Ralph nader to the conversation: does anyone care?

Elderly political pariah and presidential "candidate" Ralph Nader will appear Wednesday on The Conversation with Ross Reynolds (KUOW 1-2p).

He's the cynical refusenik who traded his liberal icon status; and political effectiveness for that of irrelevant ideologue after he refused to release his voters to Al Gore in the final weeks of his 2000 spoiler presidential campaign.

Unfortunately, there's no evidence that his Gucci-clad feet will be held to the proverbial flames by anyone except Reynolds' fill-in Guy Nelson who will treat him as if anyone believes Nader's candidacy serves anything more than himself and his book sales.

If the argument is that he is relevant because he's got a point of view, and he's running for president, we guess we'll be hearing from ultaconservative Godfly Alan Keyes any day now; or our personal favorite: Losertarian candidate Bob Barr.

The self-promoting idiocon still denies culpability for the Iraq War, and a Supreme Court anxiously awaiting to re-rule on Roe v. Wade.

Considered an arrogant embarrassment by even the crinky Green Party, Nader is running without a party affiliation this time, though his campaign may be sponsored by Macmillan and Amazon Books, who have the most (special) interest in seeing that he's heard. 

Somehow in a single hour, Nelson will ask listeners:

How partisan are you? Do you always vote with your party, no matter what? Or is a candidate's stand on the issues more important? Do you vote along party lines in some elections, but not others? Are you a knee-jerk Democrat (or Republican or Independent) because your parents were? Or did you become a Republican because your parents were Democrats (or visa versa)?

Plus, in today's episode of Beat the Press Northwest, we'll talk about the future of the Seattle Times Company; and news coverage of the disasters in China and Burma. What are the challenges? Is it possible to cover disasters without resorting to clichés? How should the local press cover international disasters?"

Guests: Bill Richards is a former Wall Street Journal and Washington Post reporter who covered the Seattle newspapers' joint operating agreement for The Seattle Times under a three-year contract that ended in 2005. John Gastil is a Communication professor at University of Washington.

(It helps, of course, that in public radio an hour is an hour, not 18 minutes and ads like on say, KIRO or KVI).

Comments

[Duffman]

..or, in KVI's case 'ads' interspersed with 'evangelism'.

[chucks]

Ol' Ralphie was of value in 2000, as you say. That is the only accomplishment of substance in his entire life. But his time has come and gone.
He needs to shut up and go away. He is of no value to us anymore as even the dumbest of libs will never believe him again and we never believed him in the first place.
Ralph has made a great living peeing in others Cheerios without ever producing anything himself. I think I will try to find out if Dennis Miller is still on the radio and give him a listen.

[Duffman]

Ha...good one chucks; don't know 'bout you but 'pee in my Cheerios' and you produce a black-eye - Capisca.

[David Tatelman]

While I share your disdain for Ralph Nader's running again for President, in all fairness he doesn't wear Gucci's. Rather he is famous for buying 12 pairs of shoes at the PX when he was in the Army, plus 24 pairs of socks. Presumably he is still using them.

[Duffman]

John Edwards endorses Obama. Oh My Toto - it's not lookin good now.

[Nigel Tufnel - Lead Guitar]

David, that was before his first $million.

[fred owens]

I don't care about Ralph Nader, but I'm glad Ron Paul is still in the race -- I mean he's sort of in the race. I was hoping his ideas would spark more discussion -- Some of Ron Paul's ideas were good -- but it was hard for me to tell which ones were good ideas and which ones were flaky.

Kind of like my own ideas, which is why I like these out-of-the-mainstream candidates.

I am personally pledged to never vote for any one named Bush, Clinton, or Kennedy. So I might be searching for an off-label candidate in Novemeber if O-Man doesn't take the prize.

[joanie hussein]

Ol' Ralphie was of value in 2000...

You better be careful. People know where to find you. Given the low percentage of people who currently support this "I'll give up golf for war" idiot, you might be alienating more than a few potential customers.

One can hope, anyway.

And Duff...did you hear Edward's speech? Good one.

[joanie hussesin]

Paul had tons of money. Why couldn't he get noticed? Did our democratic (small d) main-stream media refuse his ads. What happened?

I liked Paul myself. People say he's for no government but when he was asked about specifics, he always indicated that there would be a baseline service for those in need.

I was willing to trust him. He was not fascist nor corporate puppet like Bush.

[joanie hussein]

Also, he was no warmonger and was willing to reduce the defense budget. He had some darn good ideas.

[chucks]

Oh Oh joanie
I to like Ron Paul. The only real reason that he could not make it is his commitment to unconditional surrender to the terrorists. Other then that, he has many good ideas.
He is no Marxist or Socialist like Obama.

[blathering michael]

oh yeah... ron paul. Rethink the fascist part, Joanie. he has quite the extremist past...at least he'd pull the white supremacist vote back into the Republican mainstream. Get that hardy David duke wing involved again. I'm really surprised that you usually sensible folks could entertain the idea of ron paul for even a second... he's a dangerous crank.

[joanie hussein]

You really don't know what those labels mean, do you?

Would you have been a McCarthy-ite?

Really, do you think you would have been?

BTW, Kucinich couldn't get his ads on TV either. So much for that liberal media, huh?

[joanie hussein]

Umm, Robert Byrd changed from his KKK days. I have respect for him currently.

Is it possible Paul has mellowed and become a little wiser over time? I didn't hear anything from him that worried me too much. His SS position wasn't very promising but he did have concerns and some expectations that a safety would still be in place.

I don't know. I used to think Congress was there to buffer extremist Presidents. But, Bush has certainly put that notion to rest.

I sure do think we need a real shift in the way we do business. Until then, I'm not sure that I have a whole lotta faith in anyone out there.

People who think out of the box are my best hope. And that doesn't include George Bush. He doesn't think at all.

[blathering michael]

Guaranteed we'd change the way we do business electing a rural Texas libertarian who will not dispossess himself of the white supremacists who put him in congress; and are his most ardent backers.

[KS]

As for electing any libertarian - Bob Barr is about as useless as Ralph Nader. Proceed with caution until you check out their connections..

One thing for sure: If Ron Paul's people met Barack Obama's people - it would be "Let's get ready to rumble....." with the White sheets and skin heads on one side and black supremisists and black muslims on the other side. Could get ugly.

[chucks]

Bla'm
Good to see you out here visiting with us little folks. Ron Paul was just a desperation thought.
Not a real option for those of us that successfully finished or work our twelve step programs.

[blathering michael]

that's right, chucks, being a Friend of Bill can mean several things. Ron Paul is a slippery place... one's too many a thousand's not enough.

[joanie hussein]

C'mon Michael. Chucks doesn't like Paul because Paul wants us out of Iraq and he wants to reduce the military. Not chuck's ethos for sure.

Gotta know who your friends are.

[chucks]

In another three or four months, when you are as old as I, Joanie, you just won't be able to do this. I need my sleep. Good night.

[Gay Gary]

OK, I’ll bite! Oculus Bleu and I did attend this event. I know, I know – what are two jackbooted stormtroopers wearing pink armor doing attending a Nader event? After all Nader is an anti-gay liberal (is he a liberal?)! Granted, we will probably be voting for … who knows … (maybe Bob Barr?), but after hearing RN (that’s Ralph Nader, not Rick Neuheisel) speak, I’m convinced he could be a player in this election. A few general observations from the event:

1 – During the Q&A someone asked Nader about his diminished vote total between ’00 and ’04 and if it will keep dropping in ’08. He said that, in ’04, their campaign funds were totally drained defending against lawsuits and, because of legal action, they only made it onto 38 ballots. He then said that, since disposing of the last of these suits, they’ve filed a class action lawsuit against the Democratic Party and – with this delaying action – feel they should be able to get on and stay on close to 50 ballots with a non-drained treasury.

2 – He noted that recent polling data has him at 8% in Michigan and between 5% to 14% nationally. Could the growing Democratic schism and defection of Clintonistas push voters into the Nader camp? A quote from the state Nader schill in today’s PI overtly says they’d be thrilled to get “as much as” 5% of the vote nationally … IOW not enough to win 1 elector in Maine but enough to run an effective campaign of confusion and chaos, like Rush’s effort but somewhat more tentacled and insidious. I really believe the hard-core Nader cadre are not idealistic idiots (perhaps the rank and file). I’m pretty sure there’s something else going on, just not sure what.

3 – The event concluded with an evangelical fervor as a marvelous Nader pitchman told a story that literally brought a tear to my eye at which point the doors were sealed and Nader staff combed the crowd for money in a very heavy-handed sale … a great many people volunteered to donate the “FEC max” ($2300) in exchange for a small copy of Nader’s biography and the cash was free-flowing from everyone.

4 – Nader said he’d just addressed a company-wide meeting of Google employees in Mt. View two days before and was discussing, with Google executives, about a Google-sponsored presidential debate. As it was presented, this was an idea floated by Google and offered to Nader for his blessing.

5 – The crowd, though only about 500 (which, to be fair, appeared to be capacity for the room), was absolutely gaga for Nader. Complete pandemonium erupted as his conservatively suited entourage swept into the room with the Amazonian Nader in the lead (attired in the affectation of his poorly ironed suit that must be intentionally crumpled up before each appearance as nothing can be that wrinkled). An extended standing ovation, hootin’ & hollerin’, cries of adoration, etc. Only absent was the chanting of “Peron, Peron, Peron” …

6 - There were several recognizable faces in the crowd. Hardly a "who's who" of Seattle, but a few recognizables. I'll leave it at that.

If anyone else attended, I’d be curious to hear your first-person take.