Ralph Nader might have run for president twice as a Green Party candidate. He might have played a vital role in the passing of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency. But he is not your typical progressively-minded environmentalist.
In 2000, Nader declared that Al Gore and George W. Bush were both dominated by corporate interests, as similar as “Tweedledee and Tweedledum.” Not many environmentalists would equate the political godfather of the climate movement with a Texas cowboy who led his state towards the bottom of national environmental rankings while governor. Even when it became apparent that his place on the ballot was taking desperately needed votes from Gore in key states like Florida and New Hampshire, Nader refused to drop out of the race.
Throughout his career, Nader has shown his inability to settle for the ‘lesser of two evils.’ Whereas many progressive individuals and organizations focus on working within the system by supporting the least-worst candidate and donating small amounts of money in hopes of countering corporate power, Nader is repeatedly in conflict with both business and government for his relentless consumer advocacy.
In 1965, after Nader wrote “Unsafe at Any Speed,” a book detailing resistance of car manufacturers to spend money on basic safety features like seat belts, he was harassed by private detectives hired by General Motors. His four presidential runs were widely criticized by the Democratic party and yet he persevered. He started the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG), a now widespread organization that seeks to protect consumer rights. More recently, he wrote “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us,” a novel that suggests that if the very wealthy harnessed their power for good, they could fix the world’s problems.
In a sense, Nader is still an idealistic college student. While the trend among environmentalists seems to be partnerships with business: take the recent move of the President of the Sierra Club to consulting for Wal-Mart: Nader continues to hold out for a more radical reformation of the system.
Dave Thorsen • Feb 26, 2012 at 11:20 am
Steve krulick has been discredited more times than Al Gore.
Vijay Antharam • May 18, 2010 at 9:30 am
Ralph Nader ran on principles in 2000, 04, and 08. Ten years later, as it turns out, he is dead-on correct over what will/is happening to this country.
JohnR • Nov 21, 2010 at 6:33 am
No matter how you slice and dice the vote counts, I am eternally baffled why some insist that Nader should have bowed out to make the 2000 election more easily winnable for Al “lock box” Gore. (as if Nader was the only third party candidate anyway)
Think about the shear stupidity of that statement for a moment.
If the world series was conducted in this way, fans of barred teams would be burning down the stadiums.
No one should be required to step down in order to give someone else an added advantage. It doesn’t happen at the local level, so why should it be any different at the national level.
Everyone should have to earn there own votes.
Anyway, I think Al Gore actually took votes away from Nader. :=)
Jim Hanson • May 9, 2010 at 1:30 pm
http://2act.org/p/33.html
key line: Even if the poll is the best indication of Florida voters, without Nader, Gore would have gotten 13% of 97,000 more votes thatn Bush from Nader voters, and would have won by 12,000 votes instead of losing by 537.
(for those not in the know–gore would have won the election if he had won florida)
this does not even account for the fact that gore had to spend more money countering nader–when he was already short (which caused him to not have a sufficient campaign operation in florida as well as several other close states such as new hampshire).
Steve Krulick • May 9, 2010 at 5:03 pm
But Gore DIDN’T lose by 537! Gore WON Florida! Hence he WON the election! The media consortium showed that under any legal recount, Gore HAD more votes, many of them BECAUSE Nader supporters switched to Gore at the last minute.
Why do Gorebots, 10 years later, still remain unsatisfied that EVERY Nader supporter didn’t chose to sacrifice THEIR principles and vote for a guy who didn’t even fight to justify the voters who DID vote for him?
Why don’t they blame the 300,000 REGISTERED DEMS in FL, and 8 MILLION in the US, who actually VOTED for BUSH, a double-whammy Gore had to overcome, FAR more critical than “spending money countering Nader”? That Gore spent more energy dealing with Nader than Bush tells you what the Dem strategy really was… to make sure the Greens were shot down, even if it meant letting the Repubs take the White House.
Please reread the long list of ways Gore screwed up, EVEN THOUGH HE STILL WON the popular AND EC votes. I don’t see you blaming Harris, the SCotUS, the 50 million non-voters, ANY of the third-party candidates, each of whom got more than 600 votes in FL.
Finally, and this is an esoteric exercise in pure logic, there WAS NO KNOWN UNIVERSE where Nader DIDN’T run, so the premise “IF Nader hadn’t run, Gore would have won,” is the same logical fallacy as “IF pigs could fly, I would be king.” IF the first premise is false, ANY conclusion can be inserted, because the whole structure is logically false no matter what you say.
BUT if you still believe in polls, EVEN the DLC points to polls that show that IF Nader hadn’t run, OVERALL Bush would have done better (for example, among Muslim voters, whom Nader did well amongst) and likely would have won outright. New Mexico, which Gore won by less than 1000 votes, might have flipped. The numbers also don’t support the New Hampshire argument.
Alan Z • May 6, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Lisa is correct. Nader’s obstinate refusal to bow out in Florida put Bush close enough in the vote to get the Supreme Court to annoint him President back in 2000, due to the outmoded electoral college system.
We’ll never know how things might have been different if Gore had become president, but even Stephen King would have a hard time developing a story to imagine how it could have turned out worse. It is going to take a generation to recover from the damage Bush/Cheney/Rove/Greenspan/Rubin did to our country.
Steve Krulick • May 7, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Nader had NO obligation to “bow out”! His only obligation, once he ran, was to give people like ME someone to vote FOR, not the “lesser evil” to settle for. How did my vote for Nader in NY put Bush in the White House? The 2000 and 2004 prez elections were stolen, plain and simple. That and 8 million registered Dems who actually voted for Bush! Blame them, if anyone! 50 million misguided fools “put Bush close enough in the vote” to let him steal the rest.
Gore should have won by a landslide against an incompetent doofus like Bush, but he caved even though he WON, refused to demand a complete recount, didn’t challenge the tens of thousands of legal voters tossed off the rolls, plus voter caging, electronic vote theft, selectively counted military and overseas ballots, lousy campaign advisers, not getting Clinton to campaign for him, blowing FL voters over the Everglades, etc., etc., the thousand banana peels Nader referred to that Gore slipped up on. To focus on Nader, one minor factor, is political bigotry. Hell even Al From, DLC head, AND Al Gore, both are on record as saying that Nader’s participation did NOT “cost” Gore the election, and, indeed, polls showed that without Nader in the race, Bush would have actually DONE BETTER, and possibly won outright.
If anything, Nader has been proven right in just about every issue he brought up in each prez run of his.
John R • May 6, 2010 at 1:16 pm
“Even when it became apparent that his place on the ballot was taking desperately needed votes from Gore in key states like Florida and New Hampshire, …..”
That is a myth !!! A huge, 10 year old myth that has been disproved many times by hordes of people. Not a penny’s worth of truth in any of it. There are nearly a dozen reason’s why that claim does not make any sense.
Nader siphoned votes from no one, since the people who voted for Ralph would not have even bothered to vote at all if he did not run. If anything, they would have cast their vote for one of the other third party candidates (Nader was not the only third party candidate in 2000).
The typical Nader voter would never vote for either Gore or Bush.
For the most part, Nader’s votes were ADDITIONAL votes to that election.
Lisa Curtis • May 6, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Hi John, thanks for your comments. There have actually been a fair amount of research showing that Nader’s votes in NH and FL vastly exceeded the difference in votes between Gore and Bush. Nader himself writes in his book “Crashing the Party” that 38% of his supporters would have voted for Gore, thereby netting a 13% advantage for Gore over Bush. While you are correct that 37% of Naders voters would not have voted at all, the net advantage is for Gore if Nader had renounced his candidacy in Florida. In some ways I actually admire this–he is far more of a progressive that most who label themselves as such but I question his unwillingness to differentiate the Republican and Democratic parties.
Steve Krulick • May 7, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Actually, the approx. 300,000 registered Dems in FL who voted FOR BUSH far out-numbered any difference Nader could ever have made, and those votes actually PUT numbers IN Bush’s column, which Gore would have had to overcome, whereas Nader votes didn’t, same as staying home. Who goes around blaming the 50% of qualified citizens who didn’t vote at all? A handful of them could have changed the outcome, whereas Nader supporters owed Gore nothing, particularly after the way Gorebots and Al’s team treated Nader at the debates.
Besides, the media consortium showed that Gore WON the vote in FL, and hence the whole election, so Nader becomes moot. Gore lost his home state, and Arkansas, and perhaps 70,000 legal black FL voters were illegally thrown off the rolls by Katherine Harris, the Supreme Court violated states rights and precedents to give Bush the White House, which Gore didn’t contest. Oh, and three scary words that cost Gore votes: President Joe Lieberman
Nader was running about 5% in FL a week before the election, but only wound up with 2%. The vast difference probably were Nader supporters holding their noses and voting for Gore at the last minute, thanks to the fearmongering of Dems, giving Gore the win in FL. You’re welcome. The slight win in NM by Gore could likewise be attributed to Nader.