Surprise! Ralph Nader is running for president again. I've posted some thoughts over at Plenty's Political Climate blog explaining why greens shouldn't give his candidacy a second glance:
Ralph Nader can claim a decent slice of the credit for much of the good that’s been done in Washington in recent decades; his Public Citizen advocacy group helped pass benchmark legislation like the Freedom of Information Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, and was instrumental in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. If he’d quit while he was ahead, he’d have gone down in history as an environmental hero.But then came the 2000 election. One shouldn’t blame Bush’s victory exclusively on Nader, of course: Kathy Harris must shoulder some of the blame for the fiasco in Florida, and Al Gore’s campaign team didn’t exactly cover itself with glory. But the fact remains that the 97,000 votes cast for Nader in the Sunshine State put Bush in the White House and ushered in eight long years of environmental neglect.
... One shouldn’t begrudge Nader his right to take a shot at the White House; in America, everyone’s entitled to ride their egotism as far as it’ll take them. But we should say as loudly and clearly as we can that with so much at stake, greens should back a major-party candidate: This year, more than ever, a vote for Nader is a vote wasted.
Read more here.
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