so you’re suggesting that there may be a huge difference between Obama and McCain (with which I agree). Obama is already a significantly better choice than McCain based on just one area, albeit an important one.

Obama would be overwhelmingly better than John McCain for many other reasons. He’d be substantially better than McCain in many other areas including climate change, health and socially liberal values.

Seeing as though Nader has no chance of election and, if he runs, is likely to bleed votes from Obama (assuming he’s nominated), I believe he would better serve the American people in ways other than running for President.

That was a pretty lame effort to answer that question. I think advocates for Nader running for president should be able to carefully consider that pertinent question.

Lame effort? Nonsense.
>
At the minute I see contenders for president: McCain, Clinton and Obama. The first two amomgst these supported the invasion of war. McCain the Republican continues to do so and believes it worth fighting for a hundred years if necessary.
>
Now first I’ll take him at his word. Second I’ll round down the $323 Billion figure calculated two years ago to an even $300 bill. I’ll throw into the mix the number 3971 which is the latest figure for US deaths in the war.
>
Then let’s multiply that by Senator McCain’s century and the bill is:
>
$7 500 000 000 000.00 + 99 275 lives.
>
So what’s the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans again. Maybe none. If Obama and Clinton were lying thru their teeth I wouldn’t be at all surprised. It’s their job after all. Obama seems to’ve been oppossed to this madness for the long haul. And he had the courage to make that stand even when it was highly unpopular.

What effects will it have to the people of USA if the Republicans win the election instead of the Democrats?
Um… war? 100 years of…Monthly death toll? Etcetera”

That was a pretty lame effort to answer that question. I think advocates for Nader running for president should be able to carefully consider that pertinent question.

As while Obama should have won by a landslide, let’s look at history.

He’s never run before I think you mean Kerry. Kerry was useless.

The American electorate were dumb enough to re-elect Bush in 2004. Assuming they’ll get it right in 2008 is a risky bet.

Considering the opinion polls I’ll take that bet.

They won’t stand for any real libertarian/democratic socialist change just like any classic bourgeois Marxist/Fabian authoritarian socialshit.

Don’t think the libertarians and the democratic socialists have the same changes in mind. Do you know this or are you co-opting the word libertraian?
>
First they lost the monopoly on ‘liberal’ now they’re losing libertarian. It’s not fair. (Leaving room for snarky comment re competition and monopolies).

Alaister –

What effects will it have to the people of USA if the Republicans win the election instead of the Democrats?

Um… war? 100 years of…Monthly death toll? Etcetera

#85 – Spot on. Nader’d do better to run against the crusty old congress and the Fycus plants.

Over 100 posts in this thread, and over 10,000 words! Could it be that the ideas expressed on one side are just too subtle for the other to comprehend?

slightly OT, but as I’m a long time member of Kos (one of the first thousand signees!), I can say that the quality of discourse always goes to hell in a handbasket through the primaries, and over the last few years has declined in many ways overall as well. There are still excellent posters there, but if you just dip in to the site in its current state, it’s tear-worthy material

The American electorate were dumb enough to re-elect Bush in 2004. Assuming they’ll get it right in 2008 is a risky bet.

Yes. In 1972 they even re-elected Tricky Dicky in a landslide. This was most dispiriting for a precocious 13 year old who had learned about US politics from reading MAD magazine.

As while Obama should have won by a landslide, let’s look at history. The American electorate were dumb enough to re-elect Bush in 2004. Assuming they’ll get it right in 2008 is a risky bet.

What happened in Florida was the election was rigged. For that matter, what happened in Ohio in 2004 was that the election was rigged.

It’s no good saying that if it wasn’t for Nader, then it wouldn’t have been an issue because it was so close…rigging an election is a serious crime (running for President by contrast is a right given to every US citizen aged 35 or more) , and the perps should have been tossed into the hoosegow and the voting system overhauled.

Another thing. People insulting Nader should get their heads, or at least their ethics, read. Can anyone even guess how many lives his advocacy has saved over the last 40 years?

Nader’s right. If Obama can’t win by a landslide this time around it’s time the Democrats picked up their teddy bears and went home.

He was everything I’ve wanted to say in this thread except, like, what he said was actually coherent, thought through, and had shiny words like “constituency”. Oh, ‘cept I’m not a Green and the DailyKos mostly makes me want to cry…

http://www.236.com/news/2008/02/25/thought_process_flowchart_ralp_1_4699.php

Build a constituency and a viable, credible alternative at the local council /regional politics and eventually congressional district level. Trying to start from top down is a proven formula for failure and further antagonises Democrats who are otherwise sympathetic to the need for electoral reform.

Exactly!

I don’t believe Nader cost Gore the 2000 election, so let’s get that out of the way. He did fail to show perspective in understanding that Bush, as was amply clear by 2004, represents an all-new nadir of appalling government with globally catastrophic impacts that needed to be stopped. Hence I have had zero regard for him since his decision to run in 04. It was telling that the US Greens did not endorse him.

Like Paul Norton and others, I believe from talking with many Green and ‘very’ left Americans that the way for the Greens and other minor parties to challenge and hopefully eventually reform the USA’s profoundly undemocratic election system is from the grass roots up. Build a constituency and a viable, credible alternative at the local council /regional politics and eventually congressional district level. Trying to start from top down is a proven formula for failure and further antagonises Democrats who are otherwise sympathetic to the need for electoral reform.

What is most egregious about Nader’s run this time is that he’s competing against Obama. Not only are Obama’s policies considerably more progressive than McCain’s, or for that matter Kerry’s, his campaign is winning precisely because it is a grass-roots approach , rather than a traditional style political run based entirely on elite money and endorsements. Providentially there is a good post on this at DailyKos which can be found right here

Obama’s is a genuinely grass roots campaign, US style, and will almost certainly change the style and substance of US politics if he succeeds in winning the Presidency.

If Nader helps foil a win by Obama, he will also be foiling the adoption of such grass-roots campaigning techniques which represent a real break from old-style US politics, and have the potential to lay the foundation for geniune democratic reform in the long term in the USA – and yet it’s the latter that Nader claims to be all about.

My partner only now votes for Greens in local contests or where the Democratic candidate is as egregiously offensive as the Rethug. She’ll almost certainly be voting for Obama in November, assuming he gets the nomination.

Here’s hoping Nader disappears this time fast. There’s far too much globally riding on this.

A possible alternative strategy for the US Greens could be the inverse of what Sam Clifford suggested at #2, i.e. getting out the Green vote in November by running in as many Congressional Districts as possible, recommending that Green voters vote Democrat for President, and thus trying to be in a position where the Democrat Presidential candidate, if they win by a narrow margin, owes a debt to the Greens for the possibly decisive 1 or 2 per cent of the vote, with part of the quid pro quo being alook at electoral reform.

Which is what happens in US States where “Electoral Fusion” is still permitted. The Working Families Party in NY, for instance, endorses Democratic (and sometimes Republican) candidates on the ballot, so in 2006 Eliot Spitzer was on both the Democratic and WF ballots.

Fusion was very effective for left-wing parties back in the day, which led to the major parties outlawing it in most states, and locked in the two party system.

I think that Nader has done a huge body of admirable work but his dealings involving Presidential campaigns since ‘96 come across as being extremely arrogant. He comes across as unwilling to accept the notion that action on the issues that he discusses requires a mandate. That won’t happen with 1% of the Presidential vote.