I see the comments of Ralph Nader. He has been a thorn in the side of many for so long.

I can remember it now, how sarcastic he was back in 2000. He assailed Al Gore and made the difference between Gore and then Governor Bush seem nonexistent.

He convinced many sour, frustrated with politics as usual, whiny people. The people were tired of the Clinton drama at the end, and with apparent peace and prosperity they could entertain such notions as Gore governing the same as an almost blank slate son of a former President.

Let me start by saying that I am not at all one of those Democrats who think that it was consumer advocate Ralph Nader who gave us the last eight years of George W. Bush. While many in the Democratic Party may hold that opinion and truly believe that Nader is just this side of a complete a##hole for running for president in 2000, I do not share that opinion.

I always thought that if Gore had just won his home state of Tennessee. Or won President Clinton's home state of Arkansas. Or won West Virginia, a state that no Democratic presidential nominee had lost since...well look it on Wikipedia yourself and see. You get my point.

This year Mr. Nader has announced yet again his decision to run for president. No one in the Democratic Party seems to be happy about it. Senator Clinton said of Nader,

"...very unfortunate...I remember when he ran before. It didn't turn out very well for anybody -- especially our country."

"He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush and, eight years later, I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about".

There is even a guy [Jerry Peace Activist Rubin] fasting until Nader pulls out from the race. Now that's commitment.

But there is a time and place to settle for once and for all, the issue of Ralph Nader running for president, ....but without hurting his feelings. After all, Nader has done a great deal for us, and we owe him lots of gratitude.

Nader has given us clean water, clear air, safer cars----just to name a few things.

So, the other day I am reading about China's environmental problems. Like their air pollution: "... Beijing and its neighboring north-east Chinese provinces have the planet's worst levels of nitrogen dioxide, which can cause fatal damage to the lungs...An explosive increase in car ownership is blamed for a sharp rise in unhealthy emissions."

Or their water pollution: "One of China's most critical environmental problems is water pollution; 300 million people lack access to clean drinking water; over 70 percent of lakes and rivers are polluted; and according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, "factories and cities dump some 40 to 60 billion tons of wastewater and sewage into lakes and rivers each year."

So this gets me thinking, here's how to kill to birds with one stone: Let's send Ralph Nader to China. They've got pollution problems; we've got the guy with the track record to fix them. I mean, who better than Nader?

He's the guy to get Hu Jintao to help out. To get the Communist Party to clean up the place. To get Beijeng beautiful. China has 1.3 billion people. Nader has got to be inspired by a country that polluted and that big. He'd be up for the challenge. And in the mix, he's out of the country for the duration of 2008 election.

So, according to FlyChina.com, a round trip airfare between Nader's hometown of Washington, DC and Beijing is a paltry $1138. That's just 8,094.72 Chinese Yuan.

So, as good a Democrat, I am donating the first Yuan. Any other Democrats want to chip in with me?

I start every political season with one basic assumption: I do not like any of the candidates.

Democrat, Republican, or other--they really have to win me over because I assume they are all unprincipled, unintelligent, weak, crooked, or just plain evil.  The last candidate I was even moderately excited about supporting was Peter Camejo, the Green candidate for governor in California during the great recall that swept Arnold to power.

I wasn't always like this.  I was raised in a very actively Democratic family, with the understanding that of course I must always vote, and of course, I must always vote Democrat.

So when I turned 18 in 1996, I was ecstatic about voting to re-elect Bill Clinton.  

Then, in 2000, like a good daughter of the Democratic party, despite my lack of enthusiasm, I learned about voting for the lesser of evils, and I cast my vote for Gore.  

Which was not as easy as you'd expect.  I was a student at UC Santa Cruz, where the question was not whether to vote Bush or Gore, but whether to vote Gore or Nader.  And believe me, I experienced my (un)fair share of attacks from my fellow students who delighted in repeating their mantra: Bush and Gore Make me Want to Ralph.  (It was sort of like the "Yes We Can" of 2000.)

Still, I did my Democratic duty, held my nose, and voted for Gore, and all the other Democrats on the ticket.  

But then something happened to me.  I read Nader's book, Crashing the Party, about his 2000 campaign, and I started to understand that unconditional loyalty to a political party is not democracy.  There is more to voting than looking for the "D" on the ballot.  Do I really want a democracy based on choosing the lesser of two evils?  

No.  I decided that I did not.  I decided that from now on, candidates have to do more to win me over than put a "D" next to their names.

In 2004, I voted for Nader.  It was simple, really.  Kerry voted for the war, and alienated me on a host of other issues, so despite my desire to see Bush thrown out of office, Kerry was not the answer for me.  

I folded in 2006, though.  Straight Democratic ticket.  I suppose my Democratic upbringing got the better of me.  Or maybe I believed the Democrats in Congress when they said, "Give us the majority, and we'll give you back your country."

Well.

That hasn't really worked out as planned.  For two years, I've watched the Democrats in Congress capitulate to Bush and the Republicans, and somehow, they've had the audacity to blame the voters because we didn't give them a big enough majority.  Like it's our fault.  Like it's my fault.  Like they'd stand up and fight if only there were more of them.  

Sorry, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, but I'm not taking the fall for this one.  Not after you've spent two years proving to me that maybe that the "D" doesn't make much of a difference after all.

Then, last October, a funny thing happened.  I was listening to one of the Democratic debates.  And despite my self-imposed voting rules of 2004, which precluded even considering voting for anyone who'd supported the war, I found myself being persuaded by...Hillary Clinton.

She was the smartest person on the stage.  She knew more than anyone else.  She was tough as nails.  She's been to hell and back, and she's still standing.  She seemed like just the kind of fighter I'd hoped the Democrats would be.

And no matter how polarizing people say she is, there is no doubt in my mind that her election would not invoke pity from people around the world, or cause the London Daily Mirror to ask, as it so succinctly did in 2004, "How Can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?"

I thought about her support of the war, and realized that it wasn't the issue for me that it had been in 2004.  Every Democrat on the stage wanted to end the war.  

Over the past five months, I've listened to her.  I've paid attention.  I've remembered what it was about her that I admired and respected back in 2000, why I thought one day she'd make an excellent president.  Intelligent, knowledgeable, and yes, experienced, not only as First Lady, but as a dynamic and impressive woman all her own, going back to her days as a college girl, before she ever had a husband to overshadow her.  

Debate after debate, against my will, I found myself being persuaded.  And finally, she won me over.

I know her chances are increasingly slim.  It looks like too many tactical miscalculations have cost her the nomination.  So if her name is not on the ballot in November, what will I do?

Well, I'm certainly not going to sit at home and pout.  I strongly believe that I would sacrifice my right to complain if I didn't participate, and I'll be damned if I have to bite my tongue for the next four years every time the president--whoever it is--pisses me off.

And I certainly don't feel any obligation to vote for the party, no matter how rudely and arrogantly Obama's supporters chastise me.  After all, I survived the Gore/Nader war of 2000.  

And I have yet to fall victim to the spell that Obama has cast on the country.  He would have had a better chance with me in 2004, when I was looking for someone with political courage, before he disappeared into the Senate and voted just like all the other Democrats.  Before his campaign started to so closely resemble the Bush campaign in 2000, when the media swooned because, well, he was the cool kind of guy you wanted to have a beer with, instead of the nerdy, wonky, stiff alternative.

So, once again, I find myself feeling relieved at the news that Nader's name will be on the ballot.  Not because he will win, but because it means that I can go into that voting booth in November and make my voice heard, however lonely it is.  You, Mr. R and Mr. D, do not represent me.  And you don't get my vote that way.  You don't get to take my vote for granted.  

I learned my lesson in 2006.  The "D" is not enough.

THE POLITICAL SILLY SEASON HAS ARRIVED

"Shame on you, Barack Obama!" Was this Hillary Clinton running for Scold-In-Chief? At a rally in Ohio, she showed this anger after an audience mamber handed her a copy of an Obama campaign e-mail criticizing her support of NAFTA. Could this scene possibly have been staged?

Similarly, Senator Clinton attacked Obama for plagiarism by using lines suggested to him by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick because he had found them effective. She said this use was "change you can Xerox".
Not many would assume that this was her own original phrase and Mr. Obama noted the we must be going into a silly season in politics.

Sunday, on Meet the Press, quadriennial nut case Ralph Nader announced that he again would run for President. Maybe he hopes to do the same damage as in 2000 when his votes in Florida in effect led to the election of President Bush. Showing a brain much smaller rhan his ego, Nader claimed that there was little difference between Bush and Gore. Maybe we should hold him accountable for the Iraq war and all of the other damage inflicted by Bush.

The amiable, likeable Governor Huckabee continues his hopeless campaign to defeat Senator McCain. As long as he can keep appearing on Letterman, SNL, and morning talk shows, more power to him. It's fun, even though a bit silly.

I guess that all of this was to be expected from a campaign season that was graced early with the likes of Ron Paul and Mike Grav
el.

homer  www.altara.blogspot.com

When I saw him announce his candidacy on MSNBC's "Meet the Press" I wanted to throw my clicker at the screen. What is wrong with this guy? Can't he find a new calling in his life? He serves a negative purpose in this year's election. In the 2000 election, he won 2.7%  of the national vote. In 2004, this number dropped to 0.3% (in the 34 states he appeared on the ballot for). With these decreasing numbers, hopefully he won't have an impact on states whose contests are head to head. In this video he emphasizes how the other candidates are too involved in big business and corporate world. Meanwhile he is the only candidate who continuously refuses to release his tax returns.

Someone needs to tell this guy to get a life! All you are doing is throwing our electoral college off balance! Yet another attempt by him to destroy this years election. On his website, he has a list of issues that are on the table for him, and off the table for other candidates. He claims that reversing the U.S. policy in the middle east is ON the table for him but OFF the table for Obama and Clinton. Where does he come off? Update---I forgot the apostrophe in year's...my bad, sorry folks!

Here is a news item I havent seen posted here-Ralph Nader-the man who gave us Bush because "the parties are the same" has endorsed John Edwards. Is this reallya good thing for him? I dont know  dem who holds this man in high esteem. The man who said Gore is no different than Bush now says the only real dem is Edwards? I thought there is no difference between the dems and repubs? I think this endorsement wont be crowed about.

Obama's campaign is similar to Rove's and Nader's 2000 campaign agaist Gore. Gore was a statesman whose experience was made a liability by Rove. Nader, in his turn, would deride the differences between Bush and Gore.

Campaign Strategy 1:

Bush called himself a compassionate conservative and an agent of change: someone who would change the way politics was done in Washington. Away from the partisan politics of the Clinton era. Someone who would cross the aisle and compromise with the Democrats. His complete lack of experience was an asset. And that Gore´s experience was part of that 90's era that we needed to leave and start over.

Obama calls himself a concillatory Democrat and agent of change: someone who would change the way politics is done in Washington. Away from the partisan politics of the Clinton era. Someone who would cross the aisle and compromise with the GOP. His complete lack of experience is an asset. And that Clinton's experience is part of the 90's era that we need to leave and start over.

Of course, this is an excellent campaign strategy by Bush. But with Obama, it strikes a stake at the heart of the Democratic Party. He is essentially saying that the Democrats in power were at fault for the partisan politics of the 90's. Conveniently, this ignores the fact that the partisan politics of the 90's was driven by the GOP - not by Clinton. Obama, is subtely blaming the Clintons, and by extension, the Democrats, for the partisan politics during the 90's and even the 2000's.

Campaign Strategy 2:

Nader's said that there was no difference between Gore and Bush. That both Bush and Gore would govern identically. And to vote for change, vote for Nader.

Obama says that Clinton is "Bush/Cheney lite." That both Bush and Clinton will govern the same. And to vote for change, vote for Obama.

First of all, this would be laughed at if it were not being said by Obama. But, because it is being said by a Democrat, it gives legitmacy to this narrative: that there is no difference between the Democrats and the GOP.

This strategy ignores one central fact: contrary to Bush's claims, the world would be a better place if Gore would have been sworn in on January 2001. And contrary to Obama's claims, the world will be a better place if Clinton, or any other Democrat, is sworn in on January 2009.

Ok progressives, check out Hardball tonight. Ralph Nader has just stated that Edwards has the most progressive position and one that appeals to him (did not explicitly endorse however). On Obama, he stated that Obama has excluded himself from being progressive and that Obama supports the position of those with concentrated wealth.

Any other questions as to why Edwards is better than Obama?  Perhaps Ralphie would run against Obama if he's the nominee.