Thinking about not supporting Obama in 2012? Check this Common Dreams (2000) column dissing Gore...

[jefferson_dem]

and promoting Nader. After all, a Bush candidacy won't be that bad...especially for the American Left. We all know how that turned out.

Published on Tuesday, April 11, 2000

Nader Skewing The Election Would Bring Newfound Power And Self-Respect Within The American Left
by Dan Hamburg

As a Ralph Nader for President supporter, I fretted through the Democratic and Republican primaries. My big fear at first was Bill Bradley, whose "just to the left of Gore" patina won him endorsements from the likes of Sen. Paul Wellstone, Prof. Cornell West, Katrina van den Heuvel of The Nation, and even the reliable environmental group Friends of the Earth.

<SNIP>

Now the Dems are left with Gore and the Repugs with Bush. Perfect. The more you look at their lying, sleezy, environmentally destructive, corporate-schmoozing ways, the better it is for Nader. In fact, the best spokesmen for Nader are Gore and Bush themselves. Now, if the Reform Party gets its act together and nominates Pat Buchanan, we'll have a field of candidates from which Ralph Nader will emerge like a beacon of light from the thick fog of American politics. I don't expect the Nader candidacy to illuminate the entire political landscape. Victory is not yet within reach. But this election could bring enough Green votes to qualify for federal matching funds, thereby placing a legitimate political alternative squarely on the map in 2004.

<SNIP>

Any marginally liberal, progressive, leftish person has to look at those numbers and cringe. If you're a Gore Democrat, they create an unassailable fortress around the vice-president, and against the good sense and virtue of a Nader candidacy. Sure, a vote for Nader might feel good, but a presidential election is not an opportunity for self-indulgence. Dubya must be denied! It's your duty, even if you have to hold your nose, to pull the lever for Al!

Not so fast. ...

Besides an outright victory, the most auspicious outcome of this presidential race would be Ralph Nader pulling enough votes away from Al Gore to skew the election, even if that means electing George W. Bush. The New Democrats, as embodied by Bill Clinton and Al Gore, have only marginally better public policy positions than the Republicans. The Democrat establishment opposes national health care and public financing of campaigns. It opposes the increasingly popular call for an end to commercial exploitation of our public lands, particularly our beleaguered national forests. The Democrats support the continuation of outrageous military spending, NAFTA and the WTO, the death penalty, the drug war, and mass incarceration. A Bush presidency, while it would make me gag, would at least make the enemy that much more clear and that much easier to attack.

But the chief benefit from a Nader skewing of the election would be a newfound power and self-respect within the American left. No longer would the Democrats be able to take our votes for granted by playing the "lesser of two evils" game. The possibility of a strong new party on the left would force the Democrats either to institute significant internal and policy reform or simply to meld with the Republicans. My guess is that, after years of living high off the corporate hog, they have no intention of engaging in soul-searching.

<SNIP>

http://www.commondreams.org/views/041100-103.htm

[JoePhilly]

1. Does one sentence actually start .... "The Democrat establishment .."

Wow. Coincidence?

[wryter2000]

3. That jumped out at me, too

K&R

[StopTheNeoCons]

7. The piece wriiten by the right wing, financed by the right wing,

and they fracture the left wing every time

[Tarheel_Dem]

15. Dammit Joe, that stood out to me too!

:puke:

[TheWraith]

16. Not in the slightest.

The Republicans have always had an incredibly strong propaganda machine. Unfortunately, some people don't realize it's now being directed at the left as well as the right and the middle. Propaganda to demoralize Democrats; to convince people on the left that Democrats are failures; that it's a waste of time and effort to vote Democrat; that there's no difference between the parties. They're doing it using selective leaks to left wing media. They're doing it with outright propaganda organs like FireDogLake, where the owner openly works to elect Republican candidates. They're doing it with coopting the far left by infiltrating ideas from the libertarian and isolationist right.

And unfortunately, the left's natural tendency towards fractiousness and dissent plays right into their hands. We've always specialized in the circular firing squad. But now it's being encouraged from outside, and a shitload of money spent on it, because they know that if they can keep Democrats divided--left, far left, and center all fighting each other--then there's nobody fighting the REAL ENEMY. It's the oldest tactic in the book, divide and conquer. Mixed with the fact that if you can convince the other guy not to fight, it's conquest without even having to work for it.

[JoePhilly]

18. Agree completely.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Umbral]

4. Was this when he chose Lieberman as his running mate?

...whatever.

[karynnj]

17. The issues were different in 2000 and Lieberman was not then out of the mainstream

He was the second best Senator on the environment in terms of lifetime LCV score (Kerry was best). He also had very good scores on civil rights issues. He was one of the Jewish Yale students that actually went South to register black voters. It is true that he was a centrist on economic issues, but so were Gore and Clinton. To me, way back when, he was a pick to Gore's left and the first Jew running on a national ticket. I know there was a lot of excitement in the Jewish community when he was chosen that had not been there for Gore himself.

[young but wise]

5. K&R.

[Jim Lane]

6. Both informative and (unintentionally) hilarious.

The part I love is: "But the chief benefit from a Nader skewing of the election would be a newfound power and self-respect within the American left."

Let me correct it for him: "But the chief benefit from a Nader skewing of the election would be that the American left would recognize the ghastly error of the third-party approach and that Nader would never again receive nearly that many votes, with even his running mate in the 1996 and 2000 elections (Winona LaDuke) returning to the Democrats and endorsing Kerry and Obama."

[Cosmocat]

21. yes, cause LOSING is the perfect means of gaining ...

newfound power and self respect ...

Wonder why the right never thought of this concept ...

WTF ...

[loyalsister]

8. In 2000 I had a conversation with a friend who made that argument

She regrets that line of thinking tremendously.

[Jakes Progress]

9. Yeah, yeah. We know. Not as bad as the bogey man.

Hard to rally the troops without fear now, is it? All that hope stuff just forgotten.

[JoeyT]

10. It takes work to create hope.

You can accomplish fear with propaganda.

[DevonRex]

11. Great find! Nt

[frazzled]

12. I remember the "Greens" excoriating Gore as "environmentally destructive"

It was a constant refrain. And you have to look back and absolutely laugh.

This essay was no right-wing shill. I remember the many people on the self-professed "left" (the quotes are there because I sometimes dispute that they are truly left) who espoused exactly these views.

[karynnj]

19. Gore's record on the environment was mixed

He was, of course, the leader in the fight against global warning. He held the first hearings and wrote a book on it. However, likely because he represented Tennessee, he voted against many environmental bills for clean water and clean air that impacted coal. If the environment was your top cause and your voting issue, Gore would not have been your first choice. (In fact, as recently as the early 1990s, this was not an issue that was polarized by the parties. Senator Heinz was incredibly good on both global warming and other environmental issues and President GHWB implemented the cap and trade system to deal with acid rain, while Bill Clinton had a horrible record in Arkansas.)

I do agree with you that articles, like the op's, were incredibly unhelpful and beyond stupid. I guess the underlying idea is that it has to get so bad that the majority of Americans would rebel and move radically to the left. The stupidity of this is that it welcomes the pain of things getting really bad -- I suspect for really bad for the poorest among us, not the far left intelligentsia. Additionally, in hard times, there is at least as much precedent for people moving to the right - ieHitler in Germany or Father Conklin, the depression era Rush Limbaugh or the tea party.

I actually found Nader's 2004 run, where he was less successful, more troubling - he said that Kerry was much better than Bush, even expressing an admiration for him AND, even more important, he saw the result of his 2000 run. There seemed no coherent reason he was running.

This kind of is like the writer here mentioning the fear of Bradley winning the nomination and making a far left challenge unsuccessful. This - and the 2004 run - show that they are not interested in moving the party left, but still within the mainstream. Just as, say, Michelle Backmann is too extreme to win -so is anyone that this person would be happy with.

[stevenleser]

24. Yes, many were taken in by this line of reasoning. Dan Hamburg is actually a good guy

I spoke to him on the phone in December of 2004 when he was fighting in Ohio for a full recount for Kerry. He was taken in by the whole Nader idea like many other folks.

[Number23]

13. 11 years old and yet, with .0009 seconds of searching

you can find this exact same sort of self-delusional, selfish, short-sighted stupidity amongst many on the "left" today.

[Skittles]

14. alright already, we KNOW we are stuck

[Katashi_itto]

20. Ok you convinced me. I will vote for the b*astard. I campaigned for him

was totally disillioned by what hes done. Was planning to sit it out. But between OWS and repeated articles like this. I am convinced. I will vote for him. Hopefully you can convince enough to to the same. AGAIN.

I will suck it up and vote for him. Hope we can get enough dems in the house and senate that we wont continue to have a Neville Chamberlain as president.

Yeah a primary would be nice but its not going to happen. Dammit. Might as well be realistic about the situation. Besides having a R as president would mean a general famine for the American populace not to mention the collpase of the dollar (course it might already be to late to prevent that).

[RFKHumphreyObama]

22. Dan Hamburg was a one-term Democratic Congressman

Perhaps he got bored of not being in the limelight after his defeat in the Republican Revbolution ended his minute-long political career

Yes, I remember the "Bush and Gore are the same" argument in 2000 and I am ashamed to say that I fell for it. Thankfully I'm not a US citizen so I didn't cast my vote for Nader and thereby help throw the election to Dubya. But I learned my lesson from that debacle but it's amazing how many on the left are repeating the same arguments about President Obama that they did about Vice President Gore and spreading the same sort of misinformation and distortions about his record. Of course many of these same people were also the ones who spread the same sort of misinformation and siphoned off votes from President Carter and Vice President Humphrey and helped contribute to the rise of Nixon and Reagan. The more things change....

[trueblue2007]

23. I feel that any democrat who doesn't vote for the PRESIDENT ... is a GOP

[Stuckinthebush]

25. We were fools for casting a vote for Nader

Fools. Some of us realize that. Some of us will never admit that you can't play third party games in a two-party system without causing great harm.

I admit my dumb-assness surrounding Nader. I won't do that again.

[Hippo_Tron]

26. For me it's a no brainer, Gore wouldn't have sat around with his thumbs up his butt

While my city was drowning. His administration could've been literally as bad as Bush's in every other regard, and that would still be reason enough for me to vote for him over Bush.

He also would've used 9/11 to force the country into adopting a sensible energy policy, rather than invading Iraq.

Nader supporters are right that Al Gore was wishy washy on class and economic justice issues and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if people would still be occupying Wall Street after 8 years of his administration. But I'd rather be trying to fix a broken system after 8 years of Al Gore doing some good things on other areas, rather than after 8 years of Bush fucking up everything he possibly could.

Dramatic changes in the power structure of the country aren't accomplished by politicians. They're accomplished by movements. In the meantime, I think it's best to vote for the guy who will make the trains run on time and the guy who will be sympathetic to your movement if you convince him it's politically expedient for him to be. Of course, you can always try your hand with the guy who will run the trains off the cliff, and who will never at any point be sympathetic toward your movement.