Also via Oliver (who is posting like a man possessed), we see this:
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader said Thursday he is leaning toward another independent run for the presidency and will make his decision public in January.
“We’re testing the waters,” Nader said in an interview with CNN. “It’s a high probability but that is yet to be determined.”
Nader has formed an exploratory committee for a 2004 run and said he would gauge his support through the success of fund-raising efforts and the number of volunteers who come forward.
If you thought the Democrats hated Bush and Reagan, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Moe Lane
“If you thought the Democrats hated Bush and reagan, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
The amusing bit is, you could put the emphasis in that sentence in two different location and it’d work either way. Kudos.
Eric Lindholm
Actually, the reason Reagan won a huge landslide in 1984 is because he attracted a lot of the Democratic vote. Bush should try to reach out a little more to the “sane” Democrats instead of the perpetually angry ones.
Brandon
If my history is correct, when third party candidates run a second time, they generally don’t do as well as they did the first. Since Nader got around 4% of the vote last time, he will probably be lucky to get 2% this time. I doubt he will be much of a factor in 2004.
JKC
A lot of us centrist Democrats hold a lot of ill-will towards Nader, who arguably threw the election to Bush in Florida. Of course, the folks who voted for the ego-driven gasbag* bear some blame, too.
I think (or at least hope) the Greens are going to be a little smarter in 2004. GOP hopes that they are not are entirely understandable, though. (Any Democrat who denies are warm glow at the thought of a Buchanan-like 3rd party challenger in 2004 is lying.)
* I’m referring to Nader here, not Bush or Gore. Your mileage may vary.
Glenn
Oh, it would be so wonderful to see Nader run again. I got my fingers crossed.
Dave D.
Nader’s going to run again? And Oliver hates it? Good. I’ll donate $1,000 to Nader’s campaign and $2,000 to Bush’s.
Keith Edge
Wow, that’s marvelous. Now we’ve potentially got a canidate running that’s even slimier than Howard Dean. Bush/Cheney landslide is assured.
Keith Edge
strike that, I forgot Al Sharpton was running as well.
mark
I read where Nader was Kucinch’s guest at the lasrt debate, so I can officially begin the consiracy theories:
Maybe there is something in the works for a Green Party run with a Nader/Kucinich or Kucinich/Nader ticket.
In any event, run Ralph, run!
the talking dog
Lest we forget, Bush had a healthy lead in 2000, until the October revelation of the drunk driving conviction. For whatever reason, Gore never connected with a lot of voters, and there was an awful lot more going on there than just Nader costing him in Florida (which presumes those Nader voters weren’t otherwise going to stay home).
Remember– Gore didn’t carry his own state, or that of his boss at the time. Neither of those were Nader’s fault.
That said, its Nader’s right as an American to run for whatever damn office he wants– let him run if he likes. He won’t be making any friends doing it, and the Greenies would be wise not to be associated with him, of course, but I certainly have no problem with him running.
DANEgerus
You would think the Left would flock to Nader… I guess they just want angry-Dean.
JKC
DANEgerous-
The “left” is no more apt to flock over to Nader than the “right” is to embrace Pat Buchanan en masse.
Dean may indeed come across as angry, and I’m not at all sure he’d be my first choice for a nominee, but he didn’t serve as governor of Vermont as long as he did just by being “angry.”
caleb
I think if Nader runs, he won’t get any votes.
All the dems who voted for him last time sure as hell aint gonna throw their vote away this time.
The greens hate Bush as much as the dems, so I don’t see why their base would vote Nader when it could happen again.
But I digress.
Harry
I don’t see the next election as anywhere close as the last election. The country is not nearly as polarized in the middle as it was when the ego-inflated gasbag left office, heh. So it really won’t matter if hard core lefty’s make the same mistake or not this time around. Those elitist arrogant angry lefties would never vote Republican, much less for Bush. But some of them will vote for someone more to the left of Dean. So it’s Bush’s election to lose and having Ralph Nader running as the nice socialist as opposed to Howard Dean’s angry socialist can do nothing but help Bush, not matter how the far left vote falls.
Andrew Lazarus
The country is LESS polarized, Harry? Let’s just assume for the sake of argument that 2 or 3 percent have swung towards the right—even 5 percent, so maybe your slice is now bigger. Wouldn’t you agree with me that the two sides are even ANGRIER with each other, LESS likely to find common ground, MORE SUSPICIOUS of each other’s motives, and taking INCREASINGLY UNPRECEDENTED and DRASTIC actions to screw the other side (mid-decade redistricting, appointment filibusters, longest open voting roll in House history, huge increase in pork earmarks for GOP districts, etc.)?
Forget the crap about “a uniter and not a divider”. We’re even more polarized than in 2000, more desperate, more worried about the consequences of loss, more like a third-world country where each election could be the last that matters.
John Cole
Andrew- Quit using the Uniter vs. divider. The Democrats have not wanted to be united with anyone. Period.
Kimmitt
“The Democrats have not wanted to be united with anyone. Period.”
Okay, I have to call shenanigans on this one. The Democrats sucked up the SCOTUS ruling, then passed Bush’s tax cut plan more or less intact. After September 11th, they united in an uncritical acceptance of Bush policy, voting overwhelmingly in support of his attacks on Afghanistan and even granting him a blank check to do with Iraq as he saw fit.
The Republican response to this was to paint Max Cleland as soft on defense and to frame every single domestic policy issue as a national security issue.
The Democrats did want to be united with the Republicans, especially on September 12, 2003. But you cannot be united with someone who wants nothing other than to destroy you. That is the truth which the various insurgent candidates in the 2004 Presidential Primary articulated, and it’s why one of them is currently the frontrunner.
You’re blaming the victim. Unless being “united” with someone means throwing aside your own views and doing whatever they say, the Democratic Party has gone to great lengths to support the President. It’s just that we were rewarded for our patriotism with unflinching hatred.
Kimmitt
Apologies — September 12, 2001.