January 2005: Well,
Bush is president and the right-wing reign continues to get worse and worse, at
least for a while. This page was created in the heady days of the summer and
fall of 2004, when it looked like Ralph Nader might again play spoiler.
I'm leaving this page up for now because .... I dunno ... I suppose because I'm
a historian and I think the materials here can be useful for someone trying to
tell the story of Nader and the last two elections. --HGL
__________________________________________
The Real Ralph
Essential information about Ralph
Nader's mad campaign
to defeat the Democrats and elect
George W. Bush, again.
_____________________________________________________
In 2000 Ralph Nader's chief campaign goal
was to punish the Democrats by taking enough votes in swing states like Florida
to defeat Gore and elect Bush. In 2000
Nader got what he wanted. Now he's back
to do it again.
This on-line project -- THE REAL RALPH
-- makes available much evidence about what Nader did last time and what he was
trying to do again in 2004.
--Harry G. Levine, Department of
Sociology, Queens College, City University of New York /
hglevine@compuserve.com
Nader News
"QUOTATIONS FROM RALPH NADER AND OTHERS -
only here at THE REAL RALPH
Nader's campaign to punish the Democrats
and elect Bush-Cheney in 2000 and again in 2004 documented, reviewed, and laid
out in time. It covers from March of
2000 to the beginning of July 2004.
Check it out.
Quotations from Ralph Nader and others about
Nader's presidential campaign, the right-wing Republicans who support him,
Michael Moore's view of Nader, and much more.
On Nader's
Intentions In 2000 and 2004.
March 2004: What I learned from Tarek Milleron, Nader's nephew and most
trusted aide, and much more. A number
of web sites including Buzzflash.com and columnist Eric Alterman have linked to
it. As Alterman said "There's a
lot there."
MAY 2004: A short version of the above
published in the Village Voice. This includes the letter to the Voice
from Tarek Milleron in which he essentially grants my main point. This article
has been widely distributed. Mother Jones listed it as a "Must
Read." [For the article at the Village Voice's web site see: "RALPH NADER, SUICIDE BOMBER" ]
Animation,
Videos, Links, and More for 2004
MARK FIORE'S ANIMATED SATIRE "ALL NEW: RALPH NADER
2004"
You need sound to
get this. It's terrific.
"NADER'S 04 CANDIDACY: THE TRUE IMPACT"
A professional, prime-time quality
anti-commercial for Nader in 2004, from the good folks at
DontVoteRalph.org.
The major stop-Nader sites, and much more. Resources for essential information about
the most important U.S. presidential election since....
RALPH'S TRENDY LINE OF "SPOILER" PRODUCTS
We are not making this up. Nader has t-shirts,
mousepads and playing cards that say "SPOILER." And for the stylish
2-party-system-smasher, the t-shirts also say: "revolutionaries always
spoil corrupt systems." You can't
make this stuff up.
Essential
"Reveal Ralph" Writings
"BUSH'S USEFUL IDIOT" - by Eric Alterman
A fine, brief summary of
essential facts about Nader and his campaign as of October 2004.
"THE DARK SIDE OF RALPH NADER" by Lisa Chamberlain
July 1, 2004: Finally, a serious journalist
has gotten loads of former Nader associates to talk about what a nasty,
unpleasant, ungenerous, vindictive man Ralph Nader has been -- and still is.
"NADER'S 'GRASSROOTS' CAMPAIGN...COURTESY OF
GOP" by Jeff Cohen
July 20, 2004: A brief review of the
right-wing support Nader's 2004 campaign has attracted -- and welcomed. For
more about this see: "Nader News" above.
"IT'S OVER, RALPH" by Barbara Ehrenreich
July 18, 2004: "I
voted for you in, yes, Florida. I lost friends on account of you.... If the
first time was tragedy -- and I will admit now, with hindsight, that it was --
the second time is predictably farce ... because there's been something
grotesque about your campaign...."
"NADER'S SORRY LEGACY" by
Joe Conason
Conason in Salon.com in June 2002 on
Nader and the Greens as friends of Bush-Cheney Republicans and opponents of,
yes, Paul Wellstone.
"NADER FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE" - by Todd Gitlin
Feb 22, 2004: In 2000 Gitlin saw and named Nader's
"wrecking ball campaign." In
2004, Gitlin again
warned about Nader's monomania.
"GOODBY RALPH" - by Marianne Means
On February 4, 2001, syndicated columnist
Marianne Means saw early what Nader was doing. Shortly after the election she
wrote: "Nader is desperately trying to rewrite history to clean up his
own role, claiming he did not intend to defeat Gore. The claim ignores the
crucial fact that in the three days before the election he concentrated his
campaign on Florida, where he knew Gore needed every single liberal vote he
could scrape up....
"THE MAN WHO GAVE US BUSH" - by
Jonathan Chait
Chait was the first journalist to say
at length that Ralph Nader ran his campaign as he did in order to defeat Gore
and punish the Democrats. As Chait explained in November 2002: "Helping
elect George W. Bush was not an unintended consequence but the primary goal of
his presidential campaign."
"RALPH DON'T RUN" - by Ronnie Dugger
Veteran Texas journalist and activist
Ronnie Dugger nominated Ralph Nader at the Green Party convention in 2000. In December 2002 he began the "Ralph,
Don't Run" campaign with an article in The Nation.
THE 'WHAT IF' NADER CAMPAIGN OF 2000? - by G. William Domhoff
This is Domhoff's imaginative
re-telling of Nader's campaign decision. Instead of mounting a futile, divisive
and destructive third-party campaign, Nader runs in the Democratic primaries
and begins building a long-term progressive movement to someday take the whole
damn party. Not!
"RALPH NADER BETRAYS HIMSELF" by John B. Judis
John Judis's remarkably far-sighted
article in June of 2000 talks about Nader's "sectarianism" -- a theme
that is becoming increasingly obvious in his peculiar 2004 campaign, especially
as Trotskyists flock to him becoming his most important activists.
More
"FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS VOTE NADER" - Craig
Reinarman and Harry G. Levine
Ralph
Nader is on the ballot in at least eight fiercely-contested states. If you have
a swing-state friend who is considering voting for Nader, there is still time
to make a difference.
"TOO CLOSE TO CALL" - by Harry G. Levine and
Craig Reinarman
Close elections like this one cannot be predicted.
They must be won, by voter turnout. The polls were wrong in 2000 and the ones
that show Bush is way ahead are wrong again. Read why.
"WHAT WAS THE SWING STATE VOTE?" --
compiled by H. G. Levine
The states with the smallest vote margin in 2000
along with Nader and Buchanan's votes, and the total vote. These are the swing
states to work in, hope for, and watch in 2004
”DEFEAT BUSH: THE GUIDE" - by Robert Christgau &
Ben Reiter
Robert Christgau, the "Dean" of rock
journalists, is just one of the many people who supported Nader in 2000 and who
are now devoted to stopping Nader and Bush. This takes you to his recent Village
Voice article with links to key anti-Bush, pro-Kerry, and get out the vote
web sites.
Send email to: hglevine@compuserve.com / comments, questions
and information are welcome
Click here to return to hereinstead.com
