NADER WATCH

Regular readers of Nader Watch and Bush Watch have probably noticed by now that Politex has decided to devote the latter site to all-Nader bashing, all the time. I expect this will last until the election. As I understand it, the thought here is that it's now too late to continue Bush Watch's long and noble history of exposing Bush as the evil he is. Since that project doesn't appear to have worked very well, it's now time to pull Gore's chestnuts out of the fire for him by blaming it all on Nader. Let's forget about Gore's pathetic campaign, now the populist, now the panderer, now the mature New Democrat, now the money-machine. Let's forget about the incredible sums of cash both Gore and Bush continue to raise and spend, alienating more and more voters. Let's forget about all those "undecideds," who continue to be larger blocs in the polls than Nader supporters. The consensus on the Democratic front has congealed: it's all Nader's fault that Gore is going to lose. If one underfunded, unglamorous, underpublicized campaign that all along has focussed its appeal on folks who don't like Gore anyway hadn't happened, we are invited to believe, Gore would be a safe bet. Or, well, no. He'd be tied in the polls, instead of slightly behind. But it isn't Gore's fault that he can't do better than a dead heat against a vacuous lightweight with right-wing baggage like Bush. It's Nader's fault.

It doesn't really matter to Bush Watch or anyone else on the "Your Moral Duty Is To Save Gore" team that Nader owns Fidelity shares, or doesn't want to release his personal financial documents, or any other of the scandalettes of the day. I know this because I know that people who are comfortable with the lesser of two evils cannot possibly take the position that a candidate must be absolutely perfect, a cult hero, the next incarnation of Jesus Christ, in order to be acceptable. It's just some mud to sling in the last two weeks of the campaign, intended to give Gore supporters a rationalization for their increasingly shrill attacks on Nader, and to pump up Bush Watch's daily hits. It really doesn't matter whether it's true or not, just like it really doesn't matter whether Gore's mother-in-law's dog's medicine costs three dollars or thirty dollars. We know from watching Bush that a brazen liar can manipulate the media into making a trivial liar look worse. Now we know from watching Bush Watch that a brazen hypocrite can manipulate the media into making a trivial hypocrite look worse. So Nader just got Bushed, by those who have been complaining for years about what Bushism does to politics. Any port in a storm, I guess.

Of course, "any port in a storm" could be the motto of the Bush campaign. When it looked like McCain might actually give him a run for his money, Bush made bee-line for his party-machine regulars, who delivered with scurrilious attacks on McCain, funded by outside front groups who needed McCain and his campaign finance reform platform to go away. How could Republicans continue to win elections if "surrogate" groups couldn't spend huge sums of money whipping up the faithful with their fear campaigns: if the liberals win, they'll take away your guns. They'll make your kids turn queer. They'll put pornography on the public school curriculum. They'll give your job to some darky. Bush has been trying manfully for months to put that episode of ruthlessly suppressing McCain behind him, and no one has been more revolted by McCain's own Stockholm-syndrome-style stumping for Bush (we've all seen more convincing performances on hostage videotapes) than Bush Watch.

Now, of course, Gore's in the same boat, and the Democratic response is, once again, to take a page from the Bush campaign. It isn't enough to point out that the Nader campaign is being manipulated by the RNC, which we all knew already has the integrity of a street gang. No, Bush Watch has to accuse Nader--deniably, of course--of actually being in league with the RNC. What difference does it make that Nader is obviously not working with or for the RNC, that he obviously has no control over their decisions to play dirty tricks, or that he cannot be goaded into claiming that they have no right--legal or moral--to run such ads when the Supreme Court has said that they do? None. This is just a piece in the fear campaign: if Gore isn't elected, they'll take away your abortions. They'll put Jerry Falwell on the Supreme Court. They will reduce you to helpless voiceless tools of corporate capitalism, stripping away every civil right you have. The idea here is that Nader can be frightened into doing a McCain--as one of my more juvenile email correspondents put it recently, Nader is supposed to stage an "October Suprise" by "delivering" the election to Bush.

What is happening here is that a vote for Gore has become a vote for Bush. For the belief that no real progress can be made, so we might as well go with an "electable" winner. For the politics of fear and luxury: we vote for Gore because we're afraid of Bush, we vote for Gore because we're afraid of risk. Supporting a way out of the two-party deadlock might have risks, and we can't take those. We want political progress, but not in our backyards. Not if it costs something. Not if it risks having to face a Bush presidency.

No one is less interested in a Bush presidency than I am. No one is more disgusted by the urge to make him an invincible, magical-powered larger-than-life demon, either, capable of getting reactionary politics through a congress that not even his father or his father-figure Reagan, both much better politicians than Bush Jr., could manage, either. No one is less interested in becoming a mirror-image of the Bush campaign than I am. To do that is to hand the victory to Bush and all his willing servants, who need the population to believe that nothing can be done, that Nader's views are "left-wing," not mainstream, that if you step out of line you'll get in trouble, that you should be grateful for the crumbs thrown your way, because if you aren't we'll take the crumbs away, too. In such a climate of apathy, cynicism, and cowering fear, there will never be a better candidate than Gore, there will never be a presidential election that isn't a replay of the last one, there will be no end to the triangulations and sleights-of-hand. Such an environment is, of course, exactly what Bush needs--without this apathy and cynicism, without this sense of powerlessness, without this sense that risks cannot be taken, Bush would have disappeared from the political landscape a long time ago.

So here we are, down to the wire, having an argument about whether it would be worse to put up with Bush for four years, and hope the voters will have learned something, or to put up with Gore for four years, and hope the voters will have learned nothing. This must mean there's a difference between Bush and Gore after all. The difference is not, though, apparent in how they conduct political campaigns. If you believe that things can't change, that we're all just dupes, then you play on cynicism and the fear of things getting worse. If Nader has accomplished nothing else this year, he has finally put paid to the idea that if you don't like what your president does, you can threaten him with your vote. According to the Gore supporters, you can't even do that. If you do, there's a huge political machine waiting for you. After you've endured the spectacle of Bush Watch morphing into Bush For President, nothing will make you want to get involved in politics again, and that will leave the field open for the back-room players who can very easily do without you. Vote Cynical--Vote Gore. You have nothing to lose any longer.--Doris 10/28

Nader Watch responds to Bush Watch

Note to Politex: you're right, of course. Logic that works one way has to work the other. In that spirit . . .

Dear Brasin:

Here's what's been happening on the Al Gore front over the last week or so. Goristas are starting a below-the-radar smear campaign against Nader, parroting the corporate media's charge that the biggest problem with Nader is that he and his supporters are single-handedly giving this election to Bush. One writer went so far as to set up a morality spectrum: Gore supporters, Bush supporters, other candidates' supporters, then Naderites. What happened to the Gorista argument some months ago that Nader wouldn't really harm Gore because he'll only be getting votes from a bunch of marginal die-hard lefties who don't represent mainstream America and should not expect the Democratic party to take them seriously? Bunk.

What's abundantly clear now is that the nice guy rhetoric of the Goristas has given way to a slash and burn, get-Nader mentality. The thinking behind this is that with Nader out of the way, the Democratic Party will shift to the center and go back to its old ways of representing more of the agenda of the center. Fat chance. There are actually some who think of the Gore campaign as a refurbished DLC movement. Destroy the progressives, make the populace complacent with the centrists running things for 4 to 8 years, then make the whole thing happen all over again because there is no way out of this dynamic. Only a dream. The flaw in this thinking is that voters are left out of the equation. Voters are not following Bush and Gore to the right. Bush and Gore are going where there are just enough so-called "swing" voters to ensure ideological deadlock.

The dirty little secret of liberal social-issues politics is that it's designed to move more and more people to the point where issues of capitalism and economic justice are invisible. For example, what would happen with Gore's plan to get more people fired up about coathanger abortions? Obviously, more and more people would have a reason to vote for corporate interests by default, and to ignore other burning social issues like the war on drugs, because hot issues like abortion get to function as a kind of universal trump card, keeping the voters frightened into accepting privatization of social security, for instance, when it is proposed by Democrats. (We met the enemy and he is us.) Isn't that what has happened, for example, with welfare reform? Faced with the choice between telling the Democrats that abortion rights aren't enough or doing the right thing by throwing out all the bums who saved my right to "choose" on the backs of poor women and children, most have chosen to continue to vote Democrat. And while the corporate interests wait for the inevitable ethical dumbing-down of the voters by enticing them to swim in the muck of corporate greed at any cost, tools like Al Gore get laws passed to protect little kids from seeing internet porn or hearing anything but "abstinence" in sex eduation. This is called "sleight of hand." And the more the American voters are brought into the system of fixating on one or two rights while losing hundreds more, the more they have something to lose if they were to do the ethical, moral, or just thing, and the more they shift to the right.

While Nader is hardly the solution to the problem, Cunningham's take on the question (above) is clear. In spite of what the Goristas say, there's a lot of difference between Gore and Bush in terms of the kind of world we'll be living in over the next 8 years. We will keep our crumbs and a few things won't get too much worse, and we have already learned to feel darn grateful about that. (And to those who are now writing that it would only be 4 years of Bush because the voters wouldn't be able to stand him for 8, never underestimate the ability of the American people to gag and retch while never admitting it made a mistake.) A few months ago, I thought that it would be better to vote for Gore in states like Illinois where the race is tight. That way, Nader wouldn't get his 5% of the vote and his money from the Feds for his next presidential campaign, but it would save us from Bush. Now, I don't think that way. The behavior, tactics, and mind-set of the Goristas in the last few weeks indicate that, if Gore's followers were to grow in strength, they would end up being just one more political party following the voters to the right in search of a majority, while refusing to admit that there was a time in this country when people who wanted to end war, slavery, and the rape of the land were considered to have some justification when they were a little intemperate in their language. Gore and his followers ask us to do something at the same time they tell us that nothing can be done, there is no solution, only a doomed rear-guard action. But don't ask Bush for help--he must be laughing himself hysterical over the spectacle of the Democratic party eating its young by trying to fight cynicism with cynicism. --Bill Brasin's Evil Twin, 10/24/00

Here's Bill Brasin's story that Doris is responding to.

SFBG: GUARDIAN ENDORSES NADER 10/26
WP: NOT-BUSH SUPPORTERS TAKE ON THE NADER THREAT 10/26
HOAGLAND: NADER MAY NOT ELECT NOT-BUSH, BUT HE MIGHT HELP GIVE US REAL DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS 10/26
NYT: NOT-BUSH CAMPAIGN LETS LOOSE WITH ANTI-NADER SURROGATES 10/26
NYT: NADER ATTACKS NOT-BUSH'S RECORD, NOT-BUSH RESPONDS WITH GENERALITIES 10/26
NYT ED: THE 'HARD, SUBSTANTIVE, CLEAN CAMPAIGN' THREATENED BY NADER 10/26
RIDGEWAY: THE BASH-NADER MOVE WILL CREATE A BACKLASH THE DEMS WON'T LIKE 10/26
CONASON: A BUSH WIN WOULD SOMEHOW MAKE CONGRESSIONAL REPUBS MORE SCARY, AND IT'S NADER'S FAULT 10/26
IVINS: VOTE NADER IN SAFE STATES, NOT-BUSH IN SWING STATES 10/26
EHRENREICH: WE'RE NOT ABANDONING THE DEMS, THEY ABANDONED US 10/26
MAXWELL: IT'S NOT THE PRINCIPLES, STUPID! 10/26
PBS: HIGHTOWER AND WELLSTONE DEBATE NADER'S CANDIDACY 10/26
SALON: DEMS TOO BUSY SAVING THE SUPREME COURT FROM FALWELL TO WORRY ABOUT ETHICS OF SPAMMING 10/26
NFC: NADER QUESTIONS NOT-BUSH'S CREDIBILITY ON THE ENVIRONMENT, TRADE 10/26
RIDGEWAY: NO CALCULUS TOO DIFFICULT FOR THOSE WHO PREFER RISK-FREE VOTING 10/26
SJMN: NOT-BUSH'S NADER PROBLEM ISN'T GOING AWAY IN CA 10/24
PR: VOTERS URGED TO GO NADER IN 'SAFE STATES' 10/24
NFC: NADER TAKES ON NOT-BUSH OVER PALESTINIAN RIGHTS 10/24
NFC: NADER'S IMMIGRATION POLICY: STOP THE BRAIN DRAIN 10/24
NFC: NADER BACKS YANKEES BUT NOT DROIDS (YOU READ IT HERE) 10/24
SALON: OF COURSE NADER'S RIGHT, BUT WE CAN'T BE SEEN WITH HIS FASHION-CHALLENGED SUPPORTERS 10/24
SALON: TECHNO-DEMOCRACY'S OK AS LONG AS IT DOESN'T ANNOY THE TECHIES 10/24
WP: DEMS KICK INTO GEAR ON NADER-THE-SPOILER CAMPAIGN 10/23
BG: NADER MAKES TROUBLE FOR NOT-BUSH IN NORTHWEST 10/23
TP: NADER PRESSURED TO GIVE DEM-LIKE ATTENTION TO RACE 10/23
CORN: AMERICANS WANT AN IDIOT IN THE WHITE HOUSE 10/23
CP: IT TAKES REAL CYNICISM TO MAKE GORE SEEM THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS 10/22
AP: NADER TO EX-RAIDERS: THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN' 10/22
LAT: THIS IS NOT A PARODY OF A NEWS ARTICLE, BUT IT SURE READS LIKE ONE 10/22
TIME: NADER LEADS BUSH AND GORE IN POLL!!! 10/22
NFC: NADER: WHAT DOES BUSH HAVE AGAINST TEXAS? 10/20
SORENSEN: WOULD YOU VOTE FOR MUSSOLINI TO KEEP HITLER FROM WINNING? 10/20
KOHUT: NOT MUCH ADO ABOUT NOT MUCH 10/20
COLLINS: ALL 20 UNDECIDED REAL PEOPLE ARE RUNNING THIS ELECTION 10/20
SFC: AFTER THREE DEBATES, WE'RE STILL WAITING FOR NADER'S ISSUES 10/20
INDY: WE WENT THROUGH ALL THOSE REVOLUTIONS IN ORDER TO TALK LIKE MORONS? 10/20
DMT: THE FIRST AMENDMENT DOES NOT REQUIRE THE ENDLESS REPETITION OF STUPIDITY, IT MERELY ALLOWS IT 10/20
NATION: GORE ALREADY HAS THE DEMS WILLING TO VOTE FOR HIM 10/19
KINGWELL: NADER VS. GORE: REALITY VS. THE VOID 10/19
NICHOLS: LET'S HOPE THE LESSER-EVIL VOTERS ARE READING THIS BOOK 10/19
NFC: NADER FIGHTS BACK AFTER THIRD BUM'S RUSH BY DEBATE COMMISSION 10/19
SALON: SAVE US FROM THE POLITICS OF THE 'UNDECIDED,' PLEASE 10/19
MOKHIBER/WEISSMAN: WHAT THE PRESS GETS OUT OF THE DEBATES 10/18
DP&D: THERE ARE NO DEBATES 10/18
REUTERS: NADER TURNED AWAY FROM DEBATE SITE AGAIN 10/18
CORN: LOTS OF SHIT, NO FANS 10/18
AP: NADER SUES DEBATE COMMISSION 10/18
AP: NADER AND BUCHANAN LOOK FOR 5% EACH 10/18
SALON: NADER'S CROWDS MAKE THE CASE FOR A THIRD PARTY 10/18
SAVAGE: NADERITES SHOULD GROW UP AND VOTE GORE, THE GROWN-UP CANDIDATE 10/18
RIDGEWAY: NADER MAY BE HURTING BUSH, NOT GORE 10/18
RIDGEWAY: NADER HAS A SHOT AT 5% 10/18
ISUISD: IOWA STUDENTS PROTEST DEBATE EXCLUSION 10/18
BILLBOARD: NADER PERFORMANCE ART 10/18
KINSLEY: THERE'S A DEBATE, BUT BUSH AND GORE AREN'T IN IT 10/17
MUWAKKIL: BLACK VOTERS PREFER GORE'S SYMBOLS TO NADER'S SUBSTANCE 10/17
CP: A VOTE FOR GORE/LIEBERMAN IS A VOTE FOR SCALIA/THOMAS 10/17
SIFRY: HE WALKS WITH US AND HE TALKS WITH US AND HE TELLS US WE ARE OUR OWN 10/17
PI: NADER DISCUSSES POLL NUMBERS IN RUSSIAN 10/17
FREEP: WE'RE MOSTLY ALL DRINKIN' THAT FREE BUBBLE-UP, RALPH 10/17
PP: EVEN BUCHANAN IS LESS NAUSEATING THAN THE PRESS CORPS 10/16
WEISBROT: A VOTE FOR GORE IS A VOTE FOR YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT 10/16
MSNBC: MARTYR ROLE THE ONLY ONE LEFT FOR NADER? 10/16
AP: NADER RALLY INTERRUPTED BY FAKE BOMB 10/16
UNDO: WILL RALPH MAKE A DIFFERENCE? 10/16
NYT: THE POLITICS OF JOY AND JUSTICE 10/15
NFC: NADER NY RALLY DRAWS 15,000 10/15
VV: WHAT ONLY NADER IS OFFERING: A REASON TO CARE 10/15
LEAVER: VOTERS WANT TO HEAR ABOUT NADER'S ISSUES 10/15
REICH: WHY GORE CAN'T EFFECTIVELY REBUT BUSH'S TAX PLAN 10/15
ITT: INTERVIEW WITH WINONA LADUKE 10/14
AP: NADER DRAWS CROWD OF 13,500 IN NEW YORK 10/14
MCGRORY: WHY BUSH AND GORE LEAVE THE COLLEGE STUDENTS TO NADER 10/14
AP: FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS OHIO TO PUT NADER AND GREEN PARTY ON THE BALLOT 10/14
ROTHSCHILD: NADER WOULD HAVE MADE THAT A REAL DEBATE 10/14
PR: NADER'S UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE PROPOSAL 10/14
NFC: NADER DRAWS THE ELDERLY, THE TEAMSTERS, AND THE MIDDLE-AGED AS WELL AS THE KIDS IN FLORIDA 10/14
SPT: NADER RALLIES THE TROOPS IN TAMPA BAY 10/14
OJ: "SWING VOTERS" SHOULD BE CALLED "SELFISH OPPORTUNISTS" 10/14
WIRED: NADER DEBATES GORE'S CLAIMS ON THE INTERNET 10/14
KG: HONK IF YOU LOVE RALPH IN KALAMAZOO 10/14
FREEP: AMAZING--RALPH RANTS, AND IT ACTUALLY MAKES SOME SENSE 10/14
IVINS: SOMETHING IS HAPPENING OUT THERE, MR. JONES 10/13
SPPP: COLLEGE STUDENTS UNIMPRESSED BY BUSH AND GORE 10/13
REUTERS: DEBATES ARE HAIRBRUSH-FREE ZONES FOR OUR SAFETY 10/13
FLANDERS: THE GREENS ARE TOO STRAIGHT, WHITE AND MALE 10/13
MTV: THE NADER ACCORDING TO VEDDER 10/13
AP: NADER RAISES NEARLY $5MM, ONE DONATION AT A TIME 10/12
CT: NADER DRAWS MORE THAN 9,500 AT CHICAGO RALLY 10/12
HENTOFF: A VOTE FOR DEMOCRACY IS A VOTE FOR NADER 10/12
NFC: NADER IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST 10/12
COCKBURN: THE YOUNG WILL GLADLY SPOIL RIGHT ALONG WITH NADER 10/12
NYO: DEBATE COMMISSION HAD NO LEGAL GROUNDS TO DENY NADER ACCESS TO DEBATE SITE 10/12
DMT: WITHOUT NADER, THERE'S NOTHING TO BUY IN THE DEBATE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS 10/12
EW: NADER SUPER-RALLY COMING UP IN NEW YORK 10/12
NFC: RALPH GOES FOR THE GONZO ON SNL 10/10
NYHAN: RALPH COULD HAVE LOST AS A DEM LIKE MCCAIN, BUT NOOOOO . . . 10/11
NOLAN: NADER ISN'T GRASSROOTS ENOUGH, EITHER 10/11
SCHOR: NADER AND OTHER CHILDREN'S FATHERS 10/11
NADER: EXXON STILL HASN'T PAID FOR THE VALDEZ SPILL, BUT THE ENVIRONMENT HAS 10/11
SCHECHTER: NADER COULD QUALIFY FOR A LOT OF CABINET POSTS (NOT TO MENTION ATTORNEY GENERAL) 10/11
PR: ANOTHER NADER SUPER-RALLY IN NY ON FRIDAY 10/11
AP: NADER BACK ON THE AUTO-SAFETY BEAT 10/11
BG: WHAT NADER WOULD HAVE SAID IN THE DEBATES 10/9
VITELLO: NADER WOULD HAVE BOLDY GONE WHERE LIEBERMAN HAS NEVER GONE BEFORE 10/9
MOORE: NADER DOESN'T NEED YOU GORE FOLKS, HE NEEDS THE MAJORITY 10/9
SH: NADER SUPPORTERS CAN'T AFFORD BUS FARE TO MARCH SITE 10/9
PPG: DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NADER AND BUCHANAN ARE EASY TO SPOT 10/9
SR: AND A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM 10/9
BETZOLD: LET RALPH WAKE US UP 10/7
PR: NADER CALLS FOR MORATORIUM ON GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD 10/7
TOMPAINE: WINONA WOULD HAVE CAUGHT DICK IN HIS BIG LIE 10/7
SH: MISSISSIPPIANS MARCH FOR NADER 10/7

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