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Just 92 Days Left: Real Time with Ralph Nader

By Mark Grueter

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Bill Maher’s cutting edge HBO talk show returned for another cycle on Friday night. Michael Moore appeared insisting that Kerry/Edwards will win in a landslide because the polls that show a tight race do not reflect all of the new people who intend to vote this year. He notes that pollsters only telephone “likely voters,” or those who voted in the 2000 election in this case. He believes - because of 9-11 and Iraq – that more people are now engaged in the political process and that these new voters are predominantly liberal. I think that’s possible and I agree that Kerry will win big in terms of electoral college points, although for different reasons.

The end of the show featured a surprise appearance by Ralph Nader. Moore said nothing to Nader, letting Maher make the standard case to Nader as to why the latter should end his presidential quest (“We love you Ralph, but you’re only gonna take votes away from Kerry and potentially set back the causes you believe in, just like you did in 2000” – the sort of stuff one can reel off in one’s sleep). Incidentally, Maher argues the liberal/left position on most issues better than Moore does. So, when the Nader-Maher argument came to a predictable stalemate, both Moore and Maher stood up, walked over to Nader, got down on their knees and literally begged the consumer advocate not to run.

Aside from the fact that this spectacle made for interesting television, it immediately made me wonder about the point Moore had just made: Kerry will win big, period. He never said, “Well, Kerry will win big, but only if Nader drops out.” Moore had just been assuring everyone that Kerry will win in a landslide but still found it appropriate to beg Nader – who will win two to three percent at most - to drop out of the race lest he chip away too many votes from Kerry. How does he reconcile his prediction with his groveling behavior? Why would he give a damn what Nader does if he’s so damn sure Kerry will win big?

Another telling moment occurred in the exchange between Maher and Nader when Nader, confronted with the arguments, assured us that Bush will not win. Of course there’s no way he can know this, but there was a suggestion in his voice that he would drop out at the last moment if it looked as though Bush were in danger of being re-elected.

Now, I’m of the view that most people who voted for Nader in 2000 would have either not voted at all or voted for other third party candidates had he not run. In Florida, 800,000 registered Democrats voted for Bush compared to only 90,000 total Floridians who voted for Nader. Perhaps Democrats should spend more time persuading their own people not to vote Republican and less time worried about a few independent-minded people who prefer to buck the system. The numbers we have from 2000 show that 38% of Nader’s support nationwide came from Democrats, 25% from Republicans and the rest of from independents, the gap between Dems and Repubs not nearly as wide as some people like to imagine.

There are certain people out there, like me, who will vote for Nader in part because of all the sanctimonious liberals who lecture us for threatening to do so. But mainly, we are attracted to Nader because he is real; he does not act and is not concerned with career or ambition. He would never have orchestrated or taken part in – as Dennis Kucinich did – that miserable love-fest up in Boston where pretender after pretender fell in line to promote their own careers by brown-nosing the Democratic establishment. Nader is also brilliant and he knows policy inside-out, more so even than his wonkish opponent Senator Kerry, and certainly much more so than the likes of Kucinich or Howard Dean.

And yet, there are still many principle-minded leftists and liberals struggling with this decision. These people want so badly to dump Bush they’re willing to buy into the standard line about Nader “taking votes away” from Kerry. “Don’t throw your vote away!” is the thuggish message we hear every day, as if it were somehow a waste to participate freely in the Democratic process. It just goes to show that liberals are just as quick as conservatives to revert to dictatorial means when it fits their biases and supposedly righteous causes.

But the anti-Nader crowd overlooks the simple fact that the Kerry/Edwards ticket is far more appealing – I mean mainly in terms of personality, which is what most swing voters are influenced by - to mainstream America than the Gore/Liebermann one. It sometimes amazes me to realize Gore/Liebermann, two relative freaks, actually won the popular vote.

Forgetting this, serious leftist campaigns are forming to get people to vote Nader in uncontested states where either Kerry or Bush has a clear edge, but Kerry in states where the race is likely to be close, as if it even mattered.

Thus is the degraded state of our democracy, where citizens feel the need to think in these awful terms. In parliamentary democracies, nobody need think in these terms because of what is known as proportional representation, a completely different and certainly more democratic system where each political party receives a certain number of representatives in Congress based on the percentage of votes they receive in the national election.

Nader constantly reminds us of this sad fact about our supposed democracy. Those who call for Nader to drop out of the race participate in willful amnesia or indifference on this absolutely crucial point. I would rather be defeated then shrink from the great issues, because from such defeats we rise again with twice as much strength. The appeal to Nader goes beyond the issues; as some of you know, I supported the war in Iraq which makes me a very unlikely Nader supporter but, just from watching him, I somehow believe he would do the right thing if given power. The appeal transcends the issues as any appeal to a national leader should. We are electing a man, not a set of issues. Nader should stay in the race because he is doing the right thing, but also because he is receiving so much pressure not to do so. No American should ever be bullied or pressured to relinquish their rights as citizens. Ever.

[Editor’s Note]: Last time I spoke with Grueter about it, he professed his intention NOT to vote in the upcoming presidential election. I think this calls into question both his stated intent to vote for Nader, as well as his worry about “throwing away votes.”

Click here for Grueter's previous column.

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Mark Grueter is a writer living in New York City. He can be contacted here.

© 2004 Me Three