JJB Blog

On July 9, Ralph Nader and Howard Dean debated if Nader should run.

Listen to it here:

http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3262027

Read the transcript here:

http://www.silent-edge.org/mt/nyco/deannader.html

As both of my regular readers know, I campaigned for Dean, and I have been a hu
ge Nader fan since I was 17. In a nutshell, I have supported Nader running, but
I have been probably more conflicted about it than the average Nader 2004 supp
orter. I was really looking forward to this debate, because I thought that it m
ight clarify things a bit for me.

It’s still a very complicated issue, and there is no simple answer, but one thi
ng is for sure: even Howard Dean will stoop to the levels of mainstream politic
ians, and use smear tactics to get what he wants. Several times in the debate,
he insisted on using the ridiculous line regarding republicans giving money to
the Nader/Camejo campaign.

Some excerpts:

DEAN: …I do believe that Ralph, that your access, your attempt to get on the
ballots, is fatally flawed. I don’t believe — if you really did go out and get
all those signatures in Arizona, it would be great. But the truth is, a lot of
them were illegal. And it’s not picking on you. This happens to every candidat
e. If you pay somebody to go get signatures, they generally do a much lousier j
ob than if you use volunteers. It is true that the Oregon Family Council, which
is virulently anti-gay, right-wing group, called up all their folks and tried
to get them to go to the Oregon convention to sign your petition. I don’t think
that’s the way to change the party. I agree with much of what you say, but the
way to change the country is not to do it with any means to the end, the way t
o change the country is not to get in bed with right-wing, anti-gay groups to g
et you on the ballot. That can’t work. It can’t work. The problem with a democr
acy is that the two major parties have tried to use any means to an end. I thin
k there’s a big difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. I’ll gran
t you that there’s significant corporate influence that we don’t like and I cam
paigned against in the primary. I’m not running for president right now, not ju
st because I lost in Iowa, but because I made the calculation that if I did, I
would take away votes which that otherwise would go to John Kerry and the resul
t was going to be the re-election of George Bush. That is a national emergency,
and we cannot have it.

NADER: I think just what you said about that group, it was a legitimate smear.
Do you know what a legitimate smear is, Howard? It’s a smear premeditated and k
nowing. We don’t even know this group. Don’t try to tar us with this. There hav
e been groups that supported your campaign you wouldn’t want to have breakfast
with, even if you were starving.

DEAN: Then just renounce them. That’s all I ask.

NADER: Well, fine, I renounce them. You know what else to renounce. Do you reno
unce Pfizer and Chevron and other companies who were criminally convicted of cr
imes by the federal government, giving millions of dollars in the year 2000 to
the Democrat Party, and they did not return the money? That’s a matter of recor
d.

DEAN: Damn right I renounce that. It’s exactly why I ran for president. I don’t
want that stuff anymore. And we’re going to have real campaign financing, with
public financing of campaigns in this country, but it’s not going to happen un
der George Bush as president.

NADER: OK, so you’ll urge John Kerry to return all money coming from corporate
executives who presided over corporations who either pleaded guilty or were con
victed of antitrust, environmental, labor and other crimes.

DEAN: I will urge him to do that if you will give back the 10 percent of your $
1,000 contributions that came from people like Richard Egan, the ambassador to
Ireland appointed by George Bush, because you should not be taking that money.

NADER: I wasn’t aware that he was a corporate criminal. He’s an American citize
n who might be — is a Republican, just happens to believe in civil liberties m
aybe. I don’t even know the man. Republicans are human beings, too.

DEAN: Right-wingers may not be.

- - - - - - - - - - -

DEAN: …You have 46% of all of your signatures to get you on the Arizona ballo
t that turned out to be Republican supporters. You accepted the support of a ri
ght-wing, fanatic Republican group that’s anti-gay in order to help you get on
the ballot in Oregon. You have accepted, one out of every $10,000 checks that y
ou’ve accepted have been from people who have already given money to Bush-Chene
y. Your own organizer said in Virginia that you go to tractor pulls to try to g
et the signatures because they think they’re doing Bush a favor. … And the th
ing that upsets me so much about this is you have the right to run, you can get
in bed with whoever you want to, but don’t call the Democratic Party full of c
orporate interests. They have their problems, we all have ours. None of us are
pure. And this campaign of yours is far from pure, if you are willing to accept
the help of a right-wing, anti-gay group to get you on the ballot. You need to
repudiate those people. And as your own running-mate says, send back those Rep
ublican checks.

NADER: You’re really being very inaccurate, apart from being unfair. We have no
t accepted the support of an anti-gay groups. We have not accepted as fulsomely
the support of Republican dollars the way the Democrats have. The Democrat fat
cats, Republican fat cats pour millions into each other’s party to hedge the b
ets. I think the issue here is the corporate government. Let’s not be distracte
d by the two parties that are simply proxies. “We don’t want to settle for the
lesser of two evils in our country. We don’t want to have another special inter
est clone in Washington. We don’t want to have another Washington insider who s
hifts back and forth with every poll. And we don’t want to have an insensitivit
y for the plight of workers, American workers in this country, who have lost th
eir manufacturing jobs.” All those quotes come from Howard Dean The First again
st John Kerry in the primary campaign. What you’re hearing now is Howard Dean T
he Second, in a desperate attempt to smear out campaign, which is struggling to
get on the ballot against the massive anti-civil-liberties obstruction of the
Democratic Party, which is the one that’s really interfering with our campaign,
not the press releases by Democrat — Republicans who haven’t produced any res
ults.

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Nader has written a letter to the CBC regarding the meeting he had with them a
few weeks ago. It’s a very interesting and quick read:

http://www.votena
der.org/why_ralph/index.php?cid=93

…imagine not much more than one generation ago, whites were telling African-A
mericans not to run, not to vote. …do argue, oppose, and challenge vigorously
, but unless you wish to tell someone not to speak, not to petition, not to ass
emble–which is exactly what running for office comprises–please don’t tell an
yone to withdraw and not run. Shades of the social justice third parties in the
19th century which moved the agendas critical to our country - can you imagine
if the Abolitionist Party was told not to run against the pro-slavery Whigs an
d Democratic Parties in the 1840s! The U.S. Constitution does not prescribe or
even describe a political duopoly where voters are only allowed two choices and
increasingly through redistricting etc. protect one dominant Party’s incumbent
.

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