
Nice going Ralph. You were so brilliant, so “cutting edge” and just so uncompromisng, that it would have been a motral sin and an act against nature for you not to run for President in 2000.
Thanks. George Bush thanks you. The Republicans thank you. I am sure people dying now in a war thank you.
Now I am not giving a pass to Al Gore. He should have run a better campaign. I mean, he couldn’t even win his home state of Tennessee. The 2000 election should not have even come down to a nail-biting vote count in Florida.
But it did.
Al Gore would have become president had Ralph Nader used common sense rather than ego to run as the irrelevant Green Party president.
Ralph Nader likes to remind everyone that he is brilliant. He issues enough press releases and goes to enough book signings to remind us of that.
So, my loyal readers, he was smart enough to know he would never win the office of President of the United States as the Green Party candidate.
So why did he do it? Ego.
Well why did the Greens pick him? Whores. Wanted a big name to get their ideas and name across and to have enough people vote “Green” to get on ballots easier in the future. If they picked a normal “Jane or John” Smith person they never would have gotten the attention.
They got what they wanted, and now look who is in office. Their agenda (if they really cared about it at all) is back in stone ages under the Bush administration. So they hurt there own cause. Nice.
This is the problem with radical idealism. It is impractical. If you are a purist left wing liberal, or a purist right wing fundamental, you are impractical. You are simplistic and self-defeating.
And ego whores feed off impractical people.
Politics and policy is all about compromise and finding a middle ground that works for all and does not offend.
Yes, in the perfect world this should not be. But this is not a perfect world.
If you insist on being pure this is what happens. No middle ground. One side wins. And if your side loses you are stuck with nothing.
And we all suffer as a result.
And the cynical side of me thinks the Green Party likes this. A radical “enemy” in power, empowers them to be the “anti-enemy” and raises their media availablity. With a middle ground everyone can live with they are just a voice, one of many, urging a more radical agenda.
And if you disagree with me. That is fine. But next time something like this happens, and I am on the losing side of a “purist” fight; I blame you.
Thanks Ralph.
Learn how to run a campaign Al.