Nader

While running into a local grocery store to grab a couple of supplies this evening, I had to pause for a moment and wonder if I was in California, rather than Connecticut.

You see, I was stopped heading in by a gentleman looking for signatures on a petition.

It seems that the petitioning has begun in Connecticut to get Nader on the November ballot.

Of course, I signed…not because of any fondness for Nader, but because the folks who write ballot access laws seem to succumb to conflict of interest, and write such pesky legislation so as to maintain the advantages currently enjoyed by the D/R duopoly, and I’d like to do my part to fight against such tyranny.

Seen on the newswire:

Ralph Nader on Sunday announced a fresh bid for the White House, criticizing the top contenders as too close to big business and dismissing the possibility that his third-party candidacy could tip the election to Republicans.[...]

“You take that framework of people feeling locked out, shut out, marginalized, disrespected,” he said. “You go from Iraq, to Palestine/Israel, from Enron to Wall Street, from Katrina to the bungling of the Bush administration, to the complicity of the Democrats in not stopping him on the war, stopping him on the tax cuts.”

And naturally, a lot of Democrats are p*ssed.

One wonders if this will inspire Dems to exercise strategy through the remainder of the nomination process. It would seem that to minimize any spoiler effect (third time around, would there be all that much?), you’d want to nominate someone who is less prone to such criticism…or who can draw in enough moderates and moderate Republicans to offset any Nader-leakage.

Seen at Politico:

I just now spoke to Ralph Nader, who said the launch of his exploratory Web site wasn’t timed to Edwards’ withdrawal, but that Kucinich’s withdrawal had made space in the race for him.

“We’re testing the waters on the overriding issue of corporate control, of our political economy, and anything else the dogma of commercialism wants to latch on to,” he said.

He also said he’d make third-party ballot access a major issue, after what he sees as a “national conspiracy” by the Democratic Party to deny him a place on the ballot in 2004, subject of a recent lawsuit.

Well, if he enters the race, perhaps Nader could offset some of the benefit Dems would receive should Ron Paul or Bloomberg run and dilute moderate/centrist/libertarian support for the GOP candidate.

Well, we’re only eleven-and-a-half months away from the 2008 elections, and as we’ve come to expect, the political news and blogs are becoming awash in polling numbers.

Via Donklephant, I came across a Rasmussen poll notable because of it’s inclusion of potential third-party candidates:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found Hillary Clinton leading Rudy Giuliani by three percentage points in a four-way race that includes Ron Paul running as a Libertarian candidate and Ralph Nader representing the Green Party. The poll shows Clinton earning 42% of the vote while Giuliani attracts 39%. Ron Paul is the choice for 8%, Ralph Nader is preferred by 4% and 7% are not sure[...].

A recent Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that comedian Stephen Colbert attracted 13% support as a third-party candidate.

I’d be interested on what the polling would indicate if Bloomberg were thrown into the mix. (I realize that he’s been pretty adamant about not running, but still it would be interesting to see the numbers.)

And, the idea of Colbert potentially being a kingmaker or a spoiler in a Presidential campaign both amuses and disturbs me greatly. Perhaps Colbert loyalists could be convinced to get Colbert cleared at least as a legitimate write-in candidate in a few states, just to add to the expected circus atmosphere of the political arena next year?