[from Ralph Nader's site ]
Did Ralph cost Al Gore the election in 2000?
No.
Al Gore won the election in 2000.
George W. Bush cost Al Gore the election.
No one is entitled to votes, they must be earned.
To say someone is a "spoiler" is to relegate all third-party and independent candidates to second class citizenship. America does not belong to two parties.
The Constitution does not mention parties.
This country had a rich history of third parties.
George W. Bush?s recount strategy in Florida cost Gore the election.
The deceptive butterfly ballot, which Democratic officials approved, cost Al Gore the election.
Katherine Harris-style purging of tens of thousands of non ex-felons from the voter roles cost the election.
A 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court stop of the recount cost Gore the election. (See Jeffrey Toobin?s book Too Close to Call).
Playing the "what if" game, Gore cost Gore the election in Tennessee, Arkansas, and each of the presidential debates.
Buchanan cost Bush four states (Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Mexico).
Except for brief, progressive moments, such as at the convention, which helped his polls, Gore ran the usual, lackluster corporate Democratic campaign.
And they did. They voted for Bush, including more than 250,000 self-identified Democrats in Florida.
Moreover, a Democratic exit poll showed that Ralph?s votes came 25% from Republicans, 38% from Democrats, and the rest were nonvoters who would have only voted for Ralph.
In other words, more than sixty percent of Ralph?s voters would NOT have voted for Gore.
In New Hampshire, exit polls showed that Ralph "took more votes" from Republicans than Democrats, by a 2 to 1 margin.
CNN?s polling data said that if neither Nader nor Buchanan had run, Bush would have beat Gore 48 to 47 percent, with 4 percent who voted not voting.
For the last three years Democrats and media pundits have been smearing Ralph Nader and the Greens ? oblivious to the facts ? looking for a scapegoat for the failures of their own party and its candidates.
It is not the job of third-party or Independent candidates to make sure either of the two major parties wins.
That would be like asking a new start-up to make sure Microsoft or Apple has more market share.
Moreover, there are 100 million people in this country who do not vote. There are plenty of nonvoters for all candidates to attract.
Electoral votes are not a zero-sum game.
Historically, third parties and Independents move very important agendas.
If the goal is to defeat Bush, why not just support the Democratic Party?s nominee?
It?s really not clear that the Democratic Party can defeat George W. Bush all by itself. "Electability" is neither an agenda nor a mandate. A two-front approach may be needed and let?s look at why:
The Democratic Party is part of the problem.
* They voted for or failed to stop the Iraq war resolution turning Bush into a wartime president.
* They voted for or failed to stop the Patriot Act.
* They voted for or failed to stop John Ashcroft.
* They voted for or failed to stop Bush?s tax cuts for the wealthy.
* They voted for or failed to stop the Medicare fiasco.
* They lost the 2002 midterm elections, contrary to historical tradition.
* In 1983, the Democrats controlled 23 more state legislatures than the Republicans; today the Republicans control five more than the Democrats.
* In 1983, there were 18 more Democratic governors than Republican ones; Now there are three more. New York, Massachusetts, Kentucky, California, Florida and Texas are all Republican controlled.
* More young adults today identify themselves as Republicans than 20 years ago, while fewer identify themselves as Democrats.
At what point do you stop relying on a party to be an opposition party and start asking what else needs to be done to put some spine into Washington politics?
Didn?t Ralph say that there was "no difference between the Democrats and Republicans?"
Ralph did not say ? as has been repeated ad nauseum ? that there was NO difference between them.
He said that overall there were few major differences for which the Democrats were willing to fight -- differences not just in rhetoric but in reality.
The Republicans have become very good at electing extreme Republicans, and the Democrats have been very good at allowing them to do so.
Do you still think there are few major differences between the major parties?
Yes, compared to their towering similarities (including selling elections to commercial interests), and Ralph?s agenda to move this country forward. Both parties keep getting worse.
Now a question for you: what is your breaking point with politics as usual?
Would a Nader candidacy help elect independent minded candidates to Congress?
Yes and that is one of the reasons to run: to help bring out more people who may vote down ticket for some independent thinkers in the House and Senate.
The Democratic Party seems at times to have given up on winning back either House of Congress.
Both parties are so reliant on Congressional redistricting determinism that there is no chance for fresh blood to move new ideas.
Only four House incumbents lost in the 2002 mid-term elections.
What is wrong with this picture?
It?s incumbent protectionism all over the USA.
We need some new voices and fresh choices in Washington, D.C.
What has Ralph done since 2000?
Just because you may not have heard daily of Ralph on the corporate media, doesn?t mean that Ralph has been silent.
Apart from being the same consumer advocate he has always been, uplifting young people?s civic interests, and writing books, Ralph has continued to speak out on all kinds of issues, for a sample:
* the many reforms that need to be made in the electoral process, including, the corrupt funding of public campaigns, the disenfranchisement of voters, and the vote-counting machine deficiencies;
* the quagmire wars in Afghanistan and Iraq;
* more corporate-managed globalization;
* corporate war profiteering;
* the corporate crime, fraud and abuse crime wave;
* the need to send corporate crooks to jail;
* the need for integrity in accounting;
* the mad cow disease and food hazards generally;
* the annual Congressional pay raises while the living wage is nonexistent for 45 millions workers;
* the ill-suited appointments by the Bush Administration;
* the exclusionary Commission on Presidential Debates;
* low income neighborhood redlining, payday loans and rent to own rackets and other predatory lending;
* lead contamination and record rates of asthma in children;
* the subordination of sustainable economic and technological solutions to environmental devastation and government indifference;
* the criminal injustice system and the need to open wider the civil courts to defrauded or wrongfully injured people presently denied justice; and
* the need for more consumer health, safety and economic protection.
Additionally, Ralph has recently started four new citizen organizations.
Earlier this month, along with several third parties and former candidates, he sued the Federal Election Commission for not acting against the two-party controlled partisan Commission on Presidential Debates.
What has Ralph done to build the Green Party?
As the New York State Greens wrote recently:
"Ralph Nader has done more to grow the Green Party than any other individual in this country. He has run as our presidential candidate twice, and has helped the Green Party tremendously in raising funds in between campaigns. He has supported numerous local Green Party candidates, and has attracted media attention that the Green Party would not have received otherwise. Green Party enrollment surged after both of his presidential bids..."
Specifically, during the election, Ralph helped:
* local Greens start 450 new local Green chapters,
* achieve ballot lines for several states,
* support state and local candidates;
* make the party grow from an association of states to a national party;
* recruit and share lists of tens of thousands of volunteers; and
* start 900 chapters on college campuses, all resulting in the largest vote for a progressive candidacy in 75 years.
Since 2000, Ralph:
* wrote Crashing the Party, touting the Green Party and its platform;
* attended 45 fundraisers in some 31 states, at his own expense, raising more money than anyone for the Green Party at the national party, state and local levels;
* sent representatives to the Global Greens Conference in Canberra in 2001; the Hiawassee, GA meeting in 2000; the Santa Barbara, CA meeting in 2001; and the D.C. meeting in 2003; Ralph attended the Philadelphia, PA conference in 2002.
* has met with dozens of Green leaders around the Globe as they visit D.C.;
* went to Europe in 2002 for the 3rd annual Congress of European Greens in Germany, and visited the French and Swedish Greens before their elections.
So why would Ralph run as an Independent now?
Throughout American history third parties and independent candidates have pushed the agenda toward the just needs of the people and changed one or more of the major parties on many important subjects ? abolition of slavery, women?s suffrage, deficits, agrarian rights, labor right, social security, health care and civil rights, to name just a few.
Third parties and Independents have been the seeds of regeneration and great social movements.
The Greens are not planning on deciding whether or under which conditions they will run a Presidential candidate until their June Convention in Milwaukee.
Because of the deadlines under the unfair ballot access laws, Ralph could not wait until then to see whether the Greens would field a candidate this year and under what restrictions.
He still plans to work with local and state Green parties and supports their main values, but he wanted the ability to start before Jue and be able to run an innovative campaign and bring out more Independents and nonvoters who don?t want to identify with any party.
Ralph is and always has been registered as an Independent.
A third of the country identifies themselves this way and more and more people want a viable check on the two parties.
Why doesn?t Ralph just sit this year out?
Someone has to be in the race to keep the two parties parties responsive and make sure that the issues the Washington insiders don?t want to address get raised all the way to election day, since most Americans only start to pay attention to the election after Labor Day.
They told African Americans and women "to wait" when they wanted the right to vote.
They told students during Viet Nam, and they told the civil rights and labor leaders that it wasn?t "the right time." It?s never the time for pioneers and trailblazers.
The stakes are always high. (Think of Soviet-US nuclear missiles in 1984.)
According to both parties who want to avoid challenges, there is no such thing as a suitable year, ever.
But the quest for justice doesn?t take a holiday.
If you think this country and world are so well spoken for that more people and wider agendas in the electoral arena are not needed, then don?t vote for Ralph.
It?s that simple.
All the Democratic voters can vote for the Democrats. All the Republican voters for the Republicans.
And still there would be 100 million plus nonvoting people to approach for their votes.
If you think we could all be doing a better job at making a more perfect union, then keep an open mind and visit the rest of this site.
And don?t just let election-day dynamics affect your judgment about all the good and more explicit popular mandates that can come from pre-election day and post-election day dynamics, when more people expand their political and civic energies.
Thank you.
Why vote for Ralph Nader
Did Ralph cost Al Gore the election in 2000?
No.
Al Gore won the election in 2000.
George W. Bush cost Al Gore the election.
No one is entitled to votes, they must be earned.
To say someone is a "spoiler" is to relegate all third-party and independent candidates to second class citizenship. America does not belong to two parties.
The Constitution does not mention parties.
This country had a rich history of third parties.
George W. Bush?s recount strategy in Florida cost Gore the election.
The deceptive butterfly ballot, which Democratic officials approved, cost Al Gore the election.
Katherine Harris-style purging of tens of thousands of non ex-felons from the voter roles cost the election.
A 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court stop of the recount cost Gore the election. (See Jeffrey Toobin?s book Too Close to Call).
Playing the "what if" game, Gore cost Gore the election in Tennessee, Arkansas, and each of the presidential debates.
Buchanan cost Bush four states (Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Mexico).
Except for brief, progressive moments, such as at the convention, which helped his polls, Gore ran the usual, lackluster corporate Democratic campaign.
And they did. They voted for Bush, including more than 250,000 self-identified Democrats in Florida.
Moreover, a Democratic exit poll showed that Ralph?s votes came 25% from Republicans, 38% from Democrats, and the rest were nonvoters who would have only voted for Ralph.
In other words, more than sixty percent of Ralph?s voters would NOT have voted for Gore.
In New Hampshire, exit polls showed that Ralph "took more votes" from Republicans than Democrats, by a 2 to 1 margin.
CNN?s polling data said that if neither Nader nor Buchanan had run, Bush would have beat Gore 48 to 47 percent, with 4 percent who voted not voting.
For the last three years Democrats and media pundits have been smearing Ralph Nader and the Greens ? oblivious to the facts ? looking for a scapegoat for the failures of their own party and its candidates.
It is not the job of third-party or Independent candidates to make sure either of the two major parties wins.
That would be like asking a new start-up to make sure Microsoft or Apple has more market share.
Moreover, there are 100 million people in this country who do not vote. There are plenty of nonvoters for all candidates to attract.
Electoral votes are not a zero-sum game.
Historically, third parties and Independents move very important agendas.
If the goal is to defeat Bush, why not just support the Democratic Party?s nominee?
It?s really not clear that the Democratic Party can defeat George W. Bush all by itself. "Electability" is neither an agenda nor a mandate. A two-front approach may be needed and let?s look at why:
The Democratic Party is part of the problem.
* They voted for or failed to stop the Iraq war resolution turning Bush into a wartime president.
* They voted for or failed to stop the Patriot Act.
* They voted for or failed to stop John Ashcroft.
* They voted for or failed to stop Bush?s tax cuts for the wealthy.
* They voted for or failed to stop the Medicare fiasco.
* They lost the 2002 midterm elections, contrary to historical tradition.
* In 1983, the Democrats controlled 23 more state legislatures than the Republicans; today the Republicans control five more than the Democrats.
* In 1983, there were 18 more Democratic governors than Republican ones; Now there are three more. New York, Massachusetts, Kentucky, California, Florida and Texas are all Republican controlled.
* More young adults today identify themselves as Republicans than 20 years ago, while fewer identify themselves as Democrats.
At what point do you stop relying on a party to be an opposition party and start asking what else needs to be done to put some spine into Washington politics?
Didn?t Ralph say that there was "no difference between the Democrats and Republicans?"
Ralph did not say ? as has been repeated ad nauseum ? that there was NO difference between them.
He said that overall there were few major differences for which the Democrats were willing to fight -- differences not just in rhetoric but in reality.
The Republicans have become very good at electing extreme Republicans, and the Democrats have been very good at allowing them to do so.
Do you still think there are few major differences between the major parties?
Yes, compared to their towering similarities (including selling elections to commercial interests), and Ralph?s agenda to move this country forward. Both parties keep getting worse.
Now a question for you: what is your breaking point with politics as usual?
Would a Nader candidacy help elect independent minded candidates to Congress?
Yes and that is one of the reasons to run: to help bring out more people who may vote down ticket for some independent thinkers in the House and Senate.
The Democratic Party seems at times to have given up on winning back either House of Congress.
Both parties are so reliant on Congressional redistricting determinism that there is no chance for fresh blood to move new ideas.
Only four House incumbents lost in the 2002 mid-term elections.
What is wrong with this picture?
It?s incumbent protectionism all over the USA.
We need some new voices and fresh choices in Washington, D.C.
What has Ralph done since 2000?
Just because you may not have heard daily of Ralph on the corporate media, doesn?t mean that Ralph has been silent.
Apart from being the same consumer advocate he has always been, uplifting young people?s civic interests, and writing books, Ralph has continued to speak out on all kinds of issues, for a sample:
* the many reforms that need to be made in the electoral process, including, the corrupt funding of public campaigns, the disenfranchisement of voters, and the vote-counting machine deficiencies;
* the quagmire wars in Afghanistan and Iraq;
* more corporate-managed globalization;
* corporate war profiteering;
* the corporate crime, fraud and abuse crime wave;
* the need to send corporate crooks to jail;
* the need for integrity in accounting;
* the mad cow disease and food hazards generally;
* the annual Congressional pay raises while the living wage is nonexistent for 45 millions workers;
* the ill-suited appointments by the Bush Administration;
* the exclusionary Commission on Presidential Debates;
* low income neighborhood redlining, payday loans and rent to own rackets and other predatory lending;
* lead contamination and record rates of asthma in children;
* the subordination of sustainable economic and technological solutions to environmental devastation and government indifference;
* the criminal injustice system and the need to open wider the civil courts to defrauded or wrongfully injured people presently denied justice; and
* the need for more consumer health, safety and economic protection.
Additionally, Ralph has recently started four new citizen organizations.
Earlier this month, along with several third parties and former candidates, he sued the Federal Election Commission for not acting against the two-party controlled partisan Commission on Presidential Debates.
What has Ralph done to build the Green Party?
As the New York State Greens wrote recently:
"Ralph Nader has done more to grow the Green Party than any other individual in this country. He has run as our presidential candidate twice, and has helped the Green Party tremendously in raising funds in between campaigns. He has supported numerous local Green Party candidates, and has attracted media attention that the Green Party would not have received otherwise. Green Party enrollment surged after both of his presidential bids..."
Specifically, during the election, Ralph helped:
* local Greens start 450 new local Green chapters,
* achieve ballot lines for several states,
* support state and local candidates;
* make the party grow from an association of states to a national party;
* recruit and share lists of tens of thousands of volunteers; and
* start 900 chapters on college campuses, all resulting in the largest vote for a progressive candidacy in 75 years.
Since 2000, Ralph:
* wrote Crashing the Party, touting the Green Party and its platform;
* attended 45 fundraisers in some 31 states, at his own expense, raising more money than anyone for the Green Party at the national party, state and local levels;
* sent representatives to the Global Greens Conference in Canberra in 2001; the Hiawassee, GA meeting in 2000; the Santa Barbara, CA meeting in 2001; and the D.C. meeting in 2003; Ralph attended the Philadelphia, PA conference in 2002.
* has met with dozens of Green leaders around the Globe as they visit D.C.;
* went to Europe in 2002 for the 3rd annual Congress of European Greens in Germany, and visited the French and Swedish Greens before their elections.
So why would Ralph run as an Independent now?
Throughout American history third parties and independent candidates have pushed the agenda toward the just needs of the people and changed one or more of the major parties on many important subjects ? abolition of slavery, women?s suffrage, deficits, agrarian rights, labor right, social security, health care and civil rights, to name just a few.
Third parties and Independents have been the seeds of regeneration and great social movements.
The Greens are not planning on deciding whether or under which conditions they will run a Presidential candidate until their June Convention in Milwaukee.
Because of the deadlines under the unfair ballot access laws, Ralph could not wait until then to see whether the Greens would field a candidate this year and under what restrictions.
He still plans to work with local and state Green parties and supports their main values, but he wanted the ability to start before Jue and be able to run an innovative campaign and bring out more Independents and nonvoters who don?t want to identify with any party.
Ralph is and always has been registered as an Independent.
A third of the country identifies themselves this way and more and more people want a viable check on the two parties.
Why doesn?t Ralph just sit this year out?
Someone has to be in the race to keep the two parties parties responsive and make sure that the issues the Washington insiders don?t want to address get raised all the way to election day, since most Americans only start to pay attention to the election after Labor Day.
They told African Americans and women "to wait" when they wanted the right to vote.
They told students during Viet Nam, and they told the civil rights and labor leaders that it wasn?t "the right time." It?s never the time for pioneers and trailblazers.
The stakes are always high. (Think of Soviet-US nuclear missiles in 1984.)
According to both parties who want to avoid challenges, there is no such thing as a suitable year, ever.
But the quest for justice doesn?t take a holiday.
If you think this country and world are so well spoken for that more people and wider agendas in the electoral arena are not needed, then don?t vote for Ralph.
It?s that simple.
All the Democratic voters can vote for the Democrats. All the Republican voters for the Republicans.
And still there would be 100 million plus nonvoting people to approach for their votes.
If you think we could all be doing a better job at making a more perfect union, then keep an open mind and visit the rest of this site.
And don?t just let election-day dynamics affect your judgment about all the good and more explicit popular mandates that can come from pre-election day and post-election day dynamics, when more people expand their political and civic energies.
Thank you.
Why vote for Ralph Nader
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