Nader, Please!

Here we go again. Another vanity run for an office he can’t win.

I’m am not saying that Ralph would make a bad president. However, whatever kind of president he could be is totally irrelevant.


Here we go again. Another vanity run for an office he can’t win.

Now, before all of you Nader supporters get on my case, let me make one thing clear. I’m am not saying that Ralph would make a bad president. However, I do believe that you all need to finally realize that whatever kind of president he could be is totally irrelevant. Do I really need to keep pointing this out to everyone?

Alright then, here we go again. As long as our country continues to employ the Primary system of delegates and the Electoral College to elect its president, no third-party candidate has any chance of ever winning. I’m sorry to say but sadly the old warning that voting for a third-party is the same as throwing your vote away is true.

So, those Democrats who cried that Nader helped Gore lose in 2000 or Kerry in 2004, in a way were correct. Even though the Democratic Party was in a complete shambles at that time, the bottom line is any votes cast for Nader weren’t counted and therefore skewed the outcome. In our antiquated system, only votes cast by the Electoral College for the Republican or Democratic party are counted.

I once had a great deal of respect for Ralph Nader. As a consumer advocate, his ability to see clearly the needs of the American public was second to none. So why can’t he see that his energy would be better spent reforming the electoral system that is keeping him out of the oval office? After four tries, you’d think he’d learn. Hell, if he was as smart as we all thought, he’d have learned after the first try.

So I say again to all of you who want to see a viable third-party bid for the presidency; reform the system. Dismantle the Electoral College. Do away with the primaries. Make it so the popular vote is the law and we the people are actually in charge as was written (but never really practiced) by our forefathers.

See Also:
A Failed Independent Presidential Bid


Tags: , , , , , , , ,

2 Responses to “Nader, Please!”

  1. Charles
    02/29/08 at 5:30 pm #

    As an important aside, it is the non-parliamentary system of government we have that hinders and protects us from small but influential third party candidates. In a parlimentary system, Nader would win a few Green seats in congress. If the Republicans and Democrats failed to win a majority, he would then pick the next president in exchange for several cabinet positions, probably commerce, interior, and energy.
    In defence of the Electoral College (and by that, we really mean the winner-take-all nature of indiviual state preferences), please be aware it
    a) discounts high popularity concentrated in a region, winning Tennessee with 65% is the same as winning with 51%
    b) disproportionately adds influence to sparsely populated (rural) areas, because every state gets a minimum of 3 votes, vs. the disproportionately small influence small states would have otherwise
    c) reinforces federalism, the notion that the country is composed of individual politically viable states, distinct units with local collective concerns.

  2. Charles
    03/02/08 at 6:49 pm #

    Errata:
    ‘parliamentary’, ‘defense’, and ‘individual’ were misspelled and “have otherwise” should probably read “otherwise have.”

Leave a comment