.
Ross Perot - before he went nuts - and Jesse Ventura were both politically successful because they offered policies more or less directed at the political center. Ideologically extreme groups - whether leftist or rightist - will never be successful on the national scene. In America, we simply do not work that way.
Nader's Greens are not a real party - they are simply an electoral poison pill. Legitimate political parties do not build themselves on a foundation of stealing votes from only one established party. It would be far more constructive and lucrative if the Greens focused on building their party from the bottom up through local, state and congressional elections. But that approach might take patience and maturity - traits notoriously absent from Nader voters in battleground states.
Nader arrogantly stated that his theft of Gore's election is a "wake-up call" to the Democrats that they have strayed too far from their "progressive" roots. He purposely forgets that the main reason Democrats won back the White House in the '90s was their shift towards the center and away from the failed liberal policies that killed them in the '80s. Nader and his lackeys can crow all they want about their emergence as the "third largest" party in America and their new role as a "watchdog" on the two established parties. Their boasts are the funeral dirge for yet another failed movement.
Let's not kid ourselves: Nader failed. He failed to get 5 percent of the national vote. He failed to get matching funds for the next presidential cycle. And if he returns to run again in four years, his campaign will not receive even half the attention it did this year. Ralph Nader threw away decades of highly admirable work on behalf of all Americans in exchange for a few final moments of national attention. That this man would put our country's future at risk for his ego's sake is the saddest commentary of all. What a waste.
(Timothy DuBoff's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily.)
Read More
ARRAS: U.Va. must revise the Sexual Assault Prevention Training module
By Aoife Arras | 9 hours agoIn addition to its failures in interactivity, the module lacks details specific to the University and discusses key concepts in universal terms.
EDITORIAL: Pedestrian safety is an institutional imperative
By Editorial Board | 2 days agoAmid a national crisis of pedestrian safety, Charlottesville and the University are also struggling to properly maintain pedestrian safety.
YOUNIS: The danger of dehumanizing language
By Ayat Younis | 4 days agoThe administration’s failure to condemn blatant discrimination exacerbates an impossible situation, fostering an atmosphere that misinterprets pro-Palestinian sentiments as support of terrorism.
