Nader got 0.3% of the vote in 2004, just three-tenths of one percent.He will almost certainly do even more dismally this year.
“Ralph Nader’s view is, unless it’s Ralph Nader, then you’re not tough enough on any of these issues,” he said. “He thought there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush. I think eight years later, people realize Ralph doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
He added, “Ralph Nader deserved enormous credit for the work he did as consumer advocate.” But, he concluded, “His function as perennial presidential candidate is not helping put food on table.”
Note how Obama skewered Nader without whining about Nader stealing votes from Democrats. And yeah, as it turned out, there was and is an immense difference between Al Gore and George Bush…
Even Tom Tomorrow (This Modern World), a former Nader supporter like myself, sees a Nader run as pointless.
The biggest joke is he’s touting again that he’s doing it to get main stream topics into the debates, and to help raise a third party up to challenge the two party system.
Points of order, there are plenty of real topics being talked about at these debates, and most of the crap coming out of Nader is the same old junk that didn’t matter 8 years ago, yet alone now. And if he’s *so* big on getting a thrid party going, what the hell has he been doing the past 8+ years? What? You can only build a party up for 6 months every 4 years or so?
It’s a cult of personality, and frankly this time I susspect even if he does get in, he’s not going to get enough votes to keep his precious third party on the ballots on the 24 states they’re in now. At least if nobody runs, they can retain their spot. If he runs and does worse than last time (which he will do, given this cycle), he could in fact do great damage to any aspiring third party.