The Political Fiend

Yeah, I said it. I can appreciate what Ralph’s trying to do here. He’s clearly a principled man and believes the virtue of a truly democratic system. He told Tim Russert on Sunday that he’s jumping into the race because Obama, Clinton, and McCain haven’t done enough to regulate Corporations Gone Wild. Fine. He might be right about that. But he also thinks that he’ll siphon more voters away from McCain than from the Democratic nominee. Ralph seems to think lots of things. Back in 2000, where he might have cost Al Gore the presidency by sucking up around 96,000 Florida votes, he told America that Bush and Gore were basically the same guy.

And so now he’s at it again. Always the boy scout. But this time he can’t seem to see the forest for the trees. Normally I’d commend Nader for being the perennial candidate. John Edwards waited a while before dropping out this year. And Ron Paul has yet to bail. Keeping the little guy in the race forces the big candidates to play to the little guy’s audience; to win Edwards’ supporters, Obama and Clinton both widened their stances a bit.

Nader isn’t doing anything different, except that he’s doing it via a third party; his candidacy has thus always demonstrated that our two-party system is deeply entrenched. Nader represents the hope that one day that entrenchment may be no more. But seriously, now’s not the time. After 8 years of G.W. Bush, the Dems are starved for the White House. Ralph Nader, principled, righteous, and sympathetic as he may be, is poised to upset something that Dems have been waiting very patiently for.

What principles are we rooting for? To root for Nader now is to root against the immediate success of the Democrats. To root for Obama or Clinton is to tacitly accept the barriers we place in front of third party candidates running for higher office in a supposedly democratic system. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that the DNC will hurl everything they have against Nader’s ballot petitions, and while it might be the right thing for the Democrats to do today, I’m not sure that it’s the right thing for America in the long run.

Photo by Don LaVange used under a Creative Commons license.

And so it’s come down to this. There are numerous states that have yet to hold their primary elections. Don’t get me wrong, they’ll all matter, but not in the way that anyone would normally hope. Clinton & Obama are just about neck and neck in this thing, and there are roughly about 1600 or so delegates up for grabs after yesterday’s primaries and caucuses. Unless something drastic happens, the two are likely to split the leftovers. So not much will change, unless the polls swing. Each victory from Super Tuesday onward is less about collecting new delegates as it is about impressing the 796 member super-delegate club, of which Bill Clinton happens to be a member.

The Democratic party’s super delegate system is insane, and needs to go away. Created in the 80’s it was intended to give 3rd party candidates a fair shot, even if they lost ever single primary & caucus. This year we’ll see that all the system actually does is allow ex-presidents, congressmen, and party loyalists to do the picking for us.

So not cool, DNC.