Why Alex Zhao is wrong
So Alex Zhao just posted a travesty of an article. Not only does it support Ralph Nader for president, but it’s about a paragraph and a half long. And that paragraph and a half is all wrong.
Let’s break this down piece by piece. First, let’s assume that everything Zhao has said was correct. Let’s say he is the best candidate for president. Let’s say that, if elected, he would solve the world, in general. Well, this is why even if he was the best candidate ever, he would be horrible to vote for: 2000. In the year 2000, Ralph Nader took a small percentage of the votes in many different states, totalling about 2.5% of the popular vote. Not only does this show that, even WITH the backing of the Green Party, which he may not align himself with (IE, the 2004 election), but more importantly, his involvement was the REASON that Bush is the President of the United States right now. The Green Party is almost exactly the same as the Democratic Party, except they hug an extra tree now and again. However, because it directly stole votes away from the Dems, Bush won states that should have gone to Gore.
Now, electability and negative repercussions aside, not only would a vote for Nader potentially knock out the Democratic candidate one would otherwise align themselves with, but more importantly, we have to look to Nader’s actual policy flaws. While Zhao may say, “Why the hell not?”, I actually have answers. Despite his mainly Democratic stance, in 2004 he received funding from the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth”, the infamous anti-Kerry smear campaigners, leading to yet another Democratic failure. More importantly, he does not support international treaties such as NAFTA, or organizations such as the WTO, which benefit us extensively through economics, and taking America out of such things would put our country in bankruptcy.
The only thing Ralph Nader has done thus far with his campaign is smear every single opponent of his. He has talked smack about Clinton, Obama, and McCain in copious amounts. Nader refuses to say that he could be a “spoiler” to this election. However, the only thing he has succeeded at in his extensive political history is exactly this. If you want a candidate who is a strict liberal, who has been long-forgotten about, it’s Mike Gravel. He has as much of a chance of winning as Nader: Not an ice cube’s in hell.
A vote for Nader is a vote for 8 more years of bullshit.
You heard it from the man. Obama 08!…or Gravel
Jomi
February 26, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Thank you for that.
Ralph Nader truly is…an unreasonable man.
Boulder Village
February 28, 2008 at 12:17 am
The notion that Ralph Nader is the sole reason Al Gore lost is simply laughable. While he was definately partially responsable, Al Gore ran a terrible campaign. He lost his own home state for Christ’s sake.
Further, I would say that Nader’s campaigns have acheived exactly what he has been looking for. In 2000, the Democrats ran candidates that were barely liberal (Gore/Lieberman). Nader’s goal in running was not to win (he obviously has never had a shot), but rather to shift the democratic party further left by showing them that they will have to win liberal voters if they intend to win. This clearly happened. The democrats ran people who were not conservative, lost huge numbers of voters, and lost the election. They learned their lesson in 2004 and 2008 though. They have consistently run more liberal candidates each year since Nader’s campaigns. This is especially shown in the difference between Gore and the current options, Obama and Hilary, both dedicated lliberals. I would say NAder has acheived his goal.
Your arguements as to why Nader himself would be a bad candidate are also untrue. First, you just link him to a campaign that smeared Kerry by saying he received money, but that isn’t a reason he’s a bad candidate. Second, you say its bad for us to leave the WTO and NAFTA, but you don’t give any reasons as to why leaving them would be bad. Further, this is something that is very debatable, many people would disagree with the notion that leaving them is bad, so it isn’t a common sense arguement you can just claim is true.
Lastly, Gravel would be an awesome president, there is no disagreement here.
M. M. S. H. XIV
March 3, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Gore lost because, quite frankly, he’s boring.
An Inconvenient Truth would have been more popular if it had extensive footage of a cute baby polar bear drowning in its epic attempt to find land. It’s more interesting than powerpoint charts of atmospheric gases.
And we all know people are more likely to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
When asked by Tim Russert about the possibility of preventing a Democratic victory in 2008, Nader responded, “Not a chance. If the Democrats can’t landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, and emerge in a different form.”
Candice
April 7, 2008 at 4:17 pm