Why doesnt Ralph Nader help build a viable 3rd party between elections?

Eliot Rosewater

Pj_Gurl wrote:

I absolutely get and respect most of what you are saying. The only thing i dont agree with is the comment that if he campaigned year after year, that he would draw criticism.

Wouldn't he at least give us a chance? He can be as outspoken as he likes and so can we on as many issues as we like, but if he is not in a position to support or make changes then we are fucked aren't we.

But he IS in a position to support. Jesus, all you gotta do is vote for him. I support him. He has my vote, easily. He's EARNED it.

IMO it's all about spreading the word. People have a misconception of Nader that he's some crazy loon who just runs for president every four years. Even the op seems to have this view as he claimed Nader is "gone with the wind" in between elections.

Let me tell you this - I don't know anyone who is educated on what Ralph has done throughout his life that doesn't respect him and wouldn't support him. I can only conclude that ignorance is the leading reason for his non-support. And why are people ignorant? Because they're too fucking lazy to stop watching network news and learn for themselves what is really going on in this world.

Ralph isn't the problem here. Media, misconceptions, corporate support of the two parties that shell out millions if not billions to keep Ralph out of debates, media etc. Those are the problems.

flywallyfly

my2hands wrote:

just wondering... every 4 years he runs as a 3rd party candidate... but in between he apparently does nothing to help build an actual 3rd party structure. you know, on the local level where everything starts. maybe campaign for 3rd party candidiates in local and state elections. i believe that is why the green party had issues with him after the 2000 election...

movements are not built top down... they are built bottom up and i dont see Nader helping with that cause at all between his presidential runs

just asking

http://www.hereinstead.com/Village-Voice--Ralph-Nader--Levine.htm


Nader's swing-state strategy was the crux of his anti-Gore game plan. If Nader had been truly committed to getting the Greens their 5 percent, he would have taken the safe-state route mapped out by many party advisers. In Stupid White Men, Michael Moore says he rejected Nader's invitation to join him in the battleground states as the election neared. Instead, Moore chose to work only "in those states where Ralph could get a lot of votes without being responsible for Bush winning the election." Places like New York, California, Massachusetts, and such liberal enclaves as Bush's own Austin, Texas, as Chait puts it, "offered the richest harvest of potential votes." This is what Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan did. Nader took precisely the opposite tack. He spent the last days of the campaign in swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and, especially, Florida, which according to Sellers he visited five times all told. Pennsylvania and Michigan went Democratic, but Nader forced Gore to expend time and resources on states he should have had in his pocket. And in Florida, though Nader's poll numbers dipped from 6 percent to 4 to his final 1.6, his 97,488 voters tipped the election.

Reached by telephone recently, Martin explained Nader's motives as "a neat blend of his desire to go where the cameras and media are and his desire to make the Democrats pay." But even in the Nader camp this was at best partially understood. Danny Goldberg reported in Tikkun that Nader told supporters he wouldn't campaign late in swing states. Sellers suspects that Moore didn't get it until the last moment. And Ronnie Dugger, the veteran journalist who nominated Nader at the Green convention, learned about Nader's battleground-barnstorming strategy long after the election. "Why hasn't Nader been building the Green Party for the last four years?" he asked me. "Nader was more interested in beating Gore than beating Bush. And Nader has said he will not follow a safe-state strategy in 2004 either."

===========================

Gary Sellers has a simpler way of putting it. Although Nader was the best man at Sellers's wedding, the two are no longer close. After extensive discussions with his old boss in late 1999, Sellers created Nader's Raiders for Gore in 2000. He believes Nader hated Gore, he told me, because "Gore wouldn't return his phone calls."

^^^^^
Kinda sounds like the "Obama wouldnt meet with him" line

---

http://www.notnader.com/nader1.html

Nonetheless, by late fall 2003 Nader was gearing up once again for a presidential campaign. This time, however, he faced opposition from within the Green Party. Elizabeth Horton Sheff, an African-American Green Party member, and Hartford, CT city council member told The Nation in November 2003, "I don't think Ralph Nader should run again. Our message of grassroots inclusion did not get through with this candidate. His appeal is not broad enough to reach my community." Larry Barnett, former mayor of Sonoma, CA, current city councilman, and a Green Party member labeled a Nader campaign "an ego-centered exercise in futility," adding that "wasting .. time" in unwinnable races only detracts from the party's message, long term goals, and current accomplishments. Speaking to Micah Sifry earlier in the year, John Rensenbrink, a founder of the Green Party, denounced Nader:

People...are very focused on stopping the right-wing cabal that has taken over the country. Therefore, the focus has to be on defeating Bush. Beyond that, the Green Party needs to project a sense of urgency around saving the country, saving the Constitution, saving the planet.... There's a concern that we'll be deflected from that message because of the baggage Ralph Nader has from 2000. I doubt he can get over 1 percent of the vote.... I'd add to that that he doesn't want to be a Green, he runs with his coterie rather than party organizers, he doesn't involve local Green leaders and he doesn't get the racial issue. I fear if Nader runs, he'll drag down every other Green in this country. I love him, but this is sheer practical politics.
Robert McChesney, a member of Nader's Citizen Works' Corporate Reform Commission, and president of the professors' council of the US Campus Greens, concurred. "I don't think Ralph should run," he told The Nation's Sifry. "It would be bad for him personally; I doubt he would get half the number of votes he got in 2000. And it would be bad for the Greens.... Core elements of progressive constituencies, exactly the groups that the Greens need to build upon, will revolt with open contempt--far worse than 2000--to anything that helps keep Bush in office."

El_Kabong

Eliot Rosewater wrote:

But he IS in a position to support. Jesus, all you gotta do is vote for him. I support him. He has my vote, easily. He's EARNED it.

IMO it's all about spreading the word. People have a misconception of Nader that he's some crazy loon who just runs for president every four years. Even the op seems to have this view as he claimed Nader is "gone with the wind" in between elections.

Let me tell you this - I don't know anyone who is educated on what Ralph has done throughout his life that doesn't respect him and wouldn't support him. I can only conclude that ignorance is the leading reason for his non-support. And why are people ignorant? Because they're too fucking lazy to stop watching network news and learn for themselves what is really going on in this world.

Ralph isn't the problem here. Media, misconceptions, corporate support of the two parties that shell out millions if not billions to keep Ralph out of debates, media etc. Those are the problems.

exactly!!! i don't get how see how anyone isn't in a position to support. i have a kucinich (and nader and nader/gonzalez) sticker on my car. during one of the primaries thsi guy at work starts telling me how he's crazy and not electable. the crazy thing was he seemed to agree w/ his stances...so why was he not realistic or electable or whatever buzzword the media gives us? he kept falling back on 'he's crazy' and yet you agree w/ him so much....

also, i can't think of a single person that devoted more of their life to the public than nader. there are too many reasons to vote for him. sorry, but coke and pepsi are really both shit and not very good for you, yet it seems like all we want to choose from. then for 2-3 years we'll bitch and moan about the ineffectiveness of government and the inability of the 2 major/corporate parties to get anything done....

my2hands

Pj_Gurl wrote:

So are a lot of other people.....

from another thread, i have posted in.

You know, I like some of what Ralph Nader says, but I'm sick and tired of him popping up every four years saying he's running for President when he does nothing to build a viable third party in the years between. If he's SERIOUS, why isn't he out there tirelessly stumping for non-Democrat/Republican candidates at State levels? If our two-party system is ever going to change, it's going to happen from the bottom up. It's not rocket science.

It's like he is dangling candy on a stick in front of us. Close enough to see, but not close enough to touch. You're never going to taste it.

that was the inspiration for my question because i thought it was an interesting point for sure



i wasnt implying that naders does not work for causes between elections or any other interests... i was saying he seems to pretty much abandon the whole 3rd party thing between elections... the point made by the above poster is a good one... i am not here to bash nader, but i am truly interested why he has not taken a more proactive roll in helping form viable 3rd options? he is a great organizer, yet he doesnt seem to focus his organizing efforts into building a grass roots political parties to be able to challenge the "status quo" political parties he rails against... and i am just wondering why that is?

Urban Hiker

Pj_Gurl wrote:

So are a lot of other people.....

from another thread, i have posted in.

You know, I like some of what Ralph Nader says, but I'm sick and tired of him popping up every four years saying he's running for President when he does nothing to build a viable third party in the years between. If he's SERIOUS, why isn't he out there tirelessly stumping for non-Democrat/Republican candidates at State levels? If our two-party system is ever going to change, it's going to happen from the bottom up. It's not rocket science.

It's like he is dangling candy on a stick in front of us. Close enough to see, but not close enough to touch. You're never going to taste it.

He is. Third party candidates are invited to his events to gather support for their candidacies. He and Matt Gonzalez both have stated at their rallies that they are garnering support for multiple issues and want to build activist communities beyond election season. They want us to become Active Citizens. They respect that they do not solely hold the power of the change they want to create. The people have the power and they are working to bring the people together.


One very important group they are working to create is a Congress Watchdog Group. We need to start expecting accountability from our representatives.

You would have heard about this if the media would cover them or if you would attend one of their events.

Abookamongstthemany

flywallyfly wrote:

http://www.hereinstead.com/Village-Voice--Ralph-Nader--Levine.htm


Nader's swing-state strategy was the crux of his anti-Gore game plan. If Nader had been truly committed to getting the Greens their 5 percent, he would have taken the safe-state route mapped out by many party advisers. In Stupid White Men, Michael Moore says he rejected Nader's invitation to join him in the battleground states as the election neared. Instead, Moore chose to work only "in those states where Ralph could get a lot of votes without being responsible for Bush winning the election." Places like New York, California, Massachusetts, and such liberal enclaves as Bush's own Austin, Texas, as Chait puts it, "offered the richest harvest of potential votes." This is what Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan did. Nader took precisely the opposite tack. He spent the last days of the campaign in swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and, especially, Florida, which according to Sellers he visited five times all told. Pennsylvania and Michigan went Democratic, but Nader forced Gore to expend time and resources on states he should have had in his pocket. And in Florida, though Nader's poll numbers dipped from 6 percent to 4 to his final 1.6, his 97,488 voters tipped the election.

Reached by telephone recently, Martin explained Nader's motives as "a neat blend of his desire to go where the cameras and media are and his desire to make the Democrats pay." But even in the Nader camp this was at best partially understood. Danny Goldberg reported in Tikkun that Nader told supporters he wouldn't campaign late in swing states. Sellers suspects that Moore didn't get it until the last moment. And Ronnie Dugger, the veteran journalist who nominated Nader at the Green convention, learned about Nader's battleground-barnstorming strategy long after the election. "Why hasn't Nader been building the Green Party for the last four years?" he asked me. "Nader was more interested in beating Gore than beating Bush. And Nader has said he will not follow a safe-state strategy in 2004 either."

===========================

Gary Sellers has a simpler way of putting it. Although Nader was the best man at Sellers's wedding, the two are no longer close. After extensive discussions with his old boss in late 1999, Sellers created Nader's Raiders for Gore in 2000. He believes Nader hated Gore, he told me, because "Gore wouldn't return his phone calls."

^^^^^
Kinda sounds like the "Obama wouldnt meet with him" line

---

http://www.notnader.com/nader1.html

Nonetheless, by late fall 2003 Nader was gearing up once again for a presidential campaign. This time, however, he faced opposition from within the Green Party. Elizabeth Horton Sheff, an African-American Green Party member, and Hartford, CT city council member told The Nation in November 2003, "I don't think Ralph Nader should run again. Our message of grassroots inclusion did not get through with this candidate. His appeal is not broad enough to reach my community." Larry Barnett, former mayor of Sonoma, CA, current city councilman, and a Green Party member labeled a Nader campaign "an ego-centered exercise in futility," adding that "wasting .. time" in unwinnable races only detracts from the party's message, long term goals, and current accomplishments. Speaking to Micah Sifry earlier in the year, John Rensenbrink, a founder of the Green Party, denounced Nader:

People...are very focused on stopping the right-wing cabal that has taken over the country. Therefore, the focus has to be on defeating Bush. Beyond that, the Green Party needs to project a sense of urgency around saving the country, saving the Constitution, saving the planet.... There's a concern that we'll be deflected from that message because of the baggage Ralph Nader has from 2000. I doubt he can get over 1 percent of the vote.... I'd add to that that he doesn't want to be a Green, he runs with his coterie rather than party organizers, he doesn't involve local Green leaders and he doesn't get the racial issue. I fear if Nader runs, he'll drag down every other Green in this country. I love him, but this is sheer practical politics.
Robert McChesney, a member of Nader's Citizen Works' Corporate Reform Commission, and president of the professors' council of the US Campus Greens, concurred. "I don't think Ralph should run," he told The Nation's Sifry. "It would be bad for him personally; I doubt he would get half the number of votes he got in 2000. And it would be bad for the Greens.... Core elements of progressive constituencies, exactly the groups that the Greens need to build upon, will revolt with open contempt--far worse than 2000--to anything that helps keep Bush in office."

I think it's more about the causes and issues Nader brings to the table meaning a lot to him and it matters to him greatly that they are taken seriously. I know from experience with posting on this board and doing activist work that these causes become part of your life and you want to push as hard as you can to gain attention to them and spread awareness. When people are stubborn and automatically shut your ideas out despite them being favored by the majority of american citizens...and instead having to watch Obama flip flop on these important issues and pander to special interests, compromise his ideals then yeah, it's gonna frustrate me, cause me to lose any faith in him and I'll start looking for other ways to push these issues because they are in fact very important to me. I wouldn't just sit back, give up and say oh well, Obama is the best we can do....when I know very well that he isn't.

Kel Varnsen

The thing I always notice about Nader when he speaks is that he is always very serious and unenthusiastic when he is talking about his campaign. Now it is not that serious is a bad thing, but if you can’t show excitement about your campaign I think it gives people the impression that you don’t think you can win. I think you have to show people that you believe you can win (even if in reality there is no chance) otherwise they aren’t going to think you can win and it turns a lot of people off.

I mean even a crazy little leprechaun like Ross Perot was able to get almost 20% of the vote. I think a lot of that was that he was excited about his campaign and it showed that he was in it with the goal to win. People can get behind that sort of attitude a lot easier. Nader after all his years of public exposure has never been able to get more then 3%..

Rhinocerous Surprise

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

I think it's more about the causes and issues Nader brings to the table meaning a lot to him and it matters to him greatly that they are taken seriously. I know from experience with posting on this board and doing activist work that these causes become part of your life and you want to push as hard as you can to gain attention to them and spread awareness. When people are stubborn and automatically shut your ideas out despite them being favored by the majority of american citizens...and instead having to watch Obama flip flop on these important issues and pander to special interests, compromise his ideals then yeah, it's gonna frustrate me, cause me to lose any faith in him and I'll start looking for other ways to push these issues because they are in fact very important to me. I wouldn't just sit back, give up and say oh well, Obama is the best we can do....when I know very well that he isn't.

Well said. So many people see Democrats and a 3rd party candidate as some sort of "anti-right wing" coalition. But the Demmiecrats and the Republicans have long been on a steady run to the middle ground on most issues, with discrepancies showing only where it would help either party get more votes, not where the candidate has strong feelings. If Nader is costing the Demmiecrats some "liberal" votes, as people like to argue, then rather than blaming the man himself, the Dems should look at their party, and ask themselves if they're really giving people the right candidates, with the focus on the right issues. People who vote Nader aren't voting anti-Republican, or anti-Demmiecrat, they're voting pro-Nader, and they're doing it for a reason.

my2hands

Rhinocerous Surprise wrote:

Well said.

it is like an echo chamber around here sometimes...

Rhinocerous Surprise

my2hands wrote:

it is like an echo chamber around here sometimes...

imes.... imes... sss...

inmytree

my2hands wrote:

just wondering... every 4 years he runs as a 3rd party candidate... but in between he apparently does nothing to help build an actual 3rd party structure. you know, on the local level where everything starts. maybe campaign for 3rd party candidiates in local and state elections. i believe that is why the green party had issues with him after the 2000 election...

movements are not built top down... they are built bottom up and i dont see Nader helping with that cause at all between his presidential runs

just asking

yeah, I wonder the same...

for me, the fact Nader is not with the Greens any more is telling...I know some will say he can't do anything as a Senator or Representative...I say that's short sighted...I mean, some think he can change the world as President...why can't he do the same in house and senate...?

sweetpotato

Kenny Olav wrote:

listen, i flat out don't think it makes sense for him to run for a 4th time. but he is at least raising some issues that wouldn't otherwise be talked about. he may also think that third parties aren't the only way to challenge the two-party system. but i would like to hear him explain his reasons for being independent. maybe he has?

i'm not trying to give you a hard time here, i swear to god, but which issues is he raising that anyone besides his supporters is aware of? and where exactly is he raising them? i haven't heard a peep out of him since he announced his candidacy. can you really blame the media and news outlets entirely? doesn't he need to spend some money in order to get his "message" out there? where is he???

angelica

Rhinocerous Surprise wrote:

my2hands wrote:

it is like an echo chamber around here sometimes...

imes.... imes... sss...

Rhinocerous Surprise

angelica wrote:

I didn't want to give a smart-ass answer. But he only quoted the first two words of my post.

angelica

Rhinocerous Surprise wrote:

I didn't want to give a smart-ass answer. But he only quoted the first two words of my post.

I hear you...when someone talks to me like they are my parent, rather than address the issues...I get tempted to act "smart" too!

Rhinocerous Surprise

angelica wrote:

I hear you...when someone talks to me like they are my parent, rather than address the issues...I get tempted to act "smart" too!

I even do it when my parents talk to me like they're my parents. Who do they think they are?!?!? :mad:

Abookamongstthemany

Rhinocerous Surprise wrote:

Well said. So many people see Democrats and a 3rd party candidate as some sort of "anti-right wing" coalition. But the Demmiecrats and the Republicans have long been on a steady run to the middle ground on most issues, with discrepancies showing only where it would help either party get more votes, not where the candidate has strong feelings. If Nader is costing the Demmiecrats some "liberal" votes, as people like to argue, then rather than blaming the man himself, the Dems should look at their party, and ask themselves if they're really giving people the right candidates, with the focus on the right issues. People who vote Nader aren't voting anti-Republican, or anti-Demmiecrat, they're voting pro-Nader, and they're doing it for a reason.

Well said

Rhinocerous Surprise

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

Well said

Like an echo chamber in here...

angelica

Rhinocerous Surprise wrote:

I even do it when my parents talk to me like they're my parents. Who do they think they are?!?!? :mad:

Parents....:mad:!?!?:D:D

angelica

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

Well said

Well said.