Nader expected to run!
Former Green Party candidate Ralph Nader is poised to declare that he will seek the presidency again this year, this time as an independent and despite a vigorous effort by the left to dissuade him.
“I think there’s very little doubt,” said Micah Sifry, author of a book on third-party politics and a longtime Nader watcher. “I think he’s going to run.”
Well, SOMEONE has to be against the war, come the November election… Kerry sure isn’t.
Some thoughts: With Nader running, the Green Party (GP) absolutely must run a strong candidate. If they don’t, they run the risk of being completely ignored and maginalized.
Some GP candidates, like David Cobb, favor a ‘safe states’ strategy, and will only campaign in states safe deemed safe for one of the major parties, and will not campaign in swing states. There’s just so much wrong with this ‘strategy.’ It allows the major parties set the Green agenda, even to telling them where to campaign. It abandons Green voters who live in swing states. Worst, it serves no useful purpose, and is difficult to explain to potential voters who rightfully wonder why on earth Greens would be doing something so self-defeating.
There’s a war raging. The budget deficit is exploding in size. The US is losing friends everywhere. This is the time to loudly speak truth to power. If Greens are unable to field a candidate who can do this, then the 2000 Nader run will have been the peak and 2004 will be a debacle.
The only Green I see with name recognition who could do just this is Peter Camejo. As I’ve said before, the nomination is probably his – if he wants it. And it’s not clear if he does.
As for Nader, he’s survived, and survived rather well for 40 years in the snake pit of D.C. against powerful enemies who’ve tried to destroy him. Plus, he’s 72, and no longer much has to care what people think of him.
And he will talk about the war and about, in Chalmers Johnson’s phrase, the ‘military-petroleum complex’ that aided and abetted it happening.