It was finally looking like the presidential field, which was more crowded than a Ridge-and-Davis fundraiser, was slimming down. The Democratic debates, which formerly tried to cram as many as eight people on to the stage, are finally down to two candidates. The Republicans have found their nominee, even though somebody forgot to tell Mike Huckabee. It appeared the interminable primary season was nearing its end.
Then Ralph Nader came to crash the party.
Nader, the consumer advocate and pariah of the Democrats, announced Sunday that he was entering the race for the White House as an independent, his fifth run in as many elections. Nader is realistic about it – he says he’s not in it to win, but running against the “real political bigotry” of the two-party system. This campaign is more about issues and publicity than anything else.
You may recognize Nader as the driving force behind car safety, as the author of Unsafe at Any Speed, or as one of Time’s most influential Americans of the 20th century. If not, everything you need to know about him can be found in his dull, yet bizarre, cameo on Sesame Street (he comes in right after the equally uncool Barbara Walters appearance). From that video, you learn that Nader came to fame as a consumer advocate, lobbying for safe testing of products and protection of buyers.
In the video, Nader doesn’t make any friends by totally ruining Bob’s sweater, a stunning parallel to his more recent claim to fame. In 2000, Nader ran as the Green Party candidate and picked up almost 3 percent of the vote, a good turnout for a third-party candidate. Not so good was the perception that he had sucked votes away from Al Gore, effectively costing him the election. Even before the election, people were warning that “a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush,” and groups like the Indiana Jones-inspired “Nader’s Raiders for Gore” were calling for him to drop out of the race. He didn’t, and Bush ended up winning. Nader became a convenient scapegoat for the bitter Democrats. It’s not clear if he would have tipped the scales in Florida: Exit polls show his absence from the race could have pushed more voters to Gore, but Nader argues it wouldn’t have mattered. Still, his presence in the race didn’t do Gore any favors.
Pundits are already crunching numbers, trying to figure out if Nader will pull any votes away from Obama or Clinton in this race. Both Democratic candidates dismissed his entry, with Clinton calling it “a passing fancy.” But on the Republican side, Mike Huckabee welcomed Nader with open arms, saying “I think it always would probably pull votes away from the Democrats, not the Republicans.” Of course, Huckabee might just be happy to have company at the outsider candidates’ table that’s not Ron Paul or Mike Gravel.
Nader is gearing up for a bigger race than the one he ran in 2004, when he picked up a miniscule 0.3 percent, partly due to the vitriol of Democrats trying to shut his campaign down. He’s promised to do better this year (a pretty easy feat), but the real goal is offering an alternative voice. He said his purpose in running in 2000 was to show that Bush and Gore weren’t that different (turns out, they were), and he’s arguing the same thing this year. His Web site offers 12 issues that are important, and all are stances that have him on the other side of both parties. Most are anti-corporate, others are pro-environment and some, like “impeach Bush and Cheney,” are unreasonable. At least he’s got company on the last one and from a former candidate, no less.
The issues Nader is debating aren’t particularly earth-shattering. He wants a single-payer health care system, and wants to cut military spending, but there aren’t too many ideas in his campaign right now to debate. In fact, it’s easy to wonder why he’s in the race at all. Obama has cornered the market on advocating for change and no Obama-phile is going to go flocking to rally for a 74-year-old guy who could barely sing “People in your Neighborhood.”
Still, the presidential race is going to get stale quickly. The early primary season means that both nominees will likely be set months before the election (barring a breakdown in the Democratic party), and coverage of the race is going to get old very quickly. After all, The New York Times has already used up a juicy John McCain story and it’s not even the summer. People fed up with the two candidates might give Nader another look. A renewed campaign, matched with a repetitive two-party race, could propel Nader to play spoiler again. And that’s bad news for the Democrats.