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Nader doesn’t pose a threat
BY NICK EMANUEL
STATESMAN STAFF WRITER
iISSUE: 78/24
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Candidate Ralph Nader
A few weeks ago, Ralph Nader officially declared his entry into the presidential race. Democratic supporters and the two remaining possible candidates for the Democrats have not applauded this decision. Senator Hillary Clinton told reporters, “I remember when he ran before. It didn’t turn out well for anybody—especially our country,” according to a cnn.com article titled “Ralph Nader enters presidential race.” In the same article, Clinton also said that when Nader ran for the Green Party in 2000, he prevented Al Gore from becoming “the ‘greenest’ president we could have had.” She even went as far as to say, “[Nader] is responsible for George W. Bush.”
Many Democrats share her thoughts. According to the cnn.com article, Barack Obama also got in on slamming Nader, saying, “he thought there was no difference between Gore and Bush, and eight years later, I think people realize he had no idea what he was talking about.” Since Nader entered the race, there have also been many complaints from supporters for the Democratic Party, claiming that John McCain won’t lose any votes because of Nader, but the Democratic candidate will.
Personally, I really don’t think Nader entering the race will really affect the amount of votes that the Democratic candidate will receive. The three previous times that Nader has run, he has received no more than two percent of the popular vote. Plus, even if the votes that Nader receives do take away from the Democratic nominee, as we all know, the popular vote doesn’t decide the next president. The Electoral College won’t vote for Nader, so no matter how many votes he receives from the American people, the Democrats can still win the Electoral College votes.
Because of what happened in the 2000 presidential election, I also doubt that Nader’s presence on the ballots will have a large effect on Clinton or Obama. Gore walked away the winner of the popular vote over Bush, despite Ralph Nader’s presence in the race.
I think that Clinton and Obama are both more popular than Gore was during the 2000 election based on the fact that one is a woman and the other is African American. It is hard for me to believe that the American people will not pounce on the opportunity to elect a president that will be a first for either a race or a gender. I believe that we are living in a time when people want the world to change, and what better way for the world to change than to have a historical first for our next president.
