Na, Na, Na, Nader!

[randomturn]

I've never heard or read Nader ever ...putting himself before others.

What do you call him not dropping out the week before the election and ensuring a Gore victory -- which many of his own fervent supporters begged him to do.

PS-I've met Nader. So I have a little bit more to base my opinion on than you do. I'm not saying my opinion is more valid, but it is certainly on firm ground, and those of us who think him to be an egomaniac are entitled to our opinions without gratuitous insults. (And, in fact, he is an egomaniac. Some of his closest friends state it openly)

Bush can easily win this election. Iowa proved once and for all that polls are totally meaningless until the week before the election. And JohnT is right, Osama could get caught and then Bush is a prohibitive favorite.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by randomturn
What do you call him not dropping out the week before the election and ensuring a Gore victory -- which many of his own fervent supporters begged him to do.

His job was getting the Green Party votes, not helping to elect Gore. If Gore wanted to be elected, he shouldn't have been such a bad candidate, and then he shouldn't have tried to screw the voters of Florida or let the Republicans shame him off of contesting clearly illegal absentee ballots. The election was Gore's to lose, and he lost it all by himself, with no help from Nader.

[pchang]

Originally posted by randomturn
PS-I've met Nader. So I have a little bit more to base my opinion on than you do. I'm not saying my opinion is more valid, but it is certainly on firm ground, and those of us who think him to be an egomaniac are entitled to our opinions without gratuitous insults. (And, in fact, he is an egomaniac. Some of his closest friends state it openly)

I too have met him and some of his staffers and ex-staffers. I agree with Randomturn and add "control freak". He expects his staffers to have no life outside of working for him.

[chequita guevara]

Control freak, definately.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Read the post befre mine. This Nader as egomaniac charge is BS. It's sour grapes from Dumbocrats who think that people outside the DP must be crazy or insane or evil not to vote for them. I've never heard or read Nader ever talking about himself, being self-agrandizing, putting himself before others.

Oh yeah? That's BS itself. Considering the naderraidersforgore was established by one of Nader's former best friends, a man at whose wedding Nader was the best man:

http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2000/12/12312000/ap_nader_41085.asp

"Gary Sellers, a retired activist whose friendship with Nader dates back to the 1960s -- Nader was the best man at his wedding -- says Nader hinted last summer that he would withdraw if it were getting close.

''He said, 'Oh, Gary, don't worry about it,'' Sellers said.

When it became clear in October that Nader had no such intention, Sellers established Nader's Raiders for Gore. He now describes Nader as an ''egomaniac'' seduced by one more stab at the national spotlight, and says he lied to his constituents about Gore's record -- just like the establishment politicians he once reviled.

''You don't throw the country away'' to prove a point, Sellers said, noting that Bush could appoint as many as 600 federal judges.

Peter Petkas, a Houston businessman and a Nader's Raider in the 1970s, said the same single-mindedness that drove Nader to heroic victories in those days undid the election."

We also have:

http://www.realchange.org/nader.htm

"[Nader running for president again is] an ego-centered exercise in futility. [Until the Green Party wins more local elections], wasting its time in races that are unwinnable only detracts from its message, its long-term goals and current accomplishments." --Larry Barnett, Green Party member and former mayor of Sonoma, California

I love this one:

Ralph talks big about democracy and even unions. But when his own workers at one of his magazines, Multinational Monitor, got fed up with cruel working conditions and started agitating for a union of their own, Nader busted the union with all of the hardball techniques used by corporate owners across America. Workers at Public Citizen, another Nader group, also tried to form a union because of 60 to 80 hour work weeks, salaries that ranged from $13,000 down, and other difficult working conditions and were blocked by Nader, who remains unapologetic to this day.
Nader says "I don't think there is a role for unions in small nonprofit 'cause' organizations any more than ... within a monastery or within a union."

When ringleader Tim Shorrock filed the union recognition papers, Nader immediately transferred ownership in the Multinational Monitor to close friends who ran an organization ("Essential Information") that Nader had set up. When Shorrock showed up for work the next day, he had been fired, the locks were changed, and management called the police to charge him with theft (of his own work papers.) That charge was thrown out of court, but management fired the two supportive editors and sued the three of them for $1.2 million, agreeing to drop the intimidation suit only when they dropped their NLRB complaint. All of these action are straight from the hardball anti-union playbook, and Nader makes no apology.

According to Nader, "Public interest groups are like crusades…you can’t have work rules, or 9 to 5." Shorrock, with his "union ploy," became an "adversary" according to Nader. "Anything that is commercial, is unionizable," but small public interest organizations "would go broke in a month," Nader says, if they paid union wages, offered union benefits and operated according to standard work rules, such as the eight-hour day. Remember that Nader's well-funded organizations were amassing tons of extra money that Ralph has been playing the stock market with during all these events.

[JohnT]

Bitter much, Boris?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by JohnT
Bitter much, Boris?

Coming from you, that's rich!

[JohnT]

Me? Bitter? 'bout what?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
When it became clear in October that Nader had no such intention

Nader did intend, originally, not to contest Gore in laces where he was vulnerable. Then Gore worked hard to keep Nader out of the debates. The debates could have really helped the Green Party make that 5% for Federal matching funds, but the Dem's screwed them. Why exactly, did the Greens need to stick to an anagreement with a knife in their bacK?

''You don't throw the country away'' to prove a point, Sellers said, noting that Bush could appoint as many as 600 federal judges.

Not if the Democrats stand up to him, but then again, we're talking about the Democrats here. Standing up requires a spine, and between them they've only got one in the whole party, and Dean's using it.

Peter Petkas, a Houston businessman and a Nader's Raider in the 1970s, said the same single-mindedness that drove Nader to heroic victories in those days undid the election."

Yeah, Gore picking a staunch conservtive running mate and runnining to the right and blowing off Clinton and refusing to count the votes in all of Florida's counties and refusing to fight the Republican over illegal ballots had nothing to do with it.

We also have:

http://www.realchange.org/nader.htm

I am well aware of Nader's problems, since I argued very strenuously against my organization endorsing Nader in '96. But blaiming the Democrats uselessness on Nader's ego is bull.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Nader did intend, originally, not to contest Gore in laces where he was vulnerable. Then Gore worked hard to keep Nader out of the debates. The debates could have really helped the Green Party make that 5% for Federal matching funds, but the Dem's screwed them. Why exactly, did the Greens need to stick to an anagreement with a knife in their bacK?

That's not the point, and you know it. Gore and the Dems never made any "agreement" with Nader, so saying they stuck a "knife" in the back is just wrong. Nader's promises were to his own followers, who saw the real threat of Bush over Gore and wanted to be sure Nader's attempt to get 5% wouldn't throw Bush into the White House. So Nader's betrayal of that promise was a betrayal of them, not Gore and the Dems, who never said they'd accomodate Nader anyway.

Not if the Democrats stand up to him, but then again, we're talking about the Democrats here. Standing up requires a spine, and between them they've only got one in the whole party, and Dean's using it.

Again, that wasn't the point. The point was Nader's former close allies addressing his massive ego in the campaign. You can dodge it all you want, but the discontent is there and it's rife.

Yeah, Gore picking a staunch conservtive running mate and runnining to the right and blowing off Clinton and refusing to count the votes in all of Florida's counties and refusing to fight the Republican over illegal ballots had nothing to do with it.

Again, not the point, there was no argument about Gore's running a bad campaign.

I am well aware of Nader's problems, since I argued very strenuously against my organization endorsing Nader in '96. But blaiming the Democrats uselessness on Nader's ego is bull.

And for the final time, a strawman, since the argument isn't over whether Nader was ultimately to blame, but over whether or not he's a self-serving egomaniac. Since you've not refuted those suggestion but just offered the canned complaints about the Dems, I'll take that as a concession.

[Arrian]

I'm appalled at the union stuff you quoted there Boris, which I didn't know about.

Having said that, the charge of "self-serving egomaniac" applies to every candidate out there, so far as I can see. More or less. In this case, possibly more, I'll grant you.

-Arrian

[Boris Godunov]

Agreed, Arrian...I just want to make it clear that Nader is no less of such a person than the other candidates out there.

Lest anyone get a false impression, my distaste of Nader goes back well before 2000, having studied under a couple of professors who were former Nader disciples who clued me into some of his excesses and what they came to realize was his true persona.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Nader's promises were to his own followers, who saw the real threat of Bush over Gore and wanted to be sure Nader's attempt to get 5% wouldn't throw Bush into the White House. So Nader's betrayal of that promise was a betrayal of them

If he violated his promises to his own followers why did so many of them vote for him then? That statement just doesn't make any sense.

---

Anyway, I find it HILARIOUS to find that the Democrats consider Nader is the devil who gave Bush the election while Gore isn't even brought up. Gore was the Veep of a highly popular two-term President who totally f'ed up the campaign. He should have won in a landslide, but lost because of his horrible campaigning. GORE is to blame, not Nader.

[GePap]

You are correct imran: it was not Nader that cost Gore the election- it was the questionable election results from Florida that did so.

And even with Nader, Gore won the popular vote (which was a change from what all polls predicted)

[SlowwHand]

Who cares about nader? He'll have no effect

Nader. Nader would make a good mascot/representative for, I don't know, maybe a septic tank company.