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( cross posted at ronpaulforums.com)
An encouraging video with Ralph Nader and Ron Paul, showing the considerable overlap on MULTIPLE, MAJOR issues, was posted some months ago at youtube, and recently written about here at MyFDL.
Now, while I would expect him to avoid being too upfront about it, I have to believe that Ron Paul knows that he’s extremely unlikely to win the Presidency in 2012. So, why is he running? I believe he’s running because he’s a patriotic American who wants to alter the political climate in America, and he realizes that a run for Presidecy gives his ideas a large forum, from which those ideas can germinate and further grow in the American mind. Such a calculus is not totally unlike the efforts of the New Progressive Alliance (NPA) to run a challenger against Obama in the Democratic Primary. Beating Obama isn’t the point. Fighting back against Obama’s corporatism and banksterism is.
Good on Ron Paul. However, I want to make a couple of suggestions that, I believe, would both help maximize Ron Paul’s efforts to build up a libertarian-ish Republican faction, but that would also help make the sort of coalition that Ron Paul calls for, in Congress, larger and more effective. As an added bonus, these suggestions might help prepare the groundwork for a fusion party.
My ideas are basically a) have Ralph Nader run as a Democrat in the Presidential primary and b) have Ron Paul and Ralph Nader make joint campaign appearances, where they invite citizens of both ideological constituencies to attend, and hopefully, establish personal relationships with a view towards future cooperation.
Ralph Nader has been trying to get a slate of Democrats to challenge Obama in the Dem primary. From Ralph Nader: Pressure Obama with primary
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Ralph Nader is convinced that Barack Obama will win reelection in 2012, but that won’t stop him from trying to organize a slate of Democrats in the coming months to challenge the president in party primaries next year.
Nader told POLITICO on Wednesday that he is working on bringing together about half a dozen presidential candidates who could “dramatically expand a robust discussion within the Democratic Party and among progressive voters across the country.” Each would focus on a specific issue where the far left says Obama hasn’t done enough, including the environment, labor and health care.
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Whether or not Nader succeeds, he can certainly succeed in enlisting himself in such an effort (as long as he’s not breaking any rules, of course. I’m assuming it’s not too late for him to register as a Democrat.) And I frankly have trouble thinking of a Dem candidate who could draw more people to a joint Ron Paul / famous Dem campaign appearance, than Nader.
I was annoyed with Kucinich in 2008, because although he had a relationship with the Progressive Democrats of America, he completely failed, AFAIK, to leverage his campaign’s free media exposure to help grow the PDA. Apparently, he was incapable of conceiving of both a likely loss, as well as the need for a larger, more long-lasting effect from his candidacy. His run in 2008 is basically a footnote in history, and altered nothing in the American political landscape.
I’ve previously described the Nader / Paul appearance on the video, above, as a “lovefest”. Having Nader and Paul fans congregate civilly, or better yet, enthusiastically, with the the notion that democracy demands compromise, could both accelerate a withdrawal from stupid “lesser evilist” voting by both libertarians, and progressives. Additionally, it could help prepare the groundwork for a fusion progressive/libertarian/constitutionalist party, the need for which has also been often discussed by Gary Null at the progressiveradionetwork.com
19 Comments
Interesting piece, Metamars. For me the problem with Ron Paul is that while I agree with much of his foreign policy, I would fight him down to the last tooth on most of his domestic policies. If he had his way, Social Security and Medicare would have been gone yesterday. There is no compromise for me on those two issues whatsoever.
Nader is brilliant and I wish he were 10 years younger. He is a man in my opinion who was born too soon.
As far Kucinich, his mistake was trying to play their game and compete on the turf of the party platform that is provided by Wall Street owned Corporate media and totally controlled by them for BOTH parties. GE owned MSNBC had their trained sock monkey Chuck Todd tell Mike Gravel that he could not participate in the second presidential debate (in November or Dec of 2007). The reason Todd gave was that Gravel had not raised a million dollars. We should have realized the quality (or lack of it) of the remaining Democratic candidates who went along with it by participating in the debate. If any of them had a decent bone in their body they would not have shown up. This was GE’s revenge on Mike Gravel who was very influential in seeing that the pentagon papers got published which in turn led to the end of the Vietnam war and GE’s huge war profits.
Then Gannett Corporation did the same thing to Dennis Kucinich in Iowa. The excuse they gave for not allowing Kucinich to participate in that debate was that he did not have a permanent storefront for his campaign in Iowa since some date in Iowa. They could never produce evidence that such a rule existed, but that didn’t matter. Kucinich was not allowed to participate in the debate and this was even hosted by PBS. Again the same sleazeball Democratic candidates “debated.” Do you really think that any of those millionaires gave one rat’s rear end about democracy? Hell no. All they were interested in was winning.
Nader does not need Paul as his pal and niether do I .
The question for you, in terms of this diary, is what is the likely cost/benefit outcome of doing as I suggest. On the one hand, if I’m correct, political forces aligned with Ron Paul’ian political and economic ideas with gain wider acceptance, and thus more political power. Some of those ideas, you don’t care for, and so those are a negative.
OTOH, some of those ideas you do care for, so that aspect is positive. Additionally, my suggestions assume the growth in power and numbers of progressive ideas. That is also a positive, for you.
Looking to dismantle Medicare and Social Security would probably be as big a downer, for Ron Paulians, with the American people, at large, as attacks against those 2 institutions have proven to be for mainstream Republicans. In order to win their elections, the Ron Paulians would have to moderate their positions.
Well, let’s shoot some spitballs. Let’s assume a scenario, where the Paulians are dominant amongst Republicans, and somehow the ascendant progressives amongst the Dems, independents, and 3rd party, cannot outvote them in Congress. Let’s say that there’s a President Paul, and so he doesn’t veto the bills to do away with Medicare and Social Security.
Insofar as the Paulians are not corporatists, they will have to respond to the will of the people, as old folks start to get thrown out of their houses and start starving in the streets, many having no other source of retirement funds, and thus unable to overcome the loss of Medicare for their medical treatments, also. If the Paulians did not quickly undo whatever damage they had wrought, they would be eclipsed at the ballot box in the next election. Not by corporatists, who I assume are permanently wounded, but by progressives who are not averse to extensive social contracts, and are now no longer boxed in by corporatists and their myriad lackeys.
Edited for clarity Friday 6:34 pm 6/17
And yet, he’s just full of praise for Paul. And furthermore, is excited by the idea of progressive/libertarian coalitions.
Could it be that Nader is more interested in actually solving big problems, and making more and deeper reforms, than you are? By “interested”, I’m implying, also, “willing and able to practically pursue a strategy that accomplishes the most of his agenda, that is possible”.
Great diary with actual solutions for moving this country forward toward real solutions to bridge this libertarian/progressive divide.
We don’t have to agree with each other but, we can move our combined interests forward with some strategic voting. I would attend a Nader/Paul rally. Those are my kind of people.
Ok, but we do need to build coalitions if we are ever gonna overcome the duopoly, no?
This is a great idea…! The overlap is extensive and the name recognition is sheer genius…! See if Noam Chomsky would moderate the meetup…! ;-)
I think a progressive/libertarian conservative coalition makes a hell of a lot of sense for both sides. You needn’t agree on everything- or even most things- to leverage your power on those issues (and the overlap between the agendas is actually considerable and encompasses a lot of crucial issues) to create change. Polling data shows where these philosophies most diverge- entitlements and social policy- the progressives generally prevail in public opinion, so I’d trust that an effective coalition would be more upside than downside from the Left’s perspective. And I detest the notion that anyone need pass some rigorous ideological litmus/purity test before we can support them on any given issue or set of issues, that’s a path to elitist irrelevancy.
Nothing good gets accomplished until the corporatist stranglehold on the nation’s political discourse is broken and if it’s necessary to make some strange bedfellows to get there, so be it.
Dr Ron is considering many of Ralph’s positions.
Ralph is considering many of Dr Ron’s positions.
Nader Paul Kucinich Gravel McKinney
Baldwin Ventura Sheehan
Perot Carter
Good work metamars. Maybe you could get Jane to do a “questions for Ron Paul” thingy and the pups could ask and Paul could answer. Even the people who hate him would probably not object and everybody might learn something.
Spot on and well said.
“Having Nader and Paul fans congregate civilly, or better yet, enthusiastically, with the the notion that democracy demands compromise, could both accelerate a withdrawal from stupid “lesser evilist” voting by both libertarians, and progressives.” (emphasis mine)
I’m happy to report that, following some unpleasant exchanges at a PDA blog, I sent an email to Bueno de Mesquita, a political game theorist whose record is twice as accurate as that of the CIA’s own analysts, with the following question:
“BTW, would you be kind enough to remark on my conviction that lesser evilism, as I have defined it (basically, always voting in the general election for the person from your party, no matter what he or she does; confine your electoral efforts to the primary, unless you succeed in voting out the incumbent) is a stupid voting strategy? I never studied game theory, though I’ve read a Scientific American article or two on it. I was the top chess player in my high school, but never read a chess book. I assume that I have an intuitive ability for strategy, even if I can’t calculate it, as you can.”
In reply, de Mesquita confirmed that I was correct about the stupidity of lesser evilist voting strategy, (which I explicitly defined in my question; at the PDA blog, mike hersh disputed my definition of lesser evilism). I have followed up with a reply to de Mesquita, asking him permission to quote his email to me, verbatim.
I will be writing a diary on this confirmation from such an outstanding expert, whether or not I can quote verbatim. Progressives need to vote smarter and more aggressively. If anybody has a connection to PDA leadership, please inform them. Ditto for any other non-veal-pen progressive organization.
Only Fascists will be allowed in the Fascist debates. You will know the peoples candidate by his/her absence from the debate. No. You don’t have to be in the debates to win. That’s only true because the Fascists say it is.
That’d be cool, but don’t forget that the FDL universe is small, indeed. I did some recent research, and found that FDL likely has less than 1 million distinct visitors, per year.
My vision is of Paul and Nader making physical joint appearances at venues throughout the US, with supporters of both doing massive pamphleting (so as not to rely on mainstream media, though that would be nice).
I really do not have much – if any – use for either Paul or Nader. Paul because his domestic stand is one of sadistic and cruel libertarianism and Nader because I felt his whole stand was a personal grudge. Initially against GM with his Unsafe At Any Speed picking the Covair Monza since it was one of many, including the VW Bug, that had exactly the same problems.
I would trust either any further than I could throw them. And at 62, that ain’t far.
I look at this as a long term view…would Ron and Ralph win anything?..I doubt it but maybe this could spark a new movement with new leaders….Ron Paul has a some very good views that I agree with *no wars. end the war of drugs) as does Ralph Nader (labor righrs better life for all)…with a “merger” should come agreements at least a movement like this would take from both parties
I’d vote for Nadar I’d like to make that clear.
while can coalesce on issues, i reject a fusion ticket outright. i hate pauls economic policies for the same reason i hate obamas. his views on the enviroment are also beyond the pale.
if paul is the top of the ticket i will just vote for a different third party and i hope nader does not fall for it.
the video you show only depicts a complement of paul on one or two issues not endorsement.
It’s simple really, abandon the duopoly and vote for the third party candidate(s) that are the most to your liking on the issues you consider to be the most important to you. Set priorities and understand that some things you don’t agree will have to be accepted to get your priorities addressed. For me it’s end the wars and our empire building (foreign policy), and domestic- redistribution of wealth at home top-to-bottom (tax the rich,etc.). Those two I think are the ones to address FIRST because they are the most damaging abroad and domestically. If you think your perfect (agree with you on everthing) candidate(s) or Party exists or will appear at some point, Sorry, ain’t gonna happen. As long as there is no threat to the duopoly they will continue to have no incentive to respond to their constituents desires. If they see voter trends away from their duopoly they will be forced to change accordingly eventually. Anybody have past data (trends) on voters voting third party? Does Nate Silver even track that? Just curious. I’m an independent, or in Calif., “non-party affilliated” and did not vote for Obama (or McClueless and the Quitter). It’s not a “wasted vote” if there are enough to start trending upwards. I know registered “indepentent” voters are up. But how many have voted third party? Is that also up? I know I hear alot about the duopoly “courting” independents. We need to go one step further though and that is remaining “independent” of the duopoly. NEXT