My Definitive Statement on Ralph Nader

A lot of the folks I know who voted for Nader are taking the 'let's fight the good fight and get rid of the whack-job' stance this time around. As much as many of us want a multi-party system, the potential cost would be so disturbing. :P I'd rather have two parties than our current dick-tatorship.

Your definitive statement is also mine.

I read a commentary that this time he might siphon off some Republican votes from people who are sick of Bush but cannot bring themselves to vote Democratic.

That'd be nice but I am mad as hell that he has the gall to run again.

Here's what I think:

In 2000, the country was at such a high, that I don't think many people felt compelled to "make a difference" with their votes. For the most part, everyone was fat and happy, so it didn't matter. Couple that with the fact that at the time, Gore and Bush were seemingly the same, save for the party affiliation. So I think a lot of ideologists and so forth voted for Nader so as not to "fuel the two-party machine."

This time around, I think the majority of the country realizes how much things have gone to shit in the past 4 years and how different things would have been had Gore won. And since a strong trend is "Anyone but Bush," I think most people who may have voted for Nader in 2000 realize that is a poor use of their vote this time around and will vote for whoever can get rid of Bush.

I also think that it's unfair to place the blame for Bush's election entirely on Nader. Granted, he got a fair number of votes from the more extreme "Democrats," but if Gore, or Bush for that matter, had done a better job appealing to swing voters, we wouldn't have had this problem in the first place. (And I say Bush b/c if he had won by a definitive amount, we could at least say he won fair and square and we voted ourselves into this mess.)

(That's pretty much what everyone else has said. Forgive me for rambling.)