Tuesday, June 29, 2004

It's all in the Wrist

A Trio of Ralph Nader stories.

The first is by Joe Conason and is posted at Salon (warning, you may have to watch a brief ad). Basically it concerns Nader's efforts to get on the ballot in Oregon and who's helping him achieve this goal.

"According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington -- whose name sounds as if Nader could once have been its founder -- the Nader presidential campaign received illicit assistance for its petition drive in Oregon last weekend from two local conservative organizations, which were "encouraged" by President Bush's campaign committee."

So I guess Nader's fantasy about taking votes from President Bush is justified. Yep, all these people helping his campaign are surely going to vote for him. Or are they?

Secondly here's a dissection of the Green Parties decision to run David Cobb as their presidential candidate rather than endorse Ralph Nader's independent run. Apparently the main reason for the Green Party's rejection of Nader was that they felt like he had ignored them in the early part of this election cycle and was taking the party for granted.

Cobb will distinguish himself from Nader in other ways. "Practically, Cobb plans to campaign for Green candidates in all 50 states, but only to aggressively seek votes for himself in the roughly 40 states where the Bush-Kerry contest is not expected to be close."

Finally here is Ralph Nader's letters to Michael Moore (Letter one and letter two). Truthfully I'm not sure I would have posted these letters on my website, as they sound a bit whiney and a bit pedantic. But as for the issues involved, Michael Moore has been focused on beating President Bush since the last election. Mr. Nader has been concerned with something else (some would say his own self-aggrandizement, but I'm not that cynical).

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