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Editorial: Nader redux: A spoiler then and a spoiler now
Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, February 3, 2008
Story appeared in FORUM section, Page E6
Some people are never satisfied. Take Ralph Nader, for instance.
Apparently not content with having helped put George W. Bush in the White House in 2000, Nader is now making noises about running for president this year. He has launched an official exploratory committee and told various news organizations last week that he will decide in about a month whether he will run.
Nader, who has become the Harold Stassen of the consumer protection movement, regards himself as the natural heir to the campaigns of Democrats John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich. He sees Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as corporate tools and not much different from Republicans. It seems that only he is pure enough to serve in the White House.
Not surprisingly, Nader is trying to inoculate himself against charges that he would enter in the race as a spoiler.
"Political bigotry will be the label on anybody who uses the word 'spoiler,' " he told CNN last week. "Because 'spoiler' means minor candidates are second-class citizens. Either we have an equal right to run for election, or we are spoilers for each other trying to get each other's votes."
Democratic and independent voters are apt to take a different view. In 2000, Nader got more than 100,000 votes in Florida, a state in which Bush beat Democrat Al Gore by about 500 disputed votes. It's reasonable to assume that without Nader in the race, Gore would have won Florida – and with it, the presidency.
Nader is free to run for any office he chooses, despite ample evidence that voters consider him unelectable at any speed. But it will take more than the huffy threat of being called bigots to keep voters from regarding him as a spoiler. That's what he was eight years ago. And it's the only role he can play if he enters the race this year.
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