Anyone voting for Nader? Options

[Saif Ali Khan Fa...]

Is anyone planning on or thinking about voting for Nader? I can't say the idea hasn't floated in my head.

I'm a registered Democrat and I voted for Obama in the primaries but I don't know--I'm just not enthusiastic about him anymore. I can't say that there aren't any differences between him and McCain but I just don't know how different he is from other Democrats and frankly, I don't find the Democrats all too appealing anymore. Yet I feel I would be wasting my vote to vote for Nader. I dunno. What do you all think?

[Honu]

Vote for Nader.

[Ceshune]

I think Nader is very intelligent, but one may as well vote for Ron Paul. The Nader of the 70's may not be the Nader of today.

[Saif Ali Khan Fa...]

What do you mean Ceshune?

This post has been edited by Saif Ali Khan Fan: Jun 25 2008, 02:23 PM

[Ceshune]

Does he use insider information for his own personal gain?

The following is a fairly thorough article if you want to see the other side.

http://www.realchange.org/nader.htm

[Jon]

You are better off voting for Nader than Obama IMHO.

[Honu]

All true Hillary supporters should vote for Nader instead of Obama.

[Haq al lugi]

Nadar seems harmless, unless he gets a following. He is the Bob Barr of the left.

[Honu]

Haq, , you're supposed to encourage the Dems to vote for Nader.... or Ron Paul.

[Saif Ali Khan Fa...]

I think I'm going to vote for Obama but he has been disappointing me this entire week. Now he's all pro-gun. I know politicians flip flop and compromise all the time but Obama is suppose to be about "change", he suppose to want to change Washington. I thought I wouldn't have to vote for the lesser of the two evils this time but I guess that won't be so.

[Coexist]

They all claim they will 'change Washington', change this, change that.... they're all full of it.

[guardian1]

very scary if you care at all about nation defense, and the man actually says this with an american flag in the background

[guardian1]

the man's an idiot when it comes to defense. not weaponize space? the chinese already have! get rid of nuclear weapons? how will we deter those who have them? the only major candidate that opposed the war? makes it sound like he voted against the war. here's a news flash - he was still an illinois STATE senator, not national senator at that time. cut tens of billions in "wasteful spending" - same thing bill clinton said and look at what he did to the military. and unproen missile systems? the navy just launched a ballistics missile off an aegis class ship a couple months ago, a missile DESIGNED TO DESTROY INCOMING BALLISTIC NUCLEAR MISSILES and this missile hit a satellite in outer space that was traveling at approx 20,000 mph and hit it directly in the fuel cell which is where we wanted to hit it, yeah we can't hit anything with a missile. why would slow the development of future combat systems? so our enemies can catch up to our technology? no new nukes? doesn't he know that they breakdown and have to be maintained and replaced by new weapons? weapons grade uranium doesn't last forever. and a global ban on the production of fissible material? there's practically a global ban on rape, murder, arson and theft and those things happen all the time. if this man becomes our commander in chief, i will fear for the safety of our country.

and he actually said this WHILE WE ARE AT WAR.

This post has been edited by guardian1: Jun 28 2008, 04:35 PM

[Haq al lugi]

I think I'm going to vote for Obama but he has been disappointing me this entire week. Now he's all pro-gun. I know politicians flip flop and compromise all the time but Obama is suppose to be about "change", he suppose to want to change Washington. I thought I wouldn't have to vote for the lesser of the two evils this time but I guess that won't be so.

The only thing he is changing is his positions on the issues.

We have no idea what this guy might do. He was in the Senate for 143 days before he became a candidate for POTUS.

McCain is old for sure, but he has a track record (not that I love his record, mind you).

[Haq al lugi]

Here are some of the changes Obama has gone thru. This is from the NYTimes, who LOVES the guy....

Editorial http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/04/opinion/...agewanted=print


</H1><H1>New and Not Improved
Senator Barack Obama stirred his legions of supporters, and raised our hopes, promising to change the old order of things. He spoke with passion about breaking out of the partisan mold of bickering and catering to special pleaders, promised to end President Bush’s abuses of power and subverting of the Constitution and disowned the big-money power brokers who have corrupted Washington politics.

Now there seems to be a new Barack Obama on the hustings. First, he broke his promise to try to keep both major parties within public-financing limits for the general election. His team explained that, saying he had a grass-roots-based model and that while he was forgoing public money, he also was eschewing gold-plated fund-raisers. These days he’s on a high-roller hunt.

Even his own chief money collector, Penny Pritzker, suggests that the magic of $20 donations from the Web was less a matter of principle than of scheduling. “We have not been able to have much of the senator’s time during the primaries, so we have had to rely more on the Internet,” she explained as she and her team busily scheduled more than a dozen big-ticket events over the next few weeks at which the target price for quality time with the candidate is more than $30,000 per person.

The new Barack Obama has abandoned his vow to filibuster an electronic wiretapping bill if it includes an immunity clause for telecommunications companies that amounts to a sanctioned cover-up of Mr. Bush’s unlawful eavesdropping after 9/11.

In January, when he was battling for Super Tuesday votes, Mr. Obama said that the 1978 law requiring warrants for wiretapping, and the special court it created, worked. “We can trace, track down and take out terrorists while ensuring that our actions are subject to vigorous oversight and do not undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend,” he declared.

Now, he supports the immunity clause as part of what he calls a compromise but actually is a classic, cynical Washington deal that erodes the power of the special court, virtually eliminates “vigorous oversight” and allows more warrantless eavesdropping than ever.

The Barack Obama of the primary season used to brag that he would stand before interest groups and tell them tough truths. The new Mr. Obama tells evangelical Christians that he wants to expand President Bush’s policy of funneling public money for social spending to religious-based organizations — a policy that violates the separation of church and state and turns a government function into a charitable donation.

He says he would not allow those groups to discriminate in employment, as Mr. Bush did, which is nice. But the Constitution exists to protect democracy, no matter who is president and how good his intentions may be.

On top of these perplexing shifts in position, we find ourselves disagreeing powerfully with Mr. Obama on two other issues: the death penalty and gun control.

Mr. Obama endorsed the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the District of Columbia’s gun-control law. We knew he ascribed to the anti-gun-control groups’ misreading of the Constitution as implying an individual right to bear arms. But it was distressing to see him declare that the court provided a guide to “reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe.”

What could be more reasonable than a city restricting handguns, or requiring that firearms be stored in ways that do not present a mortal threat to children?

We were equally distressed by Mr. Obama’s criticism of the Supreme Court’s barring the death penalty for crimes that do not involve murder.

We are not shocked when a candidate moves to the center for the general election. But Mr. Obama’s shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games.

There are still vital differences between Mr. Obama and Senator John McCain on issues like the war in Iraq, taxes, health care and Supreme Court nominations. We don’t want any “redefining” on these big questions. This country needs change it can believe in.

[Baekho]

I am a registered Green and a strong supporter of Ralph Nader (although the Green candidates this year, Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente, are worth looking at as well).

IMHO Nader, along with a few other non-mainstream candidates, is the only one offering any real change. I have been very disappointed by Obama and do not think his platform differs significantly from McCain's on many key issues. I think Matt Gonzalez, Nader's running mate, has it right when it comes to Obama's numerous "compromises": "There are constitutional law professors who laugh at that. That's not a compromise, it's a sell-out."

Now I realize there is objectively no chance that Nader will be elected. But that is not why I am voting for him. I am voting for him because I consider it an ethical imperative, much the way that voting for an anti-slavery party in the 19th century would have been an ethical imperative or a Women's Suffrage Party in the 20th century would have been an ethical imperative. I am also voting for him in the hope that it will, if nothing else, get his message out to even just a few people, so that it can be seen there are still people who care about ordinary Americans and working people.

I personally think that the Democratic Party stopped offering serious alternatives to the Republican Party and the rotten status quo in America long ago. With the exception of a few mavericks like Dennis Kucinich, they and their candidates do not represent the interests of the American people. Even with a majority of Democrats in Congress, every war appropriations bill is given a rubber stamp, the telecom companies are let off the hook, and business as usual in Washington goes on as before.

I am also disgusted at the way that Obama kow-tows to the Israeli lobby and would not even let Jimmy Carter speak at the DNC because of his views on Israel. Yet another area where Nader is not afraid to stick up for an alternative to the status quo in this country.

[Kayak]

I liked Ron Paul better than Obama.

[Honu]

Please, if Obama doesn't quite cut it for you then vote Nader or Ron Paul or Bob Barr or some other third party candidate. Make your protest vote count!

[Saif Ali Khan Fa...]

I am a registered Green and a strong supporter of Ralph Nader (although the Green candidates this year, Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente, are worth looking at as well).

IMHO Nader, along with a few other non-mainstream candidates, is the only one offering any real change. I have been very disappointed by Obama and do not think his platform differs significantly from McCain's on many key issues. I think Matt Gonzalez, Nader's running mate, has it right when it comes to Obama's numerous "compromises": "There are constitutional law professors who laugh at that. That's not a compromise, it's a sell-out."

Now I realize there is objectively no chance that Nader will be elected. But that is not why I am voting for him. I am voting for him because I consider it an ethical imperative, much the way that voting for an anti-slavery party in the 19th century would have been an ethical imperative or a Women's Suffrage Party in the 20th century would have been an ethical imperative. I am also voting for him in the hope that it will, if nothing else, get his message out to even just a few people, so that it can be seen there are still people who care about ordinary Americans and working people.

I personally think that the Democratic Party stopped offering serious alternatives to the Republican Party and the rotten status quo in America long ago. With the exception of a few mavericks like Dennis Kucinich, they and their candidates do not represent the interests of the American people. Even with a majority of Democrats in Congress, every war appropriations bill is given a rubber stamp, the telecom companies are let off the hook, and business as usual in Washington goes on as before.

I am also disgusted at the way that Obama kow-tows to the Israeli lobby and would not even let Jimmy Carter speak at the DNC because of his views on Israel. Yet another area where Nader is not afraid to stick up for an alternative to the status quo in this country.

The Green Party ticket is definitely intriguing. Talk about breaking barriers! Cynthia McKinney is both a woman and African American. Still, my head (not my heart) says goes with Obama for now. I know the Democrats offer very little change, Obama included but the idea of McCain, who is a maligant tumor away from dying and Palin, who is a malignant tumor away from the presidency, becoming President and Vice President really scares me. I can at least stomach Obama. I changed my voter affliation from Democrat to Independent. I'm tired of giving my alliegence to a party that really hasn't done much for the poor, working poor, or minorities in decades.

I think voting Green or for any of the other third parties on a local or state level though is smart and a good strategy for slowly giving third party candidates more of a real chance at national level offices.

ETA: You're right. Obama has totally thrown Palestinians under the bus and into a ditch. At the beginning of the year I expected so much more from him on that issue and others. Then I realized the change theme was really a smokescreen.

It's really frustrating. You want real chance but the lobbies and corporations have made that really hard to come by in Washington. The MSM doesn't help any. They just keep the electorate focused on whether or not you can "relate" to a candidate instead of what a candidate will actually do for you in terms of policy. Not to mention the lack of coverage on third party candidates (except as "spoilers" for the major parties). This election has just made me more cynical.

This post has been edited by Saif Ali Khan Fan: Sep 13 2008, 04:38 PM