Nader needs to

Why does Ralph Nader hate America?

CravenMorehead: Why does Ralph Nader hate America?

Yes!!

CravenMorehead: Why does Ralph Nader hate America?

Because being able to plausibly claim you helped save thousands of lives and millions of dollars for consumers, being a hero to thousands of consumer advocates, and helping to influence the law in countless ways over a lifetime of good work was insufficient proof of a life well-lived.

Apparently.

So instead, why not spend a decade on a self-aggrandizing ego-trip splitting the consumer movement you helped found, driving wedges between natural allies, uniting and ultimately greasing the skids for the opponents of every principle you ever advocated, and destroying a well-deserved reputation for self-sacrifice and altruism in the process. Sure, why the hell not?

Or he could have simply gotten a keg and 10 guys and gone on a bender to Mexico. But nooooooo....

Yawn.

Okay, Ralph, I voted for you back whenever in a fit of silly youthful rebellion. Now it's time for you to go off and write memoirs or something.

wejash: Because being able to plausibly claim you helped save thousands of lives and millions of dollars for consumers, being a hero to thousands of consumer advocates, and helping to influence the law in countless ways over a lifetime of good work was insufficient proof of a life well-lived.

Apparently.

So instead, why not spend a decade on a self-aggrandizing ego-trip splitting the consumer movement you helped found, driving wedges between natural allies, uniting and ultimately greasing the skids for the opponents of every principle you ever advocated, and destroying a well-deserved reputation for self-sacrifice and altruism in the process. Sure, why the hell not?

That's an excellent summary of this mans life. No sarcasm, I'm just genuinely shocked by my level of agreement with that post.

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Nobody cares, Ralph.

You have a right to run for president the same way I have a right to fart in your face: it's legal, but it's also stupid, obnoxious and pointless.

If no one's a Nader fan, what the hell is the difference?

In a weird kinda way I think that Hillary staying in is helping Obama get stronger for the Repub attacks. Imagine if Hillary had dropped out and it was just Obama and McCain when the nonsense about Wright broke?

He'll be tested by fire by the time Hillary's dead.

Opiate of the Lasses: In a weird kinda way I think that Hillary staying in is helping Obama get stronger for the Repub attacks. Imagine if Hillary had dropped out and it was just Obama and McCain when the nonsense about Wright broke?

He'll be tested by fire by the time Hillary's dead.

a) he gets less time to use funds against mccain

b) nothing Hillary can do will prepare him for the GOP. nothing. He will be the only topic on Drudge, Limbaugh, Hannity, every speech by every major GOP member, not to mention attack ads from "independent" groups. They will all repeat the same charges, and through repetition and consistant airplay half-truths and lies will become fact. Hillary can't do anything close to that. So, to me, this isn't "positive" or "practice". It's a waste of time and money.

Nader isn't running a "hopeless" campaign. He makes a very good case that if the Democrats can't seal up this White House victory this November, they should pack it up.

I voted for Nader twice because I was sick of Clinton and Gore/Lieberman was a loser's ticket.

Ralph Nadir

/snark

He's right though.

Blah Blah meow chow - this is a democracy people Clinton should run as long as she wants.

BigLawMonies: Blah Blah meow chow - this is a democracy people Clinton should run as long as she wants.

She absolutely should. I just don't like it because she's hurting the candidate I want. But you are correct.

Opiate of the Lasses Quote 2008-03-29 12:59:16 AM
In a weird kinda way I think that Hillary staying in is helping Obama get stronger for the Repub attacks. Imagine if Hillary had dropped out and it was just Obama and McCain when the nonsense about Wright broke?

He'll be tested by fire by the time Hillary's dead.

Any possible advantages in "toughening up" are completely offset by giving McCain time to make amends with his base, gear up his campaign, raise money for the general while Obama is spending his on the primary, and allowing any McCain mistakes to be ignored by the media.

Imagine if it had been Obama-McCain head to head when McCain made all those Iran/Al Queda mistakes. Do you think the Democrats and the media would have let him get away with it? It would have been a huge scandal for a least a couple news cycles. instead it was ignored because obama was fighting hillary.

and that isn't even to go into the damage the long primary does to the democratic base itself (fracturing it, tampering enthusiasm, etc.)

BigLawMonies Quote 2008-03-29 01:10:17 AM
Blah Blah meow chow - this is a democracy people Clinton should run as long as she wants.

dead wrong.

A democracy means hillary should be LEGALLY ALLOWED to run as long as she ants.

It does NOT mean that she SHOULD run as long as she wants.

I Said: He will be the only topic on Drudge, Limbaugh, Hannity, every speech by every major GOP member, not to mention attack ads from "independent" groups. They will all repeat the same charges, and through repetition and consistant airplay half-truths and lies will become fact.

In case you haven't noticed, the echo chamber has been hammering on Obama for awhile now.

I understand the difference between legal permissibility and other forms of 'should'

Actually I was agreeing with Nader that hard fought campaigns that raise tensions are good for democracy because they force candidates to articulate their positions more clearly. The glare is good for debate and raises consciousness generally. Should politicians float to coronations?

BigLawMonies Quote 2008-03-29 01:21:43 AM
I understand the difference between legal permissibility and other forms of 'should'


I don't believe you.


Actually I was agreeing with Nader that hard fought campaigns that raise tensions are good for democracy because they force candidates to articulate their positions more clearly. The glare is good for debate and raises consciousness generally. Should politicians float to coronations?

I find this unlikely.

Rather than articulate their positions, as they might have to in a general election show down against someone from the other party, they have to just pander to their party's base and scew their real positions to cater the special interests that are so powerful in their primaries.

These primaries have not caused the candidates to harden their intellectual conceptions of our current condition.

All they have done is made us listen to retarded debates over who is "more like Reagan" or who "totally hates NAFTA the most."

BigLawMonies: I understand the difference between legal permissibility and other forms of 'should'

Actually I was agreeing with Nader that hard fought campaigns that raise tensions are good for democracy because they force candidates to articulate their positions more clearly. The glare is good for debate and raises consciousness generally. Should politicians float to coronations?

This may have been true decades ago, but we now live in an age were 45 second clips taken out of context of a half hour speech are tailor-spun, looped ad nauseum and fed to an American public with a short attention span and an unwillingness to investigate or research on their own.

Proof positive was mentioned in another thread. Obama made three major policy speeches this week that went virtually uncovered, yet we get up-to-the-minute updates of Hillary misspeaking and analysis of analysis of Carville's Judas comment.

Bill Frist: Any possible advantages in "toughening up" are completely offset by giving McCain time to make amends with his base, gear up his campaign, raise money for the general while Obama is spending his on the primary, and allowing any McCain mistakes to be ignored by the media.

Imagine if it had been Obama-McCain head to head when McCain made all those Iran/Al Queda mistakes. Do you think the Democrats and the media would have let him get away with it? It would have been a huge scandal for a least a couple news cycles. instead it was ignored because obama was fighting hillary.

I think it was ignored because McCain still has considerable sway with the press. They like him. When he says something ridiculous they all assume he's just pandering to the idiot right wing. He has nearly every benefit of the doubt.

That being said, Obama is a fundraising machine. And November is a little over 7 months away. Consider that even though it seems like it's been forever, Iowa was not even 3 months ago. Hillary can drop out in a month and still leave plenty of time for everyone to realize McCancient isn't worthy of the White House.

:facepalm:

I swear, Ralph Nader is a Republican ploy or operative. Yes, it was also Gore/Kerry's fault for running abhorrently bad campaigns. But he's the living embodiment of Voltaire's statement, "the perfect is the enemy of the good." His blind insistence on running has not only not helped his cause but has handed power to a group of sociopaths who are absolutely anathema to everything he supports and wants. Fark Nader.

For the first time, I can almost forgive him and the people who voted for him. But in 2004, by which time it was clear to anyone who wasn't willfully ignorant what Bushco and the neocons were about? No way. Luckily, once the HMS Clintanic finishes sinking, we don't need to worry about him farking it up again - Once the Obama/McCain debates happen, the deal is done.

I would also like to accord with the posters saying that Clinton doesn't compare to the patented Right-Wing Hate Machine. But it doesn't matter; As long as Obama refuses to feed the trolls, he is rubber and they are glue.

Bill Frist:

I don't believe you [rawr].

I'm not sure that "pandering to special interests" and "articulating their real [?] positions" are as distinguishable as you make them out to be. General elections in my experience haven't been candidates debating but rather talking past each other, refusing to engage blow for blow.

Certainly candidates dance on knives' edges no matter the audience. A difficult primary means that candidates have to search for more distinctions, which can seem like mountains out of molehills, but when it's about amnesty or FISA/FOIA type issues their are constituents that want to hear articulation there.

And the primaries have forced candidates to recalibrate their positions: Clinton has become more anti-trade and emphasizes economic interventionism, McCain had to have a praise the lord moment and make promises about hard-lining judicial nominations.

The Bestest:

This may have been true decades ago, but we now live in an age were 45 second clips taken out of context of a half hour speech are tailor-spun, looped ad nauseum and fed to an American public with a short attention span and an unwillingness to investigate or research on their own.

I totally agree that 24hr "CNN for the TMZ crowd" type fark dominates much of the coverage.

I also see though that this election is spurring a lot of discussion in my peer group by blowing away artifical consensus. For instance

[Ron Paul reference deleted]

Where is his criticism of the Republican party and McCain? He can't claim there is no difference between the two parties when the choices are between Johnny "100 years" McCain and Obama or even, (shudder) Hil-dog. I think that its perfectly reasonable to deduce that Ralph just hates the democratic party.

moothemagiccow: If no one's a Nader fan, what the hell is the difference?

Problem is, there's just barely enough rabid lunatics to vote for Nader to make a difference in enough areas to affect the electoral outcomes in tight races.

Hasn't been conclusively proven, but in the 2000 race, no Nader votes might have prevented the Florida debacle. And civilization as we know it might be completely different.

I bet Hillary will claim this is his way of sniping at her from the sidelines.

I Said: b) nothing Hillary can do will prepare him for the GOP. nothing. He will be the only topic on Drudge, Limbaugh, Hannity, every speech by every major GOP member, not to mention attack ads from "independent" groups. They will all repeat the same charges, and through repetition and consistant airplay half-truths and lies will become fact. Hillary can't do anything close to that. S

The question though, is whether it might be better for Hillary to be dragging it out so that, a) it shortens the time that the right wing spin machine has to run full-on attacks, and b) because by the time they go into full attack mode, all the lines of attack will be old news.

I'm not saying that I think that's definitely what's going to happen, but I do think that it was a good thing that things like the Rev. Dr. Wright story came out now and not October. It's been played so much that even my slightly nutty and more than a little racist aunt thinks that it's stupid and that people are making too much of a deal about it. Let's just say that I wasn't expecting her, of all people, to reach that conclusion but if she did, I think that there's hope.

whidbey: Nader isn't running a "hopeless" campaign. He makes a very good case that if the Democrats can't seal up this White House victory this November, they should pack it up.

I voted for Nader twice because I was sick of Clinton and Gore/Lieberman was a loser's ticket.

One very simple, very clear, very frightening reason why you were and are philosophically right and dead-wrong:

This man won't live forever.

Dear Ralph Nader,

You are a giant douche bag.

Love,

Stradavus

wejash: One very simple, very clear, very frightening reason why you were and are philosophically right and dead-wrong:

This man won't live forever.

Another good example of why this country needs to get a lot worse:

If you're voting for someone you don't give a sh*t about because you're afraid you HAVE to.

That ain't America. Let it fall.

is there anyone out there who doesn't think that Nader only runs to publicize himself and make a few bucks off the GOP who will support him in his role of spoiler?

Two kinds of presponses in this thread.

Response 1: I don't care.
Response 2: I hate the guy.

Wonder why it got greenlighted.

He was totally right in that book "Unsafe at any Speed".

ilambiquated: Two kinds of presponses in this thread.

Response 1: I don't care.
Response 2: I hate the guy.

Wonder why it got greenlighted.

Because he is the biggest possible albatross to hang around a Democratic primary candidate's neck. Remember WHY people hate the guy.

Right or wrong, Hillary Clinton has ideas and experiences that have convinced nearly 50% of Democrats that she should be the next President of the United States. That's not a small interest group. Obama has convinced slightly more people of the same thing. That is what democracy is all about...differing ideas put forth on an equal platform, chosen by the general population. If you remove any of those competing ideas early, for any reason, all you are doing is weakening the democracy. It would be different if Obama was soundly trouncing Clinton everywhere, but he is not. The interest in both candidates warrents them both staying in it till the final count, no matter what it does to the election in November.

And for those still whining about Nader voters costing Gore the election, don't fool yourself, those voters hate you as much as Republicans and would not have voted for you anyway. Believe it or not, there is a growing segment of the population who are sick of the Republicans and Democrats running this nation into the ground and would like to see fresh blood in Washington. Nader is the closest, viable option, but they would vote for Harvey the Wonder Hamster if he could put forth ideas that weren't bat-chit insane.

Bill Frist: It does NOT mean that she SHOULD run as long as she wants.

technically she could win the nomination, so is she supposed to just stop trying anyways and flush all the donations from people who believe in her down the toilet?

for the record my voting choices would be Obama, McCain, Hillary in that order.

I Said: That's an excellent summary of this mans life. No sarcasm, I'm just genuinely shocked by my level of agreement with that post.

Ditto. Well said.

wejash: Because being able to plausibly claim you helped save thousands of lives and millions of dollars for consumers, being a hero to thousands of consumer advocates, and helping to influence the law in countless ways over a lifetime of good work was insufficient proof of a life well-lived.

Apparently.

So instead, why not spend a decade on a self-aggrandizing ego-trip splitting the consumer movement you helped found, driving wedges between natural allies, uniting and ultimately greasing the skids for the opponents of every principle you ever advocated, and destroying a well-deserved reputation for self-sacrifice and altruism in the process. Sure, why the hell not?

Or he could have simply gotten a keg and 10 guys and gone on a bender to Mexico. But nooooooo....

Well said!

Opiate of the Lasses: In a weird kinda way I think that Hillary staying in is helping Obama get stronger for the Repub attacks. Imagine if Hillary had dropped out and it was just Obama and McCain when the nonsense about Wright broke?

He'll be tested by fire by the time Hillary's dead.

By all non-Clinton-surrogate accounts, her campaign is already dead.

Ralph Nader urges Hillary Clinton to keep running. Because if there's one thing Ralph Nader knows, it's running hopeless campaigns making sure Republicans get elected.

FTFY

Billified: Right or wrong, Hillary Clinton has ideas and experiences that have convinced nearly 50% of Democrats that she should be the next President of the United States. That's not a small interest group. Obama has convinced slightly more people of the same thing. That is what democracy is all about...differing ideas put forth on an equal platform, chosen by the general population. If you remove any of those competing ideas early, for any reason, all you are doing is weakening the democracy. It would be different if Obama was soundly trouncing Clinton everywhere, but he is not. The interest in both candidates warrents them both staying in it till the final count, no matter what it does to the election in November.

And for those still whining about Nader voters costing Gore the election, don't fool yourself, those voters hate you as much as Republicans and would not have voted for you anyway. Believe it or not, there is a growing segment of the population who are sick of the Republicans and Democrats running this nation into the ground and would like to see fresh blood in Washington. Nader is the closest, viable option, but they would vote for Harvey the Wonder Hamster if he could put forth ideas that weren't bat-chit insane.

Go back to the mushrooms that let you live thru the day. Real world is not for you.

/Hillary is supported by 50% of people!!!! WTF!!
/Delusions FTL

Billified: Right or wrong, Hillary Clinton has ideas and experiences a last name that have has convinced nearly 50% of Democrats that she should be the next President of the United States.

FTFY