11/20/2008   English German
  Edition # 77  
San Francisco, 11-20-2008

Nader and the Endless Campaign
Figure [1]: The stubborn Ralph Nader can't help but run as an alternative president.

Angelika In the United States, only two parties dominate the political scene: Democrats and Republicans. Other parties like the Greens have never really been able to gain a foothold in this country. Nevertheless, candidates from small, unknown third parties or so-called independents keep trying to get elected to the White House, even though their chances of winning are almost non-existent.

Most of the time they receive 1-3% of the votes and are not taken seriously. One particularly persistent person in this area is Ralph Nader. The now 74-year-old has already run for the presidency four times (1996, 2000, 2004, 2008). Nader first made a name for himself as a strict consumer advocate and filed lawsuits against the auto industry to make cars safer. The excellent documentary "An Unreasonable Man" shows how Nader mutated from a celebrated consumer advocate to a stubborn activist who lost sight of reality. His most controversial candidacy was in 2000, the year of the election debacle between Al Gore and Bush (Rundbrief 12/2000). Many were angry that Nader did not give up his candidacy, even though it was clear that he would cost Gore votes. Nader eventually received 2.7% of the votes in 2000. Especially in Florida, where the election result was so close, this was significant. Some even go so far as to hold Nader responsible for Bush's election victory. This year he amusingly chose Matt Gonzalez, the San Francisco activist and lawyer who ran against our current mayor Gavin Newsom in 2003 (Rundbrief 12/2003) as his potential vice president.

The sticker in Figure 1 was actually given to me by a young woman in Dolores Park around the corner from our house, who was campaigning for her dream candidate. In one thing I have to give Nader full credit: smaller parties in the US are often held back by lots of obstacles. So Republicans and Democrats routinely appear on the ballot of each state, while candidates from third parties have to submit special voter petitions, among other things. Hats off to so much enthusiasm!

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