Nada for Nader

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1155664,00.html

Many of the 30 or so folk trudging around outside 100 Summer Street voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, and now he is back in the race, determined to make his mark on another election - despite the vitriolic condemnation of his presidential aspirations by mainstream Democrats and many former supporters.

The Democratic establishment say he is doing a "Norma Desmond" as one imaginative columnist described it today. Like the star of Sunset Boulevard, he is unable to face the truth that his fans have moved on. Feeling murderous and self-destructive in equal measure, he has announced through a thick layer of poorly-applied make-up: "I'm ready for my close up now."

But Nader still has a constituency; even though his policies are remarkably similar to the other left-wing candidate within the Democratic fold, Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and even though he will not be buoyed up by Green Party state-based organisation this time.

Unscientific as it may be, out of the assembled activists, I could not find anyone with a vote who had decided they would be supporting the great consumers' champion and environmental advocate. If there are no firm supporters at an event like this, then Nader is going to be hard-pushed to get enough signatures to be an official presence on the ballot in most states.

[Forkboy]

1. Good article

and a good example of why the hysterics here are so silly.

[T_i_B]

2. UK Guardian is going Nader bonkers today

Here is a comment piece from today's Grauniad. I posted this in the editorials forum in the hope that the usual flame warriors might not notice it there. :eyes:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1155404,00.html

[Forkboy]

3. But I am one the usual flame warriors

:)

That's another excellent article.I love this paragraph;

In Iraq the US is decreeing the type of democracy it thinks fit. Meanwhile the world watches US democracy bought and sold by corporate cash and fixed by a politically gerrymandered supreme court in a deeply unjust first-past-the-post system. American elections make the case against Iranian-style "Islamic democracy" a little harder. Which is more democratic: rule by moolah or mullah?

[T_i_B]

4. Well in that case...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x36623

:-)