Andy Rowell, 10 March 2008 

After the nail-biting results in the American primaries last week, Barack Obama failed to land what had been expected to be the knockout blow on Hillary Clinton. With Clinton taking Ohio and Texas, the Democratic contest looks set to go all the way to the Party’s convention in August. For the Republicans John McCain has won the Republican race, and has turned his attention to his likely opponent. But we still don’t know if that will be Clinton or Obama.

We should not forget the other contender in the race to be President, either. At seventy four, consumer-advocate Ralph Nader is three years older than John McCain, the Republican nominee. Named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Americans in the Twentieth Century, Nader originally shot to fame in the sixties with his book about the inherent safety failures in American automobiles.

In the intervening four decades, Nader has help set up over 100 public interest groups in America that have been instrumental in enacting several laws as well as environmental and consumer protection agencies. As his website proudly boasts: “Because of Ralph Nader we drive safer cars, eat healthier food, breath better air, drink cleaner water, and work in safer environments.”

Not content with cleaning up the American environment, Nader is trying to clean up American politics. He ran limited races in 1992 and as the Green Party nominee in 1996. However his first real success came in 2000, when, again as the Green Party candidate, he won more than 2.8 million votes. He argued at the time that the two main candidates, George Bush and Al Gore, were nothing more than “Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” with essentially no differences between them.

Worse still for Nader was that in the acrimonious fall-out of Gore’s defeat, he was widely blamed for costing Democrats the election after the extremely close call in Florida. His critics argued that if Nader had not run, Gore would have won Florida and hence the White House. His supporters deserted him in droves when he next ran in 2004 as an independent. That year, Nader received just 465,650 votes out of 122 million cast, or put another way just 0.4 per cent of the vote.

Nader rejects the argument that he cost Gore the 2000 election, saying that Democrats themselves were responsible for Gore's loss. He argues that it is impossible to tell how his supporters would have voted if he had not run. You could also argue that if Gore had stood firm and demanded a recount in Florida, Gore would have actually won and the world today would be a radically different place, no where more so in the Middle East and Iraq.

Nader is taking a huge gamble running again. He risks gaining little support, and risks being derided in the words of the New York Times, as “a hapless perennial candidate with no political upside and the ever-present potential of throwing an election the wrong way.”

Despite the negative backlash that now follows Nader like a bad rash, there are good reasons for him to enter the Presidential contest. For people who care about progressive politics, Nader really does offer real change, compared to the illusion of change that some say symbolizes Obama. Nader argues that Obama is all “mouth” and no substance. He says Obama’s record in the Senate is too “cautious” and “mediocre” for a truly progressive politician.

Nader argues that both the Democratic candidates are tied to a political Party that sold out long ago to corporate interests. He calls the others “corporate candidates”. This is a central theme of his campaign: For example, log on to his website and it says: “Corporate greed, corporate power, corporate control – whose side are you on?”

Obama of course disagrees and argues that he is different from the politicians of before, especially the like of the Clintons. One way Obama has tried to distance himself from Clinton is over the corporate funding of politicians. Back in December last year, Obama said: “I intend to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over, that they had not funded my campaigns, and from my first day as president, I will launch the most sweeping ethics reform in U.S. history.”

Last August, however, The Boston Globe, examined Obama’s financial contributions, and noted “behind Obama's campaign rhetoric about taking on special interests lies a more complicated truth.” That truth revealed that Obama had indeed collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from lobbyists and corporate Political Action Committees.  Obama has also received millions of dollars from corporate law firms as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars from the pharmaceutical and health product industries.

So whilst many Democrats see a huge difference between Obama and Clinton, Nader sees no difference between the two when it comes to funding or even to policy. To Nader there is no difference between Obama/ Clinton and the Republican nominee John McCain. He says he is running against “the real political bigotry’’ of the two major parties that have “locked up the system.’’  Nader outlines twelve key policy issues which would be “on the table” if he became President, whereas for the others they are “off the table”.

Some of these have a direct relevance to the Middle East: Nader advocates adopting a “carbon pollution tax”, which would indirectly reduce America’s reliance on Middle Eastern oil. He also talks of cutting the “huge, bloated, wasteful” American military budget of “reversing US policy in the Middle East” and finally “Impeaching Bush and Cheney”. Whilst that policy would go down well on the Arab street, so too would Nader’s proposals for reigning in Israeli aggression.

In setting out his policies, Nader also stands against nuclear power, against Big Oil and fossil fuels, in favour or renewable technology and in favour of a “foreign policy that wages peace instead of war.”

If someone came knocking on my door with this manifesto I would certainly vote for him. The only problem for Nader is that he has absolutely no chance of winning the election. There is more chance of someone walking to the moon that Nader walking into the White House. All the evidence suggests that he will get even fewer votes than last time, and quietly slip into political obscurity.

His critics have pointed this out and told him he should not bother even standing as a candidate, much to his fury. He replies: “When the system says: 'Don't run,' it's like saying don't talk, don't act, don't put that play on, don't write that article. You've got to keep pushing for justice."

His candidacy is certainly stirring up the debate in the US. As one blogger on the internet wrote: “Nader has the right to run if he wants, but I think more than anything else it’s about his ego. I think that if Nader wants to do something for people he should take the millions he’s going to spend on a worthless campaign and give it to people who could really use it.”

I, for one, tend to agree with this. Having said I would theoretically vote for someone with his policies, I don’t think Nader should run. We should not forget that this Presidential race could be extremely close. We are entering uncharted waters for America. The Democrats are about to make history by nominating a black candidate or a woman. Within conservative circles, there will be resistance to either candidate, despite their similarity of policies. There is a danger that either candidate will backfire with American voters and we end up with another Republic president. That is an ever present danger.

We have to remember that for people who care about social justice, environmental protection, and a radical different American foreign policy, the Democrats offer a chance of change from the disastrous Bush years. As Josh Holland, wrote on the Alternet webpage: “Neither Clinton nor Obama is going to be some kind of progressive champion. But, after the kind of right-wing "governance" we've suffered for the past 8 years, having a competent, coherent, well-traveled, well-read, English-speaking moderate tinkerer in the White House will be like a cool sip of lemonade on a burning hot day.”

So I say, bring on the cool lemonade. If somehow Nader endangers the chances of change, I would argue that he should stay at home. Yes, Ralph, you have to keep fighting for justice, but any good campaigner knows you have to pick the right fights to win. Even for a season and battle-hardy consumer champion like yourself, the 2008 presidential election is one fight too many.