This morning on Meet the Press, Ralph Nader announced that he is entering the race for President. He said he thought Obama was too far in the pocket of corporations and his stance on Palestine is imporoper. In addition he says no one is talking about reducing the size of the military or stopping corporations from exploiting workers.

His website votenader.org has the details.
Nader denies he lost the election for Al Gore in 2000, and actually said if the Democrats cannot win the White House in a landslide they should "pack it up".
Questions for debate:

What effect will Ralph Nader have on this election?

What is Nader's motivation for enetering at this point?

What effect will Ralph Nader have on this election?

He had a substantial impact as a spoiler en 2000, but little effect in 2004. I think this will be more like 2004. He will be a marginal factor.

What is Nader's motivation for enetering at this point?

Ego!

Bof, I agree with your first assesment- I believe the ABB crowd, and the dissatisfaction with 27 years of conservative mismanagement, will have an even further marginalizing effect on Nader- I do believe that Ross Perot killed the idea of the viable third party. Pitty that.

But for the second- man, that dude doesn't have an egotistical or self serving bone in his body. I have met him, heard him talk, and I couldn't pick a more humble, self effacing-person in DC, EVER.

I think he does believe, perhaps wrongly, that he can effect the dialogue and affect change in the system by his entering the race.

He may be mistaken- but it is not because of ego, perhaps fervor, but not ego.

He will have a very minimal impact. THis isn't an anti-incumbency, "throw the bums out" kind of year. If there is a groundwell of support for a third party run, it has yet to be evident. Now if he was drawing Obama like crowds, then yes, perhaps there would be a need for one.



What motivates everyone but the major candidates to run-irrationality and an inflated sense of importance and unrealistic idealism.

What effect will Ralph Nader have on this election?

In reality, not much. But if McCain ends up winning there will be no doubt the usual hysterical shrieks from the Democrats about how Nader "lost the election for them".


What is Nader's motivation for enetering at this point?

He's looking to pick up the Ron Paul wackjobs. Maybe they'll give him some money and he can keep on keeping on whatever the hell he does. What does he do anyway?


Aquilla

What effect will Ralph Nader have on this election?

He will have very little effect. He doesn't have and won't get the same type of support that he got in 2000. The public figures who supported him in 2000 were asking him not to run in 2004. He just won't have the impact.

What is Nader's motivation for enetering at this point?

It's the same as it always is. He believes in what he's talking about. I like the man and I believe in a lot of the same things, but I just don't believe he is capable of running the country.



I don't recall those hysterics in 2004. So, I don't know how such a response could be considered "usual". He got roughly 1/7th the number of votes in 2004 that he got in 2000. It will likely be the same or less. He won't play much of a role at all in determining the next President.

I think he got 500k votes in the last election- as one news commentator said on NBC this am, commenting on Nader's last election attempt- and they surmised that only those that voted for him, normally don't even vote unless he is in the election.

1.) He'll do even poorer than he did in 2,004. That's saying something since he got .3% of the national vote.

In a word: Negligible.

2.) I listened to the full entry speech, and he claims it's to advance a third-party agenda. I'm paraphrasing, but he wants to get people talking. Well, we're talking. I don't know if we're taking anything about him seriously, but we're talking.

I saw Nader at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas in 1974. I can't believe anyone could say "I am the best person to lead this country" - which is essentially what people who run for president are doing - without having a generous blessing of ego.

Hmmm, I don't think you are allowed to equivocate about that when you do run for national office - I mean, won't do you much good to say "well, I am not realy the best man to run this country, but hey, what are our choices"?

I am not sure if Obama has a huge ego- in fact, I counted him out early on for NOT being a sociopath. I may be proven wrong, but Obama, if elected, may be the first man in a long, long time to hold national office that ISN'T a sociopath.

CR, I don't think having some ego is necessarily a bad thing.

Here is more on why Nader will be a non-factor, this ttime

In 2000 Ralph Nader got 2,883,105 popular votes or 2.37%.

http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/nationa...0&year=2000

In 2004 Nader got 463,655 popular votes or 0.38%.

http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/nationa...0&year=2004

I will predict that he dooesn't do as well as in 2004. If he only got 0.38% of the vote against a bad candidate like John Kerry, how will he get many votes with a popular candidate like Obama, who has had the political moxie to all but defeat the Clinton machine

It is a crying shame, that a man who has been so great in the field of consumer protection, is ending his careeer as a charicature of himself. He has gone from gratness to a role of something like a rodeo clown.

On Meet the Press this morning, Chuck Todd described Obama's campaign as a "freight train."


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23319215/page/7/

Hillary Clinton will not derail that train. John McCain will not derail that train. And Certainly Ralph Nader won't.

Unfortunately for some, there is no "great white hope" left. Fill the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean with tears.

What is Nader's motivation for enetering at this point?

Nader's motivation is two-fold. First, it's because---well, what else does he have to do? Though Nader hasn't done much over the last eight years of Bush/Cheney, like a old firehouse dog, he lifts his nose and sniffs the political winds and knows it's time to send his single suit to the cleaners and get back on the campaign trail. It's 2008 and it's an presidential election year. Sure as spring brings crabgrass, it's yet another chance for Nader to run again for an office everybody knows he won't win.

Then again, actually winning the Presidency is the furthest thought from Nader's mind. He's announcing in February. The election is in November. Does anyone really think he's going to be able to raise the money, put together the organization and get on the ballot in all 50 states in just nine months? No freaking way.

For Nader it's not about the result. It's about the process. Nader will serve as the nagging little voice in the ear of whomever the Democratic nominee is. If Hillary Clinton gets the nod, Nader will be all over her like a bad rash making sure she doesn't "triangulate" too far to the political Center. The same holds true for Barack Obama, though the entry of Nader into the race hardly comes as a surprise. As long as Nader is able he's going to keep running even though his impact becomes lesser and lesser each time. Nader has become the Harold Stassen of the Left: A permanent candidate who doesn't run to win but to keep the party he's plaguing "honest."

Unlike Gore and Kerry, Obama -- now the likely Democratic nominee -- has taken savvier stands on a number of issues close to Nader's heart, such as trade policy. This is not to say that Obama is as good as Nader on the issues. Far from it. But Obama's more nuanced platform, as well as the movement character of the Illinois senator's campaign, is likely to leave even less space for Nader to deliver a message.

That said, Nader is a determined, sometimes unrelenting, truth teller.

He notes that Obama is something less than a pristine progressive.

Obama may be "the first liberal evangelist in a long time," says Nader, but the senator's "better instincts and knowledge have been censored" since he hit the nation stage.

"(Obama's) leaned, if anything, toward the pro-corporate side of policy-making," Nader said of the senator from Illinois. The consumer activist also scored Obama on on foreign policy, noting that, "He was pro-Palestinian when he was in Illinois... Now he's supporting (right-wing Israeli policies that thwart progress toward peace in the Middle East)."

Such blunt statements may not win Nader many friends among Obama's enthusiastic backers, and Obama did not exactly welcome his new rival to the race. "Ralph Nader deserves enormous credit for the work he did as a consumer advocate," Mr. Obama said while campaigning in Ohio "But his function as a perennial candidate is not putting food on the table of workers."

Nader's presence is not welcomed by the Democrats (though the Republicans will chuckle at Nader's nagging and prodding the nominee to stay faithful to a progressive/liberal agenda), but they would have been silly not to anticipate it. Frankly, at this point the prospect of New York mayor Michael Bloomberg entering the race would be more problematic if he ever gets past his "will he or won't he" dithering and makes a decision. link


What effect will Ralph Nader have on this election?

I would expect a few stories to pop up about Nader suing various state attorney generals to get on ballots in major states. Otherwise, he'll be closed out of presidential debates, invisible on the television and confined to a few appearances on radio programs crying about how both parties are conspiring against his candidacy. Yadda-yadda-yadda. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

If Obama is the Democratic nominee and makes no significant stumbles that turns off a large portion of the liberal/progressive base of the party, Nader's impact will be minimal. Should Clinton get the nod, then Nader's annoyance factor grows a bit since his dislike of Bill Clinton is well-established. But Nader makes the case himself that the Democrats should not have to worry too much about him in 2008.

"If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form. You think the American people are going to vote for a pro-war John McCain who almost gives an indication he's the candidate for perpetual war?"

Everyone complains that Nader is running, but nobody (Especially
the New media, GOP, and DNC ) will debate him on his issues !

That's sick, that Americans are so brainwash with our corrupt
political system that they will get upset when a third party
runs !!!!!

People should put Naders platform under scrutiny, Not THE FACT that
our political system is so rigged that it only have room for two parties !!!!!!

P.S. Will all you DEMS & REPS pay for all the Independent voters
portion of the National debt that the REPS & DEMS have forced
upon America ??
I'm prety sure it's up to $300,000.00 Per person !

Go "Two Party Monopoly" Go !!!!!!!!! ...............(Go away)