"All that is old and already formed can continue to live only if it allows within itself the conditions of a new beginning."
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The Nader Factor
Posted 11:05 p.m., March 31, 2004
Fourteen years ago, I read the great 1989 biography, "Witness to a Century," by the fiery old liberal muckraker George Seldes. Seldes had been a left-wing journalist through most of the 20th century--sort of a blogger for the '20s,'30s and '40s, but one who really got around. He met and dealt with most of the last century's pivotal characters, was publicly pilloried by more than a few of them. He could have chosen from among literally thousands of people as his personal selection for Man of the Century. So who do you think he chose?
If you picked Ralph Nader, give yourself a Corvair.
Todd Purdum had an interesting story in the New York Times yesterday, that makes one thing abundantly clear. Nader knows very well the objections of Democrats to his current run for president. He knows the critique: Nader, once a great man, a great protector of the consumer and the environment, has fallen into a fit of delusional grandeur, has tarnished his star and dismounted his pedestal, first by setting in motion the election of George W. Bush in 2000, and by then refusing to back away from what promises to be a tight 2004 contest. Nader gets letters to that affect all the time. No doubt, were he still alive, one of them probably would come from Mr. Seldes.
"And the more I got of these," Nader tells the Times about the missives, "the more I realized that we are confronting a virus, a liberal virus. And the characteristic of a virus is when it takes hold of the individual, it's the same virus, individual letters all written in uncannily the same sequence. Here's another characteristic of the virus: Not one I can recall ever said, 'What are your arguments for running?'"
It's a fair question, even if Nader undercuts its power by insisting he hopes to affect the effort to unseat George W. Bush by running a campaign that attracts votes from disaffected Republicans and independents. That's fairly absurd. Have you ever met a real Republican who would so much as considering casting a vote for Ralph Nader?
But let's go back to his question. What would be legitimate arguments for Ralph Nader--or better, some attractive, moderate major-party stalwart like John McCain--to run in the current presidential election as a third-party candidate? (Yes, I know, McCain would never abandon the GOP, it's just a what-if.)
Bill of particulars
In the new edition of Minnesota Law & Politics, former U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy lays out some possible answers to that important unasked question. And it gets to the heart of the problem of the two-party duopoly in the country, which the founding fathers feared so much and which has in the past five decades taken on the stamp not just of legitimacy but of inevitability in this country.
McCarthy, the Minnesota Democrat who shocked the country at the height of the Vietnam War in 1968 by nearly winning the New Hampshire primary against incumbent president Lyndon Johnson, argues powerfully in favor of opening the political system to multiparty parity.
McCarthy's indictment:
- In the 60 years since the end of World War II, two-party democracies have not proven more stable or effective than established multi-party democracies.
- The Democratic and Republican parties competed to claim the mantle of extremism regarding the anticommunism of the 1950s.
- Both parties -- unchecked by a serious third-party alternative voice -- were virulently supportive of the Vietnam War.
- The "protected parties'" cooperative domestic agendas have included participation in the savings and loan scandals, the stock market and corporate financial scandals and the exploding national debt.
- The two-party system has dealt very poorly with either the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the war in the Iraq.
To that I would add the disgrace of a Medicare program massively expanded on the national credit card, the approval by both parties of an unfinanced military excursion in the Middle East at the same time that massive tax cuts for the rich have been approved -- accomplishing nothing so much as dumping of the national treasure into mansion upgrades along the coves of Naples, Fla., and other posh wintering spots.
So why would Nader run? Because he's right about the most important of his points: the two-party system is not working. It might even be turning the United States, long-term, into a failed state.
That's a tough point to make at a time when the excesses of the Bush administration are pushing liberals, left-leaning independents and sturdy middle-of-the-roaders into the Kerry camp, terrorized at the thought of a second term for Dubya. (Who no longer seems quite harmlessly bumbling enough for that belittling nickname, despite Karen Hughes' best efforts to demonstrate otherwise.)
So there is no Ross Perot equivalent out there right now, probably because most of the types of people from the Radical Center who might vote for such a figure are either in the Bush camp, convinced that he is the only guy capable of conducting a war on terrorism, or into the Kerry camp, convinced that Bush is pile-driving the nation to disaster.
The nation is truly polarized, and a wicked campaign coming up is only going to make it more so.
Go, Ralphie Boy!
So do I think Nader should run? Yes, I do. Not because I will vote for him. I won't. I'm not even sure I can vote for Kerry, only that I can't vote for Bush. And with no centrist third party figure in the race, I may not have a horse in the running.
Still, I think Nader should run, because the two-party system is broken, and that message needs to remain on the national radar screen, even if it means a Bush reelection.
There, I've said it.
My point: I think the nation will survive a second Bush administration, however scarred, however broke -- though I am even more concerned about the long-term fiscal impact of this liberal-spending compassionate conservative president than I am about the international calamity he is causing, if that is possible.
We will pull through -- though I confess I say that not in full confidence I am correct about it -- even if Bush remains. But I am confident we cannot continue on long-term with two Supreme Court-validated, permanently entrenched political parties, cooperatively frittering away the public-policy viability of the nation while going foolishly to war with each other over marginal wedge issues like abortion, gay marriage, gun rights and the like.
Let me borrow from the McCarthy piece this quote from John Adams, who more than 200 years ago made the point much more succinctly than I can:
"There is nothing I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader and converting issues in opposition to each other. This, in my humble opinion, is to be dreaded as the greatest political issue."
Copyright 2004, by Kevin Featherly
