Jayzus God, Go Away, Old Man

[filkertom]

Nader's threatening to run again in 2008.

What a complete and total blind asshole.

Okay. Everybody's playing the game. Let's twist it. Who would you actively work against as a presidential candidate in 2008? I'm talking from the likely list -- Pat Buchanan's not gonna run. Unfortunately, Newt Gingrich likely is, along with Lieberman, Biden, and frickin' McCain.

Comments

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

At this point? I'd like to work against Nader. He's just about the worst electoral spoiler in recent history. Hell, I'd really just like to ask him, regarding his runs for the office, "Mr. Nader, who is it you hate more, liberals in specific or the American people in general, to keep doing this to them every election?"

[tlatoani.livejournal.com]

He hates anyone who doesn't work to aggrandize him. Classic narcissist. (And a complete bastard. Do a Google search.)

[hanabishirecca.livejournal.com]

Newt
Condi Rice
And I wouldn't put it past Bush to try and steal, er, I mean, run again :)

[luscious-purple.livejournal.com]

I think Americans are finally going to see through his tactic.

Bloomburg running for prez? What has Nader been smoking?

Sad that a guy who has done a lot for consumers in the past has made himself into the new Harold Stassen.

[rook543.livejournal.com]

Uh...I think Biden did a pretty good job of working against himself. He dose'nt need anybody to do it for him.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't think Biden has a chance in hell. But he's likely to insist on running, which means that time and money have to be spent by our side campaigning against him. And it's an easy job -- Biden has a long record of being all huffy and indignant and outraged and then going along with the pack, or the President, anyway -- but it has to be done. Same thing with McCain, who I thought was pretty decent in 2000 but now is just a sad joke... but the darling of the Washington punditry and press corps.

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

Not precisely sure what your problem with Biden is, Tom. He'd be my pick of all Dems running. :-/

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Not in a position right now to get a raft of links, Rob -- dial-up is NOT my friend -- but... there is a raft of links.

Basically, my problem with Biden is that he has shown a repeated tendency to talk tough, as if he's gonna lay into BushCo for whatever. He gets press coverage, he gets those coveted spots on the Sunday Morning Bobbleheads, he gets those sound bites on CNN. And then he votes in favor of whatever they want. The former gets more reporting, so more people think he's a stand-up kinda guy, when in fact he has knuckled under on Iraq funding, habeus corpus, several Supreme Court nominations, the bankruptcy bill, etc., etc., etc.

It comes down to: A lot of times, he's said the right things... and followed them with the wrong actions.

Quite possible

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I have been paying attention to what he has been saying, which is why I like him. His ideas are better grounded in reality than anything I have heard from another candidate.

I am open to the possibility that I have not been monitoring his actions closely enough, in terms of compliance to his words.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Biden saved America from "Justice Robert Bork". Every Supreme Court decision in which Kennedy has been on the reasonable side is a reason I tolerate Biden.

He's not my favorite, but I don't hate him either.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, I sure wish that Joe Biden had been around the past five years or so.... :-/

[naja-pallida.livejournal.com]

Biden always seems to have this way of saying something stupid, and then responding to his own stupid comment by saying something else stupid. If he just knew when to keep his mouth shut, he'd be a lot better off - and I'm sure as this race actually progresses, that he will have a moderately competent staff to coach him along. His ideas do seem realistic, and he does seem at least somewhat sane, but I can't say I really like him. Something about him just rubs me wrong.

I do know for a fact that I'd rather listen to Biden say something stupid than listen to John Kerry drone. Has anyone else noticed that Kerry looks and acts a lot like an Ent?

[lordavon.livejournal.com]

I pretty much refuse to vote Republican or Democrat anymore. Which generally leaves me an odd field of candidates.

Except for Ted Kennedy, but I'm in Massachusetts, so that's less a matter of voting democrat and more a matter of being in massachusetts.

[rebeccax.livejournal.com]

I would like to see Winona LaDuke run. She'd be a wonderful president.

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

Answering the OP question: the Republican you REALLY do not want in the White House is Duncan Hunter.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I don't think I could accept any candidate who could suck up to the Religious Reich enough to have any chance of getting the Republican nomination, but the declared candidate that most makes me twitch is Sam Brownback.

[beldar.livejournal.com]

Are you meaning to actively sabotage their campaign? Don't know if I have the conscience or mad criminal skilz to do that.

Since the ballot will not be set up for you to just vote against someone, you have to have some alternative(s) to vote for. That's where the problem lies, finding the worthwhile candidate to follow, whose magnetism will draw away enough votes and funding to make the objectionable candidates less of a problem.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Didn't say sabotage. Just actively work against. In most cases, this would mean finding someone to actively work for. But blogging/distributing flyers/protesting, saying someone is not a worthy candidate for such-and-such a reason, is Part Of The Process.

Goldstien!

[anansi133.livejournal.com]

It's funny: when the topic is little leage sports, I'm hard pressed to fins anyone who'd disagree with "playing the game is more important than winning or losing".

But shift away from things that don't matter very much to something like politics, and it's a complete turnaround. "It doesn't matter how good your platform is, what matters is if you can win with it".

Neither republicans or democrats are interested in seriously changing the corporate role in government. Anyone who *does* challenge the fortune 500 role in governance, is going to be raked over the coals for being a spoiler.

Re: Goldstien!

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

Anyone whose central campaign message is "there is no difference between the two major parties, so you should vote for me even though I won't win" is most definitely a spoiler and deserves to be raked over the coals for it.

I don't blame Nader for Gore's loss in 2000; I blame the Republicans for stealing the election, Gore for letting them get away with it, and the media for going along with the message that it was more important to the country to stop fighting than for the candidate more voters wanted to win the election. But I still think Nader's a schmuck.

Re: Goldstien!

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I'd say that Nader was a part of the picture of Gore's loss in 2000, though the main reasons are the ones you cite. But without Nader's candidacy, it's very likely that this country would have been spared the Iraq War and a large number of other incompetencies in the past six years.

Re: Goldstien!

[marahsk.livejournal.com]

I don't blame Nader for Gore's loss in 2000;

I do. There are many, many deaths on his head.

I blame the Republicans for stealing the election, Gore for letting them get away with it, and the media for going along with the message that it was more important to the country to stop fighting than for the candidate more voters wanted to win the election.

But the Republicans were acting in their own interest. Gore and the media were wrong and screwed up. The difference is that Nader didn't make a mistake or a screw-up -- there was no possibility of his running having a positive outcome.

Nader's Goals

[baronet.livejournal.com]

The difference is that Nader didn't make a mistake or a screw-up -- there was no possibility of his running having a positive outcome.

There might have been some small good to come out of Nader's candidacy: he might have introduced his ideas and values into the debate and forced the major candidates to say either "me too" or "not me" about his issues, he might have gotten a sweetheart deal for playing kingmaker (by throwing his support behind one of the other candidates), he might have secured the green party as a funded third party in the national elections.

For these small gains, he risked (and lost) the big gain: the quality of the president.

I think that his manta of "I don't see any differences between Al Gore and George Bush" says more about the quality of his vision than it does about the quality of Al Gore.

Re: Nader's Goals

[marahsk.livejournal.com]

I agree completely. Well said.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Pretty much any Republican. At this point, choosing to run on that ticket is proof of moral unfitness for the office. That may change, after the Bush League is gone for a few years, but for now...

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

Hilary Clinton. I'm sorry, but the Democrats can do MUCH better than her. Nominating her just means the democrats have no interest in winning the Oval Office this time around.

(And in a Clinton-esque mistake, I almost posted the ORAL Office but caught it in time)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

'Sfunny. I don't have any deep abiding hatred of HRC or anything. I'm angry and disappointed that, on many issues, she's been in lockstep asskissing mode with most of the rest of the Dems. The reason I don't want her running for Prez is that she is a hugely polarizing figure. Thanks to the ridiculous circus that our mass media has become, somewhere between a quarter and a half of the people in this country, if asked, hate her guts and think she's evil. And they will, and do, say anything about her, and the talking heads nod and look thoughtful.

(If it gets down to Hillary and Newt, I'm all for the election being settled in ThunderDome. Whoever goes in is too stupid to be president. They both will. [eyeroll])

Re: Goldstien!

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Brownback. Tancredo. Condi. Nader. Probably a batch of others, but those are the leaders on the Hit Parade.

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

I would personally love to do something to ridicule Nader. I remember when he first started his business, with "Unsafe at Any Speed." He seemed to be dedicated to his cause selflessly - he even refused to drive a car himself.

Then, I learned about the French Revolution and Robespierre, the man with
"a mind like pale ale," who drove the Terror. I suddenly realized who Nader was. And his subsequent actions have shown him to be crazier and more egotistical.

He needs to have a pie thrown in his face at a major speech. And then get his pants pulled open and shot full of seltzer water. And then a big red clown nose shoved on his schnozz.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

Make that scalding hot seltzer water. And maybe pour a bottle or two of Dave's Insanity Sauce down his throat.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking they've been planning for a long time to put up Jeb Bush for Prez.
I'm just wondering why no noise about it already.
Sometin' smelly back there in the swamp?

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

While I think Nader would be an awful president, he obviously represents a certain constituency. The fringe flakes on either side need someone to vote for.

Spoiler candidates do make for interesting politics. One got Clinton elected, another got Bush elected.

[kirylyn.livejournal.com]

Nader SO totally cost Gore the election.

Of course, Kathryn Harris helped by refusing to allow counties with illegal ballots revote. Ballots that did NOT match the sample ballot released to the papers in a heavy democratic county.

and yes, Gore did fold too quickly. My personal belief is that he was pressured to "let it go"

that the "people" were tired of democrats.

then again, I'm sorry but Jeb should have sat out the election in Texas, not "retreat" there *after* it went all to shite

interesting topic for an alternative history...

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Really good icon.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

Hillary Clinton.

[gorgeousgary]

Brownback. From what I've read about some of his religious beliefs, I'm not sure his vision of America has a place for me and most of my friends.

[tesral.livejournal.com]

All of them. When can we get "None of the Above" on the ballot? I am truly tired of a no choice of lying bastards.