Nader should run for president

n On Monday in The Daily Free Press and other places, there were a lot of people saying that Ralph Nader should not run for president (“Nader should not run again,” pg. 8, Feb. 23). Talk like that is not only closed-minded, it’s undemocratic. Third parties and independent candidates have played important roles in our history. Eugene V. Debs talked of economic reforms decades before the New Deal, Ross Perot’s calls for more efficient government didn’t go unheeded in Washington (i.e. the responsible budgets and cutbacks in the Clinton years) and Ralph Nader’s dogmatism on the environment and consumer goods has forced both parties to address those issues. Even though the Democrats may have started to talk like Democrats again, it doesn’t mean that their umbrella-style liberalism is a perfect fit for those of us on the left. The same can be said for the Republicans’ conservatism. Third parties are able to generate frank discussion on issues that would never be raised by one of the major parties that is perpetually pandering to swing voters who can’t figure out what they believe. Nader is running on his principles, not because of his own ego or ambitions. He knows that without money, he has no chance – he just wants his voice and the voices of the part of the population that agrees with him to be heard and dealt with. That’s the best reason to run for office. John Kerry might be more liberal than Bill Clinton or Al Gore, but he is still inexorably tied to the money and people that have run this country for the past 200 years. He is the richest man in the Senate and his wife is a trust fund baby. He is part of the crowd that has been running the government as a cash cow for the rich while ignoring the needs of the rest of us. Nader isn’t any of those things. He has fought for the little guy his entire career, just because he thought that was the right thing to do, whereas Kerry has been merely climbing the political ladder. Kerry is too tied into the current power structure to be able to change it in any meaningful way. Nader isn’t – he could do so much more. Saying that someone shouldn’t run for office is incredibly undemocratic, no matter how pragmatic the reasoning. Everyone has a right to be heard – Nader is letting a large portion of us be heard. If you live in a chronically blue state, or are just completely unimpressed by the new Democratic Party, then I suggest that you do vote for Nader. The Democrats still haven’t caught on quite yet.

James Downing CAS ’06