No Time for Nader: A Letter to Nader and McKinney Voters

I'd thought little about Ralph Nader's potential electoral impact until I read recent polls suggesting he was drawing 3% among likely Ohio voters, 4% in Nevada (plus 1% for Cynthia McKinney), 3% in Pennsylvania, and 5% in Missouri. This means he might once again help tip an election.

Most of Nader's supporters suggest their votes won't make the critical difference. Or insist "the lesser of two evils is still evil." Or list Obama stands or votes they disagree with, some of which I disagree with as well.

But let's assume that the current election still hangs in the balance: that between Republican voter suppression, last-minute attack ads, latent racism, and the uncertainties of turnout among new registrants, McCain and Palin just might be able to win. If you're a Nader or McKinney supporter, I'd like to address this article to you, and ask how you'd feel if, by not voting for Obama, you ended up helping electing them.

You may believe that America and both parties are dominated by a corporate oligarchy. I wouldn't completely disagree. You'll probably point out when Democrats (and sometimes Obama) have supported dubious policies backed by these interests, and those examples anger me as well. But after eight years of Bush, it's a dangerous game to assume there's no significant difference between McCain and Obama.

If McCain continues (or even accelerates) disastrous Bush policies that Obama would reverse, that matters. It matters that the Obama campaign has engaged people in a way that could launch a major rebirth of progressive organizing--one that could continue long past the election. Electing Obama also stops a Republican consolidation of power that's fundamentally undermined American democracy--a consolidation that more than a few Nader supporters have called "fascist," though it's not a word I tend to use. So yes, far too many Democrats facilitated the abuses of the past eight years. But given that our president will end up being either Obama or McCain, this question is who will be mostly likely to reverse these trends, and who will create the most favorable landscape for positive progressive change. Here are some key areas of difference:

The Courts: Federal courts can overrule practically any progressive initiative or authorize any regressive one. The Supreme Court justices McCain most admires have consistently extended unchecked corporate and executive power whether voting on torture, reproductive rights, Tom Delay's midnight Texas redistricting, the ability of workers to sue their employers (or for workers to join a union), or the massively disenfranchising Indiana voter ID laws. With three likely Supreme Court retirements in the coming four years, McCain would be able to create obstacles to progressive change for a generation.

Sarah Palin.: Can you say theocracy, with a major dose of ruthlessness? Do we really want someone a melanoma away from the presidency who won her small-town mayor's race by claiming her opponent was soft on abortion and wasn't a true Christian, fired the local officials who'd backed him, and later fired the head of the Alaska state patrol for refusing to fire her ex-brother-in-law? If evil can be defined as "militant ignorance," Palin fits the bill to a t, and since her convention speech, has embodied every character assassination scenario from the past 30 years. If you want a leader who whips up "real Americans" against disloyal allies of terrorism, she'd do Dick Cheney proud.

Labor Rights : Led by unions like SEIU and the United Steel Workers, we finally have a resurgent progressive union movement--one that raises broader social justice issues and builds broader coalitions, like with major environmental groups. But Bush's National Labor Relations Board has created obstacle after obstacle for union organizing, including the key "Kentucky River" ruling (upheld by the Bush Supreme court) that employers could challenge the right of employees like nurses to join unions because they acted as supervisors. Obama's approach, which includes strong support for a bill that allows union recognition as soon as a majority of employees have signed membership cards, would be very different. It comes both from his own experience working with unions in Chicago and from the practical value of empowering and broadening a political base of support. Given the labor movement's key role in pretty much every effort for progressive change in America's history, the shift from hostility to supportiveness would be huge.

Taxation and Health Care: Obama's redistributes resources downward, McCain upward. I'd like Obama to go further. But McCain wants to make Bush's disastrously regressive tax cuts permanent, while Obama has explicitly focused on challenging tax breaks for companies like Exxon and on having the wealthiest pay a greater share. He's called the election a referendum on thirty years of failed trickle-down politics. He's also pushing for a major expansion of Pell grants and tax credits for going to school, while McCain supported the ghastly Republican bill that until reversed by the new Democratic Senate cut $12.9 billion off federal financial aid three years ago. While Obama doesn't go as far as you or I might want, he's pushing strongly in the right direction.

On health care, McCain's approach gives total power to the insurance companies and gives companies that do provide insurance every incentive to dump all but the healthiest of their workers from the rolls. I'd prefer single payer, but Obama's plan, would be a huge step forward in the number of people covered (including all children) and the affordability of care, McCain's a vast step backwards.

Family issues and reproductive rights : It's abstract unless you or someone you know is unwillingly pregnant. McCain's explicitly backed overturning Roe vs Wade, and Palin and the Republican platform would support making abortion illegal even in cases of rape or incest. Obama also supports universal voluntary pre-school for all children.

Global Climate Change : Although McCain acknowledges our role in creating it, Palin who embraces the Exxon-funded skeptics (not to mention "Young Earth" creationism). This spring, McCain refused to be the deciding vote that would have ended a Republican filibuster on a bill eliminating tax breaks for the oil companies and using the money to fund alternative energy. While progressives will have to push against Obama's receptivity to the coal and nuclear industries, he still goes far further than any major presidential candidate in pushing green jobs as a centerpiece of his platform, with a $150 billion commitment. Meanwhile McCain supporters are left with "Drill baby drill."

Iraq: I wish Obama would pledge to get out more quickly. But he did speak out against the war before it happened, as part of an anti-war rally that any of us would have been proud to attend. And given that he was about to run for Senate, that wasn't a safe or easy choice. He also does at least have a withdrawal time-table. In contrast, McCain, who helped lead the neo-con charge to invade Iraq since well before 9/11, talks of an indefinite occupation and jokes about "Bomb Bomb Iran." It's another area where we'll need to push, but also another huge difference.

The Politics of Fear : Do you really want to reward yet another Republican campaign based on lies and fear? That's what the McCain/Palin campaign is reduced to. Pure slime, from Bill Ayers and "palling around with terrorists," to Rashid Khalidi and "socialism." If McCain loses, maybe we'll get a different politics. If he wins it's Karl Rove on infinite replay.

* * *

But the differences go beyond particular issues to how the respective presidencies would shape a broader context for progressive change. It's easy to dismiss Obama's community organizing background. But three years in south Chicago neighborhoods, plus several more representing the same community groups, is a serious involvement whose legacy has shaped Obama's campaign in a powerful way. No previous president has been a community organizer, or anything close to it. No major party campaign has encouraged supporters to act with as much autonomous initiative. And none since Roosevelt have brought as many new people into politics--people who represent a huge potential voice for ongoing progressive change. When Obama consciously asks volunteers to think of themselves as connected with a tradition that goes back to the abolitionist, union, suffrage, and civil rights movements he gets them thinking not only about a single campaign, but about their long-term ability to join together to shift America's history, and that, unleashed, can be a powerful force.

It's a force we can work with not only to help pass Obama's legislation, but also to push him to take stronger stands. Those newly mobilized might just play a role akin to civil rights movement participants who worked to get Kennedy and Johnson elected, then set their own agenda, dragging Kennedy and LBJ into overcoming initial resistance and taking genuinely courageous positions --like LBJ staking all his political capital on civil rights and voting rights bills that he acknowledged would lose the Democrats the south for a generation. Going back further, progressives turned out to elect and reelect FDR, but also organized unions, occupied factories, worked block by block in their communities, and fought in every possible way to create an autonomous voice. Progressives can do the same with Obama, so long as we keep speaking out after the election and working to engage those who supported him. Given the massive ability of a president to shape the national agenda, I'd rather fight for the Obama proposals I support and push him further in areas where he falls short, than spend another four years trying block an endless succession of horrific Republican initiatives.

As an abstract list of stands, I'd take many of Nader or McKinney's positions over Obama's. But they have to get passed in the Senate and Congress and if I could snap my fingers and install one of them as president, I'd take Obama without hesitation. If I'm looking for someone who's going to pass legislation and lead a country of three hundred million diverse people, I want someone who can work with well with those they disagree with, who's reflective and doesn't just shoot from the hip, and who's willing to be self-critical and self-reflective about their own choices (in a way that Nader, for instance, never really has been about the strategic choices he made to campaign in Florida in 2000). Obama passes that test, Nader and McKinney, though both have taken valuable stands and have wonderful positions do not. I'd like to push Obama in some more progressive directions, although much of what he's proposing as is as strong as any legislation that's passed in 30 6ears. But particularly in a time when we're facing so many multiple crises, I like that he'll step back and think before he acts. I like that he's going to listen to different voices. I like that he's a pragmatist who's going to look at a situation closely before imposing some abstract solution.

You may think the election's already won, so your vote won't make a difference. That may be true in California, New York, and Illinois, but as in 2000 and 2004, Nader's campaigning in states most at risk, with an effort in every major swing state and a final week's focus on Florida, Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Obama's four or five point lead in key battleground states is certainly better than being five points down. But if you knock out two or three percent for voter suppression, two or three for last-minute slime ads and potential racial backlash, and two or three because not all the new voters will show up, he could still well lose the election. As Tom Hayden points out in the Progressives for Obama blog, "Kerry won Wisconsin in 2004 by 0.38 percent, New Hampshire by 1.37 percent, Pennsylvania by 2.5 percent; he lost Iowa by 0.67 percent, New Mexico by 0.79 percent, Ohio by 2.11 percent and Nevada by 2.59 percent." That doesn't count the official Florida 2000 margin of 537 votes and New Mexico margin of 368 votes. As someone who's considering Nader or McKinney, you could well make the key difference.

Even assuming Obama does win, the margin of his victory will be key to his leverage following the election. Wavering senators or congressional representatives aren't going to add in third party votes when they decide how far to go to support (or improve) Obama's initiatives. But the more he wins by, the more mandate he has for shifting America in a fundamental direction from everything Bush has represented.

Maybe none of this matters to you. Maybe you feel, "the worse the better." and are gleefully cheering as American (and global) capitalism melts down. Maybe you like the idea of dancing at the apocalypse, and assume that the revolution will follow. But crashing empires get ugly. Real people get hurt and even die--witness Katrina. Add in climate change and a McCain administration would mean gambling with global catastrophe.

It may feel pure to vote for a candidate who will never get in power, so will never disappoint us. But this election isn't about abstract purity. It's about finally halting a Republican machine that wages preemptive wars, smashes unions, purges African Americans from the voting rolls, puts Exxon in charge of energy legislation, passes over a hundred billion dollars a year of regressive tax cuts, and brands everyone who disagrees with them an ally of terrorism.

Either we stop these trends or we don't. And the ballot's the most direct way to do this. If we place all our hopes in awaiting some future popular uprising, we throw away a concrete opportunity to stop the disastrous path of the past eight years. We also give away a chance to elect someone who has actually been part of our progressive movements, from Obama's anti-apartheid student activism, through his community organizing, to his speaking out at the Chicago anti Iraq-war rally. We can cast a symbolic vote for Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney. Or vote for Barack Obama and actually help shape the political landscape. It would be a tragedy if because of our own desire for pure and uncomplicated stands, we helped throw away a historic chance to move forward.

Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly, email [e-mail] with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles

Comments

[elianita55]

This is an interesting post to look back now that the election results are in.
Ralph Nader has been credited with 0.5% of the vote. This is a strong indication that many former Nader voters - perhaps influenced by the argument that Nader helped George W. Bush to victory in 2000 - felt the need to stop the Republican machine in the way Paul describes. Witness, for instance, Michael Moore's endorsement of John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008, as opposed to his support for Nader in 2000. This is voting not for someone, but against someone else.
One of the least talked about side effects of Obama's landslide victory on Tuesday is the further marginalization of third parties in US politics. As someone that lives in Europe, it is hard to not notice that the United States seems isolated among Western democracies in its determination to head towards further entrenchment in a bipolar political landscape.
Third party candidates are a vital part of the democratic process. It is unfortunate that the United States’ political system deliberately hinders pluralism by limiting the exposure of third party candidates to media.
For more: ilpodesta.org.

[stevebelou]

I live in SW Ohio and will be voting for Nader tomorrow. It makes me sick that he was locked out of the debates. Thanks for your open letter and splitting hairs about the differences between red and blue, but as far as I can tell, the two corporate candidates offer not much difference.
But to take your line of logic that a vote for Nader equals a vote for Mccain, perhaps it needs to get worse (and yes, it can get worse) before it can get better (in the form of 3rd party ideas). If that is the case, then I do hope Mccain wins.

[DorkimusMaximus]

There's nothing wrong with third party candidates such as Cynthia McKinney, who run on actual issues, with a platform, and a party backing them.

Ralph Nader, though, should be forbidden from running. He's determined to destroy our democracy from the inside out for no other reason than to satiate his ego.

[NancyInLA]

I'm voting for Nader. California is no swing state, so I don't see any reason to vote for the lesser of two evils - you get less, and it's still evil. I really don't see much difference in the two candidates. They both plan to continue America's legacy of imperialism, to bail out bankers, strip us of our Consitutional rights and spend tax money this government doesn't have. Compared to McCain and Obama, Nader's hardly a socialist. We have the two major parties giving out millions to the auto industry, Wall Street, Georgia and no-bid contracts to corporations such as Blackwater. I could go on and on. I would vote for Dennis Kucinich if he was running. Or Ron Paul - he planned to give the federal government a real enema, which is what it deserves. I deeply admire anyone who votes for Chuck Baldwin or Bob Barr though they are a bit too theocratic for me, and Nader has got an impressive background as a consumer advocate and a straight shooter. So that's that. Now I can walk out of the ballot box NOT having voted simply "against" someone. Can you say the same thing about how you are going to feel afterwards? If you voted for Obama, and you know about his involvement in passing the Patriot Act, FISA and the bailout last month - probably not.

[JohnFromCensornati]

"This means he might once again help tip an election."

Insignificant compared to the number of Dems that will vote for the GOP, just like 2000.

"It's about finally halting a Republican machine that wages preemptive wars, smashes unions, purges African Americans from the voting rolls, puts Exxon in charge of energy legislation, passes over a hundred billion dollars a year of regressive tax cuts, and brands everyone who disagrees with them an ally of terrorism."

They did that with Democratic help. Since the 2006 election, the Dems like to say that they "don't have the votes". Prior to 2006, the GOP didn't have the votes, but they got it done thanks to the partners in crime.

[rakovsky]

Obama will continue the war, wiretapping, and private health care system, so future progressive organizing will have to oppose him too.

[thankgodimanatheist8]

I agree that if you live in a state that there is the slightest chance of McCain winning you should hold your nose and vote for Obama. But if you live in an extreme safe state like California where I live, why vote for the moderate right winger (from this progressive's pov) Obama when he is -500 and McCain is -5,000,000,000,000. I still have not decided to vote for Nader or McKinney as I love both.

However, if you live in any other state than the absolute safest please please listen to this one progressive and vote for Obama.

[steveconn]

You hate Obama's sell out policies on every issue you care about. You know that Obama will win in your state unless Martians land to vote for Sarah. So Paul tells you not to vote for Nader. Why?
You have given up hope on single payer or an end to the wars or prosecution of the wall street crooks or coprorate control of the process- like Paul? Fight back. Vote for Nader now and join the millions across the country after the election to press Obama to join us. Without a Nader vote to confirm our vision of the future, we can't make this happen.

[EdgedInBlue]

I admit to being a Nader fan. After Clinton lost, he most closely matched my ideology. Up until recently, I was bound and determined to vote for Nader. I honestly believe that this country MUST incorporate more than just the two primary parties.

Then, Missouri, the state I live in, started leaning blue. At the university where I work and attend school, I saw excitement in the eyes of the students. And then Palin...an insult to all I considered a woman candidate needed to represent. I resented the fact that McCain could think voters so dense that they would accept his choice just because of a vagina.

So I went to see Senator Obama, in, of all places, Springfield, Missouri. 40,000 people turned out to see the wunderkind. It blew me away.

I caught hope. After eight years of war, trickle down that never quite reached my financial realm, cronyism, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al....of hopeLESSness, I began believing that Obama might be the real deal.

I respect Mr. Nader and continue to believe that third parties are NECESSARY for a healthy political process. BUT I cannot contribute to turning Missouri redder. I cannot be the umpteenth of a percentage point allowing McCain/Palin to win, allowing another four years of neocon hawks ruling the roost. I believe that maybe, just maybe, my vote does count. So I have to suck it up, put MY agenda aside, and cast a ballot for Obama/Biden. JUST IN CASE! ;)

[mredder4]

This argument against third parties is offensive to people who think rationally. It's absurd to think that this two-party system will continue to serve America in the future. I can't believe 300 million people, with their 300 million individual ideas and philosophies, are really expected to choose from just two options.

America needs to expand third (and fourth and fifth) parties, to combat the over-inclusion that the current two-party system fosters. Why should fiscal conservatives and libertarians have to put up with the Big Government philosophy put forth by the social conservatives and their "Legislate morality" platform? The same applies to pro-defense liberals who don't want to be associated with the surrenderists and apologists of the far left.

More options never left anyone felling left out. That's what limited options do, like America's current Republocrat system.

[BaltoAman]

Yes, PLEASE don't vote third party this election. I need Obama to win!! I am unemployed and need some "weath distribution." I'd love some of Arrianna's cash or maybe Alec Baldwin's.

That would be great. Thanks and god bless!

[tinakori]

I was so ticked off at the Democrapies last November, I finally registered Green. My brother has been a Green for years and ran for state rep in the 5th district about 10 years ago, so it was a long time in coming. What finally pushed me away was the Dem's rolling over on the warrantless wiretapping after taking impeachment off the table.

No truer statement is 'both parties are dominated by a corporate oligarchy'.

Obama has shown that future Greens will need a ground game and a charismatic leader to offer a realistic progressive alternative in a third party.

Until then, it is three votes for Obama in this house. McCain is just too dangerous to take a chance, splitting off the vote from the Democrapies.

[SCBLUE]

I still hold Ralph Nader responsible toe Bush's ability to be annointed President in 2000...I tried to get over it, but I can't after the anguish Bush has caused for 8 years. The Progressives are making inroads...and winning...

[bdaved]

I used to think that myself. Mark Crispin Miller and Greg Palast, among others, have done some fine work exposing how the last two elections were stolen. Professor Miller, in a Huffington Post blog from August 9, 2006 entitled "The Reason Why Joe Lieberman Should Quit", said, "If you think that the Bush machine did not intend to "win" Florida under any circumstances, you weren't paying very close attention. And if you find yourself, in retrospect, detesting Nader more than you distrust the Bush machine, you should look deep within, and ask yourself if you believe more fiercely in the Democratic Party than in U.S. democracy itself." Professor Miller states that the presence of Nader "no doubt played a role" in the defeat of Gore and Lieberman, but he says that "it is not true that Bush/Cheney would have been defeated if the controversial Nader hadn't run."
I'll agree that Ralph Nader bears some responsibility in "Bush's ability to be annointed President in 2000"-- but only because he was used to divert attention away from the real theft of the election.

[huzzah]

Well said.

[BlueAsh]

On your assessment of what's at stake, I agree.

But I disagree with your view that getting rid of third party candidates will ensure a better future for this country (via the election of Obama).

Undoubtedly Obama has the potential to be a great president. I voted for him and hope he will win. Obama's presidency will do a lot of good things for this country--building a broad coalition in the House and Senate is one of them.

But to hasten up the process by eliminating third party candidates such as Nader is the wrong way to go. This is a democracy. A two-party rule by itself does not a democracy make, especially when the reigning two parties actively suppress challenges from other parties/groups. Mr. Nader and his supporters have a right to compete in the election and that is a good thing.

Too many times in history people, in difficult times, surrendered power to one party or one man for a quick fix--it seldom ended well. Something is seriously wrong when we pin our hopes on one person at the expense of the system.

Don't you think the mess we are in may have something to do with the monopoly of the two parties which prefer their ritualized give-and-take with each other and not have to share their loot?

By the way, no where in our Constitution does it say that this is a two-party system.

[lostinNJ1]

The author stated nothing about eliminating 3rd party candidates.

[SEQUOIABISON]

It is hopeless to appeal to Naders sensibilities, he has none, he has become an egotistical maniac.

This once great champion of the consumer has now become a pathetic lying political hack.

Obama/Biden

[AnotherTry]

Too late. I cast my absentee ballot for McKinney. Democrats who don't believe in equality don't deserve to run the country.

Mccain and Palin are terrible, but a country that won't treat its citizens equally deserves them.

What will it take for democrats to actually hold democratic positions? Maybe another loss to terrible candidates will get the message through.

[Veritie]

"another loss to terrible candidates"? Sort of like "you can't make omelettes without breaking a 'few' eggs"?

Consider this: THAT kind of reasoning got us George Bush. Do you know how many American soldiers died in Iraq, how many Iraqi civilians? And that's just part of the consequences of one foolish decision from "a terrible candidate"!

This is not a board game where you merely caculate moves to your advantage; it's not a ball game where you take your ball and go home if you don't like the play.

This is about life and death; about the future of real people, not only in this country but in the rest of the world.

How dare you use your democratic right to make people into things - pawns in your little game of pique? How dare you?

[DorkimusMaximus]

How very "cut off the nose to spite the face" of you.