The Triangle

Issue date: 2/29/08 Section: Ed-Op

Media Credit: MCT Campus

A familiar face threw his hat into the presidential ring, Feb. 24. In an interview with Tim Russert on "Meet the Press," Ralph Nader announced his 2008 bid for the presidency (his fifth consecutive attempt, counting his 1992 write-in campaign). He is currently running as an Independent, but in the past he has run on the Green party ticket. Nader first made a name for himself in the 1960s fighting for better auto safety standards; he is one of the nation's foremost consumer advocates and a steadfast environmentalist. One would think that a man with so much apparent concern for the average American might be president after five tries, but having favorable positions on the issues isn't the main factor in becoming president.

Nader has been accused of "spoiling" the 2000 election and facilitating George W. Bush's success. For this reason, his entrance into the 2008 contest is looked upon with great chagrin by the current Democratic front-runners. It is generally assumed that those who support Nader would normally vote for a Democratic candidate; Florida exit polls in 2000 reported Nader voters favoring Gore 2-1. However, Nader points to the 250,000 Florida Democrats who voted for Bush and the various controversies surrounding that election as the more likely cause of Bush's victory. Regardless, Bush won by a margin of 537 votes in Florida (if you believe the final count), while 97,488 Floridians voted for Nader. If just 538 of them had voted for Gore, the last seven years might have been very different.

Or would they? In his interview, Nader alludes to the fact that Congress is just as responsible for many of the actions of the Bush administration as the President himself. This begs the question, why do Nader and his fellow supporters of a multi-party system not start with Congress in their crusade to end two-party tryanny? Although running for and ultimately winning the presidency would be an extremely significant success for a third-party candidate, without the power currently wielded by our two major parties, third-parties stand small chance actually obtaining enough of the public's attention. Throwing a candidate into the country's biggest and most expensive election once every four years is hardly the best way of bringing attention to the idea of third-parties, and is certainly no way to bring about change.

"The political bigotry that's involved here," Nader explained to Tim Russert, "is that we shouldn't enter the electoral arena, all of us who think the country needs an infusion of freedom, democracy, choice, dissent … should just sit on the sidelines and watch the two parties own all the voters and turn the government over to big business. ... Why isn't there tolerance for candidates' rights the way there is a building tolerance over the last 50 years for voter rights? Because without voter rights, candidate rights don't mean much, and without candidate rights, more voices and choices, voter rights don't mean much."

Continued...

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