Nader for President, 2008
Eve of the election, thought I’d comment on who I decided to vote for this time around. I’ve decided to cast a vote for Ralph Nader in 2008. I go back to my key points that I had coming into this election cycle. I could only support a candidate that would get us out of the middle east, would restore our civil liberties lost over the past decade, and would offer a realistic spending plan on entitlements and federal expenditure. For the most part Nader’s positions on the issues is the closest to these points than any other candidate currently on the ballot. As a lifelong consumer advocate and unabashed critic of political corruption, he seems like the best candidate for the job of president of the United States.
I also decided that this time around I would be voting affirmatively for someone, not against the lesser of two evils. I felt jaded in both 2000 and 2004 voting for Democratic candidates that I wasn’t quite behind, but to me they represented a less evil alternative to the the Republican opponent. If I had the chance to cast a ballot in Montana, Louisiana, California, or Virginia, I would vote wholeheartedly for Ron Paul. An interesting end note to this election cycle will be the die hard Paul supporters who got him either ballot access through a third party ticket, or write-in authorization despite him coming up short in the primaries. In some sense, that kind of enthusiasm and support when everyone has written off the candidate is more impressive than all of the Obama bandwagoners.
I’m more than a little torn, being that genuinely like Obama’s overall message and energy, and plus share some points of commonality by way of home state and educational backgrounds. However his message of hope and unity, while inspiring, comes across more as eloquent delivery without much substance. Universal health care and tax breaks for people making less than $250,000 a year sounds great, but when it comes down to it, totally fiscally irresponsible. On the other side, I never really was impressed by McCain, his pro-war stance and pro-corporate tax plans, and combination of his hail mary VP pick in Palin and all of the ridiculous media frenzy surrounding it. There also was this very dirty campaign tactics that he succumbed to that seemed to mirror the kind of crap he had to put up with during the 2000 primaries.
Which goes to my next comment, I think Obama is going to win by a landslide. Anything short of it would make me very suspicious about the integrity of our electoral process. First of all, the Redskins lost Monday night, so that should be an indicator that the incumbent party will loose the white house. Voting irregularities and ballot access challenges continue to be a huge obstacle to Americans exercising their right to participate in the political process. If we’re not careful, this election could very well be tampered with, if not stolen. The real reason why I think Obama is going to win comes down to While the Democrats have had two candidates in the primaries that drew a lot of enthusiasm and support, the Republicans only had one candidate that drew a large showing. The energy in the Republican party this year was behind Ron Paul, not John McCain, ironically because he was offering a message of radical change to the establishment.
This time around I can say that I was intrigued by Obama and kept it open until the very end. For now I can say that I’ll consider voting him for re-election in 2012. I was very impressed with him when he gave the keynote speech at the DNC in 2004 I had hoped that he would run one day, after he had gotten at least one Senate term under his belt. My concern, especially with the current state of the economy is that he’ll be a one term president. The cult of personality that he has run on and created for himself will backfire when the American people realize that he isn’t able to deliver on half as many of his promises, either because of his inexperience, or because simply that America is going broke. I think this country is ready for a change of course, the question is which candidate would offer a genuine change of course. This time around I think its Ralph Nader.