Talk:Ralph Nader/Archive 1

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Newer archive: Talk:Ralph Nader/Archive 2

Should we change or move the phrase about arab americans liking nader? it seems out of place with no source.

A LOT of this article is lifted from britannica.

Dinopup

I deleted the link from "consumer" in the phrase "consumer rights activist". The link was pointing to a not-yet-existant entry for "consumerism". Why? Well, first, although Ralph Nader may not be a big fan of "consumerism", this is not an important fact in the first sentence you learn about him. More importantly, I think a link would be better made to a page on "consumer rights activism", a phrase which may not be intuitively obvious to everyone. I have not made such a link, because I don't think such an article exists yet, and I don't want to write it at this time. -Ryguasu

DanKeshet: that sentence you separated into two did look less than ideal. Semicolons don't always imply a run-on, though. In particular, if two sentences are related - e.g. if the second provides evidence to support the claim made by the first -, then a semi-colon can be a reasonable way of connecting them. -Ryguasu

I change the word "America" ,as sugested in the United Sates page,to a more proper name of United States Cuye

Does anybody want to do anything with that dangling link corporatizing the dictionary or should we just delete it? 15 October 2003

This page is suffering from a massive case of External Link-itis. RickK 05:35, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I am so mad at Ralph Nader! If by chance I add anything to this article, revert it immediately because it will be steeped in POV. Kingturtle 19:50, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Not running on Green ticket

Has any reasoning been presented, by Nader or others, for why he is choosing to run indepedently instead of for the Greens?

Because the Green Party refuses to back his candidacy. To quote an AP story:

Even the Green Party, whose banner Nader carried four years ago, chose to focus on its own priorities.

"Our midterm goal is the creation of a multiparty political system and the participation of a strong Green Party in that system," said Ben Manski, the party's co-chairman."

Sincerely, Kingturtle 23:31, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Nader is not running on the Green ticket because they are not choosing a candidate (or even if they will run one) until their national convention in June. This would be too late in Nader's opinion to run a serious campaign in part because it would mean missing some ballot access petition deadlines. SonofRage

Photo is out of date, arguably POV

The photo in this entry is much more flattering to Nader than he actually looks, thereby giving the impression that he is a rational, intelligent person and not the egomaniacal, cadaverous shell that he is. The photo below is about as flattering of a recent photo as I could find, and you'll see that even it is many times less attractive than the airbrushed one that exists in this entry now: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040222/photos_pl_afp/040222200007_st14n5qg_photo1

Can someone find a non-copyrighted photo of Nader that actually represents the way he really looks today?

Moncrief, 00:03, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

While the above seems like a crank comment, he actually makes a valid point. (Full disclosure - I'm the one who posted the current photo). Nadar recently came to our campus. A friend of mine, one of the members of the campus greens, described him as looking like "Death warmed over". →Raul654 00:08, Feb 23, 2004 (UTC)

Your friend flatters Nader. Moncrief 00:10, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

A quick google image search for "Ralph nader gov" didn't find any really good (IE, large closeups) of Nader. Would you like to suggest anything? →Raul654 00:14, Feb 23, 2004 (UTC)

I'll do some searching, but not on a full stomach. Moncrief 00:30, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Would photos from his campaign website be fair use? RickK 01:20, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Under the new fair use guidelines as required by Jimbo, we would have to search for free alternatives first, request permission from all possible sources etc.—Eloquence

Its not like kerry or bush ever appear anywhere "un-airbrushed"

Dear friends, what flatters me is a discussion about how to search for a picture that shows the person like "Death warmed over", or similar, "the egomaniacal, cadaverous shell that he is" in the name of NPOV !!!!

We will use a photo of Ronald Reagan in his hospital bed with alzaimer? or a photo of Mae West when she was 85? Milton 14:47, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

On a related note, Martha Stewart looked a lot more dog-earred after the court case than she does in our article. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 18:38, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Photos: A modest proposal

All Wikipedia biographical pages should have an associated image gallery, such as Ralph Nader(images). In the case of the image pages for males, I suggest that Wikipedia develop a new Reality TV show in which the the cast of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is televised while they discuss the available uploaded images and decide which one is most flattering for each biographical page in Wikipedia....that "most flattering" image would be placed on the main page for each person in Wikipedia.

Oh further consideration, I oppose changing the image on the grounds that its flattering. Unless someone comes up with a better reason, I think the pic should stay. →Raul654 19:30, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)

I met Ralph several times during the campaign and he seems to have warmed up considerably (compared to the above reported episodes). I saw him directly and warmly engage with many people, laugh, tell stories, shake hands... He is an incredibly energetic and youthful 70 year-old. While he is no model, I would argue that he is at least as good looking as Mr. Lincoln and deserves better treatment at the hands of his opponents, who have little to say about his policies and instead have to resort to the cheapest sorts of attack. (Is that why you vote for someone? Because of the way they look. Well go take a look at [a href="http://www.votenader.org/>Votenader.org] and you will see dozens of photos of an energetic man, trying to do the best that he can for America.)

2000 Election

Does anyone feel that the statement "Gore would have won the election if the Nader voters had all shown up (unlikely without Nader) and voted for Gore (less unlikely)" is slightly misleading? It basically says that Gore would have needed all (or nearly all) of Nader's votes to win, which certainly would be an unlikely scenario, when, in fact, Gore would have needed only 1% of Nader's 97,488 votes in Florida to win, using the current counts. That's a big difference, and far from being "unlikely" I would tend to think of it as extremely likely that he would have gotten that 1% of Nader's support. And keep in mind I am not talking about 1% of THE vote, but 1% of Nader's 1.63% of the vote. (Of course, this would assume that in a Naderless race Bush would get 0% of votes that would have otherwise gone to Nader, which I would think rather likely.) Any comments?

Actually, some Nader voters were expressing their disgust with the Democratic Party and would indeed have voted for Bush in Nader's absence. Nevertheless, you don't need to assume that Bush would get 0%, only that the amount Gore would have gained from a Nader withdrawal (Gore's share of the Nader vote minus Bush's share) would have exceeded Bush's margin over Gore. I've included a quotation from Nader's own website that gives the key number (Gore share minus Bush share) as 13%, which would be enough to swing Florida but not New Hampshire. Of course, the exact share would probably vary somewhat from state to state, but only about 1% would be needed to swing Florida. With the national average at 13%, I can't imagine that Florida was below 1%. JamesMLane 10:28, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Most political analysts and experts believe that Nader threw the election to Bush - this paragraph makes it sound like he entered the election in order to make sure that Bush won it. "Throwing the election" has the feel of losing on purpose. I'm deleting that sentence until somebody can come up with other wording. RickK | Talk 05:43, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, arguments about a GOP president energizing progressives to the contrary...I'll change it to "caused Bush to win the election". Meelar 05:45, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"When challenged with complaints that he was taking away votes from Al Gore, Nader argued at times that he was trying to save the Democratic Party, and at other times, that he wanted to destroy it."

The only quote in Lexis Nexis in which Ralph Nader uses the word Democratic and destroy is this one:

"I don't think that's going to happen. The two Republican Justices, O'Connor and Souter, three times in the last 10 years had a chance to add to a majority reversal of Roe versus Wade and they declined. I just think this is settled policy in this country and Democratic politicians are scaring the women's movement on that issue. I've heard from so many Republican operatives who say to me privately: If the Republican Party is ever responsible for reversing Roe versus Wade, it would destroy the party. And I believe it would." --Dvogel 16:27, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't think the statement "Nader caused Bush to win the election." can be quantitatively substantiated, as it can be substantially argued that if Florida was not in violation of election laws and a disproportionate number of democratic voters were not disenfranchised, Gore would have won, and thus, in a legitimate i.e. fair count of votes, Gore actually did win, even with the loss of votes to Nader, controversial judicial rulings that "because florida was in violation of the equal protection (constitutional) ammendment, the count should be accepted as legitimate." notwithstanding. Kevin Baas | talk 16:50, 2004 Sep 25 (UTC)

External links

The extlinks are currently unbalanced. The two pro- sites are official, whereas there are five (necessarily unofficial) anti- sites. Would it not be fairer to add one or two unofficial pro- sites, if they exist? Pcb21| Pete 08:51, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ballot access

The issue of whether Nader gets on the ballot in each state certainly merits discussion here, but to give so much detail about Florida seems inappropriate. There's no particular reason to believe that Florida will be particularly important in 2004, as compared with other states considered to be "in play". (Of course, it's more important than states like New York and Texas, where Nader can't possibly swing the election.) Is there any reason to discuss how the court interpreted Florida's ballot access law? Won't the article get cluttered if we try to do that for every state where Nader's ballot status is litigated? JamesMLane 03:47, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It is more deserving of discusssion because of the historically-persistent controversial nature of florida election processes and florida state government. (it dates much further back than the 2000 election). Kevin Baas | talk 20:48, 2004 Sep 22 (UTC)

In 1992 Nader was not on the ballot in NH and he did campaign there, as a write-in candidate. Pimpalicious 7 October 2004 5:22 (UCT)

The ballot access discussion in this article is weak, still reflecting the sporadic way it was assembled (although also, to be fair, reflecting the constg Florida but not New Hampshire. Of course, the exact share would probably vary somewhat from state to state, but only about 1% would be needed to swing Florida. With the national average at 13%, I can't imagine that Florida was below 1%. JamesMLane 10:28, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Most political analysts and experts believe that Nader threw the election to Bush - this paragraph makes it sound like he entered the election in order to make sure that Bush won it. "Throwing the election" has the feel of losing on purpose. I'm deleting that sentence until somebody can come up with other wording. RickK | Talk 05:43, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, arguments about a GOP president energizing progressives to the contrary...I'll change it to "caused Bush to win the election". Meelar 05:45, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"When challenged with complaints that he was taking away votes from Al Gore, Nader argued at times that he was trying to save the Democratic Party, and at other times, that he wanted to destroy it."

The only quote in Lexis Nexis in which Ralph Nader uses the word Democratic and destroy is this one:

"I don't think that's going to happen. The two Republican Justices, O'Connor and Souter, three times in the last 10 years had a chance to add to a majority reversal of Roe versus Wade and they declined. I just think this is settled policy in this country and Democratic politicians are scaring the women's movement on that issue. I've heard from so many Republican operatives who say to me privately: If the Republican Party is ever responsible for reversing Roe versus Wade, it would destroy the party. And I believe it would." --Dvogel 16:27, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't think the statement "Nader caused Bush to win the election." can be quantitatively substantiated, as it can be substantially argued that if Florida was not in violation of election laws and a disproportionate number of democratic voters were not disenfranchised, Gore would have won, and thus, in a legitimate i.e. fair count of votes, Gore actually did win, even with the loss of votes to Nader, controversial judicial rulings that "because florida was in violation of the equal protection (constitutional) ammendment, the count should be accepted as legitimate." notwithstanding. Kevin Baas | talk 16:50, 2004 Sep 25 (UTC)

Stroke?

Did Nadar have a stroke or something? He doesn't really blink his left eye. I couldn't find any info on this anywhere.

Ralph contracted Bell's palsy after the death of his brother.

the Gayster?

The infobox lists his nickname as 'the Gayster.' I strongly doubt that this is correct, but I can't find out how to edit it to correct the error (I am a loser). Someone please either confirm it with a source (I believe gayster is a slur against gays and lesbians that has recently been reclaimed), or delete it.

Nader's Religious Stance

I don't personally know anything about his religious views, but I have been told that he does adhere to some religious precepts, such as not utilizing credit cards.

Response: Why is common sense (not buying on credit) suddenly a religious precept? 193.6.158.61 12:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)KA

Some subsets of muslims, jews, christians, and possilby non abramic religions refuse to use credit. 88.212.136.185 15:58, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Nader has written for The Humanist magazine, a publication of the American Humanist Association, and he has never been known to be outwardly religious. It's highly unlikely that he consders himself a "Christian" in the traditional sense of the word (that is, believing in the divinity of Christ or other Christian supernaturalism). It seems much more likely that he is a humanist. His opposition to corporate power and excessive consumerism is not inconsistent with a humanist worldview.

Please sign your comments. If you do not have an account, I encourage you to create one. Many Christians, Jews, and even muslims have written for Humanist magazines. And humanists are not the only ones to be against "authority." Punks, Christian Punk groups, liberals, conservatives, anyone can hold that position. Anyways, it's already in the article that he's a Maronite Christian. IronCrow 05:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Making the article NPOV

Here are my disagreements with the set of edits made by an anonymous user at 16:20, 24 Nov 2004:

For Republican help, changing “several states” to “Michigan” is inaccurate if it implies that Michigan was unique in this respect. The Common Dreams article itself discusses Oregon. There were other examples, too. I think the general “several states” is better than burdening the reader with a blow-by-blow catalog, but if you won’t accept “several states”, then I’ll just list every one I can find, rather than leave a false implication that Michigan was an isolated event.
Characterizing Democratic opposition to Nader as an attempt to “discredit” him is POV. We already include the charge that the Democrats were attempting to “smear” Nader, but that quotation is properly attributed to Nader’s campaign. Having quoted his press release verbatim, we don’t need to amplify the point, let alone endorse it.
Changing “[the campaign] accepted contributions from donors who were....” to “[the campaign] accepted campaign contributions from several individual donors who were” seems to add a few words to no purpose. Obviously contributions to a campaign were campaign contributions. The additions aren’t inaccurate, but isn’t the shorter version just as clear?
SBVT: This edit said that Nader’s campaign had accepted “a donation from one individual” also backing SBVT. Stating or implying that there was only one is inaccurate. The “Up for Victory” site says that FEC reports show eight such donors. [1]
Organization: The way the article presented the information about Nader’s effect on the major-party candidates (the subject of this section) was to describe what the Bush supporters said and did, then what the Kerry supporters said and did, then what the Nader campaign said and did. The new edit disrupts that logical structure by interpolating one Democratic group (Up for Victory) after some of the material about Bush supporters, then immediately giving Nader’s POV, before returning to the subject of the Bush supporters. The logic is broken up. In addition, the Nader campaign’s main talking point, about Kerry having accepted donations from donors to Republicans, is now in the article twice. The former version cited the same contribution statistics cited by Nader and even quoted his press release, so I don’t think that version was unfair to him.
This edit is very POV with regard to the Nader campaign’s sanctimonious (my POV!) claim of not accepting right-wing help. The edit reports the claim uncritically. It omits Camejo’s initial reaction of “We don’t want that money” and the subsequent reversal. In Michigan, the Nader campaign made similar pronouncements, then flip-flopped. [2] The edit falls all over itself to justify Nader’s collaboration with the Republicans in Michigan. Can any instances be cited, anywhere in the country, in which the Nader campaign went beyond lip service, and actually turned down Republican help that would have been of real benefit? If the campaign already had enough signatures of its own to qualify for some state’s ballot, then turning down Republican signatures is a meaningless gesture. I thought it made more sense to omit the subject, but if we're going to report the Nader campaign's claim on the point, then we'll have to go into detail on the other side as well.
While I’m venting: A previous anon edit also seemed to reflect a pro-Nader POV with regard to the O’Hara quotation. The edit changed “voted for Bush in 2000 and has said....” to “voted for Bush in 2000 and was quoted as saying....” This phrasing isn’t used for other quotations in this article or in Wikipedia generally. Its only purpose seems to be to cast doubt on the accuracy (maybe he didn’t really make this comment that Naderites find embarrassing). The quotation is from an established newspaper, the source is given, and people can click on the link and confirm it. I didn’t bother correcting this change before but there’s a lot of other pro-Nader POV that will have to be cleaned out of this article, so that passage might as well be restored.

In sum, I think the article as it stood was factual and NPOV. The changes criticized above made it worse, not better.

In an unrelated point, I previously added some of the data about Nader's vote total in 2004. As more votes are being counted, Nader has done a little better, so that passage will need to be changed. In the lead section, my inclination is that it should be re-ordered to put Nader in context as to who he is -- activist attorney, presidential candidate -- before summarizing his views. The main reason is that some readers, especially non-Americans, won’t really know who Nader is. They’re being told the opinions of some random guy before they’ve been given the full picture about why his opinions are worth reporting. JamesMLane 19:41, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

__________

In hope of advancing the dialogue, I want to address some of the points noted above by James M. Lane:

I think it would be helpful if James M. Lane (or someone) would make good on the offer to list each of the states where Nader's campaign is supposed to have accepted organized Republican assistance in 2004, or in any other election year, together with a detailed explanation of the exact type of assistance that was involved.

It's important to distinguish between (1) "organized Republican assistance" (which Nader's campaign said it was making a point of eschewing, except regarding petitioning help for ballot access in the case of Michigan----and there may be other exceptions that Jame L. Lane will list), versus other types of activity, such as the following: (2) individual registered Republican voters voting for (or endorsing) Nader; (3) individual campaign contributions given by voters who were registered as Republicans; (4) the Nader campaign hiring a ballot access lawyer in Florida whose practice usually represented Republicans in election law cases; (5) other types of "help from Republicans" that are not properly characterized as "organized Republican Party help."

For example, with regard to item (4) listed above, Kerry campaign spokepersons repeatedly accused Nader of "accepting Republican help" when the Nader campaign hired an election law attorney in Florida who normally represented Republicans. Taken out of context, the accusation ("a top Republican lawyer helped Nader in Florida!") would perhaps appear to support the thesis of Republican help for Nader, but if one understands the nature of legal representation (the lawyer in question was evidently paid by the Nader campaign at the market rate), and if one understands the specialized nature of ballot access law and also understands that the expert election lawyers who typically represent Democratic Party candidates were unavailable because they were under pressure (including professional "conflict of interest" pressure) either to help the Democratic Party's efforts to block Nader's ballot access, or in any case not to represent Nader, then a truer picture emerges and the Nader campaign's hiring of that lawyer is seen not to support an "N-R conspiracy" theory.

Several so-called "big Republican donors" to Nader seem to have been individuals who have had longstanding relationships with Nader that transcend politics (e.g., classmates at Princeton or at Harvard Law School), and, when interviewed, some donors explained that they thought it was important to support the opportunity for certain of Ralph Nader's views to be part of the political dialogue, such as his views on the Middle East, or on environmental protection, etc. Peter Tanous apparently hosted a house party for Nader, but he seems genuinely to have been supportive of Nader's views on foreign policy, Nader's fiscally conservative critique of fraud, waste, and abuse, etc. One can question whether, for example, Ben Stein was being candid when he said that he supports many of Nader's views, but it unfairly bolsters an anti-Nader POV, to say only enough to create the impression that the Republican Party was behind Nader's campaign and/or that Nader was seeking to help elect Bush.

I think Wikipedia should be especially careful about inadvertently joining a partisan effort to associate Nader with the obnoxious "Swift Boat" group. First, information concerning the individual donors should be taken from the publically accessible FEC reports themselves, not from a story on Buzzflash.com, which in turn took its report from Up With Victory (a group created by the Democratic Party for the express purpose of opposing Nader). Nader actually criticized the ugly "Swift Boat" ads, and did so much more strongly than John Kerry did. It is misleading to imply that Nader was supporting flak against critique of the Vietnam War. Nader remains staunchly critical of U.S. military action in Vietnam (and he strongly opposes the invasion and ongoing war in Iraq), whereas John Kerry for purposes of the campaign in 2004 distanced himself from his own antiwar views and actions.

Likewise, very little credibilty should be given uncritically to the article by anti-Nader activist Jeff Cohen on the Common Dreams website. Mr. Cohen was one of the main ogranizers of the effort to discredit Nader by associating Nader with the Right. Even Mr. Cohen's article alludes to the Democratic Party's organized and successful effort to sabotage Nader's efforts to achieve ballot access in Oregon in 2004. As you probably know, organizations like Jeff Cohen's group (with funding from the Democratic Party) succeeded in keeping Nader off the Oregon ballot in 2004.

If readers are given enough information to understand the reasons "Republican help" was needed for Nader to exercise the right to ballot access in Michigan (namely, the Democratic Party's team of lawyers first succeeding in removing Nader's name as the Reform Party nominee, and then the same Democratic Party lawyering team's further challenges to the subsequent indepedendent petition drive on the ground that Nader "had failed to coordinate with the Republicans" during that petition drive, readers may see more of the overall context and may perhaps be less likely to assume a nefarious Nader-Republican conspiracy. It is especially interesting that the Democratic Party's argument in court (trying to knock Nader off the ballot the second time in Michigan) was precisely that Nader's campaign had NOT coordinated with the petition drive organized by Republicans. The court acknowledged the fact that Nader's campaign had not coordinated with the Republican petition circulators but ruled in Nader's favor, on the fundamental right to ballot access in Michigan. I don't know whether this background amounts to a "justification" for accepting help in Michigan, but it strikes me as misleading to mention "Republican help in Michigan" without a fuller explanation.

People in the Democratic Party, especially who worked to stop Nader, freely admit that they sought to "discredit" Nader as an "insane egomaniac," a "Republican dupe," a "selfish spoiler," etc. The websites of the big anti-Nader groups make no bones about this being their main strategic aim (in addition to their efforts to knock, or to keep, Nader off ballots wherever possible, by whatever means).

To clarify my own POV: It happens that I did not vote for Ralph Nader in 2004. The fact that I am not anti-Nader does not necessarily mean that my POV is pro-Nader. Moreover, I am not unsympathetic to the concerns of many Democrats who were worried that Nader's presence might help the election of George W. Bush (for whom I cannot imagine voting). But it seems to me that the concerted (and often misleading) Democratic Party attacks on Nader in 2000 and 2004 are an important story. Without including information about the organized nature of the attacks against Nader, it would be misleading simply to repeat as true the gist of the anti-Nader attacks (even if a partial rebuttal or denial by the Nader campaign is included a few paragraphs later).

If it can be shown that Nader's campaign in 2004 systematically accepted organized Republican Party help, I believe this would be a relevant and important point to be brought out, but such information should be brought out accurately and should be accompanied by sufficient explanation and context, including contextual information from the FEC about the funding of Democratic Party candidates from some of the same "Republican" individuals the anti-Nader groups pointed to as having donated to Nader's campaign, as well as the Republican and Democratic parties' dependence on various corporate donors.

The quote from Reform Party Chair Mr. O'Hara appears to have been taken out of context, to build the case that the Reform Party's support for Nader was essentially from the right, and, in particular, was at its heart anti-Kerry. This isn't an accurate picture. Likewise, the reference to the 2000 nomination of Pat Buchanan seems designed to make it appear that it was right-wingers within the Reform Party in 2004 who nominated Ralph Nader. This is not at all what happened at the 2004 Reform Party convention. The Reform Party underwent a huge organizational upheaval in 1998-2000, with Ross Perot supporters (and Jesse Ventura supporters) losing control of the organizational apparatus to a pro-Buchanan group (that apparently included some supporters from the New Alliance Party). The Reform Party, which had at one time stood for a variety of reforms ("fiscal conservatism" plus some important progressive electoral reforms), in essence had become by 2000 little more than a vehicle for ballot access, and even then only in certain states, with a small pot of FEC-awarded money in disupte. After Buchanan's dismal showing in 2000, the Reform Party returned in most states to the status of being more or less an empty shell (not a bastion of right-wing ideology). The Reform Party's relevance was not based on a platform or ideology but instead on the fact that it had available ballot lines in certain states. The existing article suggests (inaccurately) that Nader made ideological compromises to collaborate with right-wing bigots, in order to win the Reform Party nomination. There is no evidence that anything like this happened.

I do not think Wikipedia should be used to try to help build the case that Nader's campaign "flip-flopped" on the issue of contributions from Republicans, unless we are willing to do the work of examining each facet of each such allegation closely and offering Nader's campaign an opportunity to be heard.

I also don't think we should rely on Buzzflash or on anti-Nader activist Jeff Cohen's Common Dreams article as "neutral" news sources, to attack Nader's credibility. Now that the election is over, one hopes that it might be easier for a truer picture of what happened to emerge, at a less breathless pace of attack, denial, and self-righteousness. If Nader's spokesman sanctimoniously contradicted himself or misspoke himself or said something that was outright false, such a false statement might be a relevant fact, but one hopes we will have a chance to be fair about this and to do more detailed fact-checking, now that most people are no longer in campaign-spin mode.

I do agree with the evaluation that the organization of the article could be improved, but I don't think it would improve the article or its organization, simply to revert to a largely anti-Nader presentation in this section.

I hope we continue these discussions, in an effort to make this article more accurate.

The main thing you should note is that the information isn't adduced to show that Nader is a sleazeball. The point of it is to shed light on the question of Nader's effect on the major-party candidates. (That's the section it's in.) There's no way to know for sure whether Nader pulled more votes from Bush or from Kerry, or whether his presence on the ballot was important to their race in other ways (e.g. if his criticisms of Kerry caused some left-leaning voters to conclude that there was no significant difference between Kerry and Bush, and therefore to stay home). Because we can't know that for sure, the article presented information along the lines of "experienced politicians who weren't affiliated with the Nader campaign showed by their actions that they thought Nader would hurt Kerry and help Bush".

In that context, I think that the simple phrase "Republican organizations in several states worked to gather petition signatures to place Nader on the ballot" is fine. Going state-by-state is more detail than is needed. If they worked to gather the signatures, that shows their assessment of Nader's effect. If you think that mentioning this fact will lead some readers to think ill of Nader unjustifiably, and you want to add factual information about some action taken by the Nader campaign, that would be one thing, but just quoting Nader's self-serving statement that they weren't accepting such help is misleading unless the full information is presented. That's why I thought it was better to present the facts about what the Republicans did and not get into presenting the pros and cons of Nader's response. (Republicans helped him, so that shows he's a sleazeball, but he said he wouldn't accept the help, so he's not a sleazeball, but he did accept it in Michigan, so he is a sleazeball, but he accepted it only because otherwise he wouldn't have gotten on the ballot, so he's not a sleazeball, and by the way it was some Democrats who persuaded the court that the Reform Party hadn't met the legal requirements for a ballot line in Michigan, and they made inconsistent arguments, so it's really the Democrats who are the sleazeballs... I just think this whole back-and-forth should be eliminated.)

I suggest that this section of the article be returned to this version (as of 13:39, 19 Nov 2004). Nothing in that text is unfair to Nader. For example, it doesn't even mention the alleged flip-flopping on standards for accepting campaign contributions. I agree with you that we shouldn't give one side of that argument without giving all sides, but omitting it is also fair. JamesMLane 20:42, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

____

Responding to James M Lane: Let's present well-checked, documented facts, rather than "facts" originated and supplied either by pro-Nader, or by anti-Nader, sources. The version to which you suggest reversion contains quite a bit that is objectionable as inacccurate and misleading.

I think it's factually important to distinguish different kinds of "Republican help" that could be alleged.

The point about the Democratic Party's argument in the Michigan courts was not to show that they're "sleazeballs," but instead to point to an important inconsistency and an important fact: the gist of the anti-Nader attacks were that Nader was "collaborating" or "coordinating" with the Republicans (and the one admitted example has been the drive for ballot access in Michigan); but, by the Democratic Party's own admission (and the court's findings), Nader's campaign carefully avoided any direct involvement in that Michigan petitioning effort. Doesn't this fact seem significant in light of the UPforVictory allegations that Nader was "working with right-wing Republicans to elect Bush"?

If anyone can point to any circumstances, apart from ballot access petitions in Michigan, where the Nader campaign accepted organized Republican Party support, then please do bring this up and document it. I want to know and I want the Wikipedia article to be accurate. So far, the information I have suggests that these accusations against the Nader campaign are false.

With regard to ballot access in Michigan, if you are willing to study the full story of Nader's initially being denied ballot access in Michigan, it would be difficult to read your preferred edits as other than showing anti-Nader POV. The Democratic Party's attacks on Nader, including their intense efforts to keep Nader off the ballot in Michigan, do seem relevant to the topic of how Nader's expected effect was perceived by others (under the rubric "effects on major part candidates"). But simply to repeat (and to credit) those attacks by suggesting a Nader-Right collaboration (beyond what is warranted by the facts) is not accurate.

The discussion of the Reform Party's nomination in 2004 likewise tends to be considerably misleading, as noted above in this Talk section. Worse still, trying to pin "Swift Boat" stuff on Nader seems a rather Willie-Hortonesque device; this line of attack was originated by the anti-Nader groups, and (especially because of Nader's actual antiwar views) it seems not unworthy of Karl Rove himself. If you believe that this sort of stuff is important to include, you really need to check the facts carefully and document them (and not just by relying on UPforVictory), including providing an opportunity for the Nader campaign to be heard.

The point of going state by state is that this method could well bear out (or disprove) my information that there was virtually no organized Republican support for Nader's campaign. Instead, it appears that most of the information about supposed Republican support was circulated, misleadingly, by dedicated anti-Nader groups, for immediate political gain. To repeat generalized allegations (in the nature of attack ads) seems highly inaccurate and partisan. But if the details are there to bear it out, then that would be a different story.

Despite your protestations that the point of your preferred edits is not to smear Nader as a "sleazeball," the discussion has been framed in such a way as to invite exactly that reading.

Let's take thee time to gather actual FACTS, and not simply recite political attack material. I'm willing to work with you on this. The first place to start, would be to determine where the Nader campaign did accept organized Republican help, and what the circumstances were.

You continue to approach the whole topic from the point of view of "anti-Nader attacks" and "accusations against the Nader campaign" (your phrases). My concern is that the approach you suggest seems likely to result in a much greater level of detail of facts relevant to those subjects, with the result of obscuring the subject I was trying to address, namely the assessment of Nader's likely impact. It seems we need two sections. The section about "Effect on major-party candidates" would be based on the earlier version, with a cross-reference to a new section, which would focus on charges and responses about whether Nader was collaborating with the right. Some readers will be most interested in the indications that Republicans thought Nader's candidacy would help Bush. Other readers will be more interested in whether Nader acted honorably in response to what was said and done by people who weren't part of his campaign. (Some of the comments attibuted to Nader belong in the "Effect" section, though. For example, if he denounced the Swift Boat ads, that fact strengthens the implication that those donors were supporting him because they thought he'd hurt Kerry. His comment about Republicans donating to Kerry cuts the other way.) Such a separation would deal with the problem that a lot of this information, such as the detail about ballot access litigation in Michigan, is irrelevant to the undisputed point that both major parties thought a ballot line for Nader would help Bush. JamesMLane 22:27, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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First, I would note that it is not entirely undisputed that both major parties thought ballot access for Nader in 2004 would help Bush. Some people within each of those two parties no doubt had some such perception, but if you read the information toward the bottom of this message, you might agree that there is some reason to doubt that these supposed perceptions were in fact held by strategists in the two major parties.

To characterize the information disseminated by UPforVictory, StopNader, etc., as "anti-Nader attacks" does not seem inaccurate (or POV). Indeed, attacking Nader was the whole mission of those groups (just as it does not seem "POV" to say that the SwiftBoat ads were an anti-Kerry attack).

It seems quite in keeping with one of your aims in this section (namely, to show that some Democrats felt that Nader would hurt Kerry), to mention those attacks by Democratic Party groups, who evidently felt that, by attacking and hurting Nader, they might help Kerry. Likewise, to the extent it can be shown that some Republicans also felt that Nader would lower Kerry's results, accurate information about specific Nader-supporting actions by those Republicans would also be relevant for this purpose. (One of my points, though, is that, in order to write accurately about supposed organized Republican help, if indeed there was any beyond the Michigan petition drive, it is necessary to provide actually verified information, and not just repeat the generalized allegations of "Nader being in cahoots with right-wingers" leveled by the anti-Nader partisans.)

It seems a far cry from NPOV, simply to recite as factual, without further documentation, accusations against Nader that were made by UPforVictory, StopNader, etc.

I'm not sure what you mean, by "For example, if [Nader] denounced the Swift Boat ads, that fact strengthens the implication that those donors were supporting him because they thought he'd hurt Kerry." First, it's not yet proven (as far as I can tell) that anyone directly involved in the Swift Boat 527 group gave anything to Nader's campaign. I've heard an allegation that at least one donor to the pseudo-independent 527 group that ran the Swift ads also made an individual donation to the Nader campaign. Is information about support for Nader from Swift Boat veterans verified by the FEC reports? Did Nader's campaign accept money from Swift Boat operatives, and, if so, did it knowingly accept this money? Did these same individuals, if there are any, also give to other political campaigns and, if so, to which ones? If the same individuals also gave money to John Corzine or Nancy Pelosi, for example, this information could shed light on the whole story.

Does it make a difference to the "implication" you feel is strengthened by Nader's denunciation of the Swift ads, if it turns out that Nader denounced the first Swift Boat ad immediately, within days of its having first been broadcast, before anyone had ever made any allegation (which originated with UPforVictory and StopNader) that Nader had received campaign money from individuals who had also donated to the pseudo-"independent" group that ran the awful Swift Boat ads?

Maybe you are right, that more than one section is needed. I guess your idea is that one section could discuss assessments (or perceptions) of Nader's likely impact. Another section could try to sort out the details (relevant to the truth or untruth) of the various allegations and perceptions. Still another section could lay out what the actual campaign finance practices were of the Bush campaign, the Kerry campaign, and the Nader campaign. When the discussion makes Nader's campaign the only campaign under scrutiny with respect to allegedly "improper" donations, some necessary context is missing. (It would be relevant to mention in this connection that Nader's campaign at least to some extent took a principled approach to campaign finance, by refusing corporate PAC money altogether. This exercise of restraint is worth noting, especially in light of the fact that there was no restraint at all shown by the Kerry or Bush campaigns. If it turns out that Nader violated his own self-imposed principles, or if it turns out that some of the individuals who gave the Nader campaign donations were actually Bush operatives, it will be important to find this out. But to establish this requires facts and documentation, not innuendo.)

On the issues of Nader's likely impact and perceived likely impact on the 2004 election, below you can find some polling information (the gist of which was available to the Democrats and to the Republicans months before November 2004). This polling information supports the conclusion that Nader was not actually "taking net votes away from" Kerry in the Kerry-versus-Bush contest in 2004.

One creative theory that might give Karl Rove too much credit is the suggestion that some top Republican strategists thought it would be clever to leak information about Nader hurting Kerry, in order to trick the Democrats into diverting some warchest resources into attacking Nader (similar to the "leaked" Republican polls in late October supposedly showing that Hawaii was leaning toward Bush-Cheney); whether or not this was a deliberate strategy, it seems likely that the Republicans were not unhappy to encourage the impression that they expected Nader to hurt Kerry, if they thought this would make Kerry's campaign waste some resources hitting Nader. Another theory is that some of the Democrats' attacks against Nader were not necessarily even based on their own belief or perception that Nader might take votes away from Kerry in the 2004 election. The top Kerry strategists knew about the polls and knew by August or September that it was not likely that Nader would have an effect. Instead (according to this theory), the Democrats were mostly concerned to keep young activists from being drawn into the Nader campaign, where they might become dangerous critics (from the left) of the Democratic Party's rightward "centrist" slide the past fifteen years or more. So (according to this theory), the Democrats played along with the scare tactic of Nader as bogeyman, rather than actually being frightened about Nader in the 2004 election. They sought to diminish and revile Nader because Nader was accusing both major parties (including their own Democratic Party) of being corporate-dominated; such accusations are ultimately (regardless of any expected or unexpected 2004 election result) extremely threatening to the Democratic Party in the longer term, because the Democratic Party generally tries to position itself as the party of the "people" ("the party of working families" seems to be the newer phrase), in contrast to the Republican Party, which the Democrats characterize as the coporate party or the party of "the rich," etc. I'm not endorsing any of these alternative theories, but I think they are interesting because they are perhaps supported by data that tend to dispute what you said was undisputed (regarding perceptions within the two major parties of the likely effect of Nader's candidacay).

From the November 2004 Ballot Access News: "NADER MAY NOT BE HURTING KERRY The Washington Post carried a story on October 22, quoting officials of four leading national pollsters that Nader’s presence on the ballot does not hurt Democratic nominee John Kerry. Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll, said his research has shown for months that when Nader is removed from poll questionnaires, the margin separating the two major candidates is unaltered. Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center, Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports, and Richard Bennett of the American Research Group, agreed."

The Washington Post story referred to above in Ballot Access News is evidently the article by Manuel Roig-Franzia and Jonathan Finer, "A Fading 'Nader Factor'?; Consumer Advocate Has Been Stripped of Much of His Support," The Washington Post: Oct 22, 2004. pg. A.01. The abstract from that article reads: "A survey conducted this month for the Democratic National Committee by pollster Stanley Greenberg showed [Ralph Nader] averaging 1.5 percent of the vote in a dozen battleground states where his name appears on the ballot, compared with about 3 percent in the summer. It also showed that most of the support Nader lost had shifted to [John F. Kerry] and indicated that his remaining backers would be as likely to vote for Bush as for the Massachusetts Democrat, if Nader were not running. Other studies indicate that Nader supporters are unlikely to support either major-party candidate. Pew's [Scott Keeter] said the majority of the Nader voters he has tracked do not identify with either major political party. Richard Bennett of the New Hampshire-based American Research Group said: "Especially since the debates, where Kerry shored up his base, it does not appear that many of the remaining Nader voters would vote for either Bush or Kerry."

Even assuming these polling numbers are accurate (and that this was known months before November), of course, it does not follow that the Democratic Party was therefore not concerned about Nader's potential effect. For example, the Democrats could have fully believed these polls, but still also believed that it was only through their own ongoing successful efforts to demonize Nader that the polls were showing Nader to be a non-factor.

My discussion on this page has largely been critical of what I take to be the inadvertent advancement of a polemical anti-Nader position. I don't suggest that this is your intention at all, but it could be the effect. I'll conclude for now, by saying that I think we should be able to work out a genuinely improved NPOV discussion, but it might take some time.

I think the statement about the prevailing opinion within each party during most of the campaign is accurate. The main reason for doubting that Nader would hurt Kerry was the growing evidence, as Election Day neared, that Nader was going to draw many, many fewer votes (from anyone) that he had in 2000. I think most experts expected him to decline, but few expected him to decline so precipitously. At any rate, from the point of view of describing the major-party reactions, the late-October poll you cite doesn't affect the fact that many Democrats were campaigning against Nader, seeing him as a threat. It might well be the case that Democrats devoted less resources to that front than they did in 2000, but if so, it was because of Nader's overall fade, not because they changed their assessment that he'd provide a net benefit to Bush.

You're correct that I think the article should mention major-party attitudes toward Nader, as a way of gauging his likely effect -- but that doesn't mean that every such statement or action needs to be included. Describing all the "UP for Victory" type groups would be too much detail on that point for a general bio of Nader. That's why the section I wrote just stated the general point and gave a few examples. It would be unfair to Nader to have his bio dominated by the subject.

The point of my comment about SBVT was that, if Nader denounced those ads, then that makes it even more clear that people who helped get the ads on the air weren't giving to Nader because they liked him or agreed with his views. They were donating to Nader for the same reason they donated to SBVT: to hurt Kerry.

You write: 'When the discussion makes Nader's campaign the only campaign under scrutiny with respect to allegedly "improper" donations, some necessary context is missing.' This article is about Nader, not about campaign finance in general. In any event, there's no claim of "improper" donations that I know of. The donations shed light on the donors' assessment of the race, not on the recipient's campaign finance practices.

Finally, with regard to sources, there are plenty of sources available online that have an agenda. We don't normally just dismiss them entirely. If UP for Victory or some other source makes a statement about a matter of fact, like campaign contributions, some Wikipedia editor who doubts it can find and cite opposing data. JamesMLane 23:44, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Continued: Making the article NPOV

You are surely right, that it was conventional wisdom that Nader's presence in the 2004 presidential race would be expected to reduce the number of Kerry votes more than it would be expected to reduce the number of Bush votes. And it is not at all unreasonable to imagine that some Democrats, and some Republicans, believed they should take action based on that conventional wisdom.

But I think it will take careful writing, to avoid oversimplifying this "common sense" idea to the point of inaccuracy. For example, based on the verified information now available, it would not be accurate for the article to give the impression that Nader's campaign was generally soliciting or generally accepting organized Republican donations. You offered to list (or at least to identify in this discussion---maybe you're right that the details do not belong in the article itself) each of the states where Nader's campaign is supposed to have accepted organized Republican assistance in 2004, with some documentation of the exact type of assistance that was accepted. If there is documented evidence that Nader accepted organized Republican help other than in the case of the non-coordinated Michigan petition drive, please share any such information. If you can find evidence that Nader's campaign accepted organized Repubican contributions of campaign money, that would also be very important and I would appreciate learning about it.

If it were so clearly true that the Republican Party in 2004 was eager to promote Nader (as part of a strategy to hurt Kerry), one might have expected the Republicans to take some steps to help Ralph Nader get into the 2004 presidential debates. As you probably know, the supposed "commission" on presidential debates is essentially a joint creature of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. As it actually happened, however, the Republican Party appeared every bit as opposed as the Democratic Party, to opening up the debates to Nader (in 2000 and in 2004).

You write that you do not want to be unfair to Nader, and I agree that fairness is a worthy aim. I would urge that it is unfair to repeat, uncritically, unsupported allegations from political groups that were created with the specific mission of attacking Nader and/or taking votes from Nader (mostly by disseminating information alleging that Nader was associated with right-wingers). It would not be fair for the article about Nader to perpetuate the false impression that Nader was being substantially financially supported by the Right, without checking into the falsehood/spin/veracity of the partisan-orchestrated statements upon which the article relied in creating that impression. Because the Nader campaign states that the allegations are false and/or misleading, some verification should be in order before those allegations are simply repeated as if true.

About the Washington Post article: I thought you might be interested in the October Post article. (I want to point out that the article discussed similar polls that had been reported much earlier than October, but I'm not disagreeing with you, that the polling results reported in that Post article are consistent with the idea that the early Democratic Party attacks on Nader were effective.) I didn't (and still don't) claim to know what conclusion (if any) to draw from the polling.

Nader did denounce the SBVT ads. I'm going only from memory now, but I think Nader referred to those ads as deceptive covert slime sponsored by Bush proxies (through a 527). (Nader was also critical of 527 Kerry-sponsored ads.) I'm still not sure what your inference is, about Nader's denunciation of the SBVT attack ads. I think it would take more information and analysis before it would be warranted to conclude, from the fact (if it is a fact) that donor-X donated to fund-Y (a 527 fund) and also donated to the campaign committee for candidate N, that it is obvious exactly what X's intentions were. (Political money moves in ways that are not always obvious.) Another basic step is to check the actual FEC records, which are publically available on the web from www.fec.gov. I also think some context is required, so that readers have a frame of reference for understanding the scale of any donations, typical practices, etc.

If it turns out that the organized Democratic Party attacks on Nader were largely false and/or misleading, the falsehood of those attacks (if they were false) should become highly relevant to the article on Nader's 2004 campaign, especially in the context of discussing major party perceptions of, attitudes toward, and actions regarding Nader.

A very important element of Nader's presidential campaigns (at least, as far as I know) has been self-imposed principled limits on the sources of campaign funding, so I think an article about Nader properly mentions his approach to campaign finance, which sets him apart from the big party candidates. What I think the article should not do, however, is to repeat unverified "scandal"-misinformation about Nader's campaign finance practices. (Verified flat-out hypocrisy should of course be fair game.) Or, if such allegations are included, then the article should offer appropriate context so that readers are not left with a mistaken impression. For example, if my own campaign broadcasts an attack ad stating that one of my opponents is taking money from Big Tobacco and is therefore profiting from killing our kids (say, based on a $500 contribution from PM-PAC), an encyclopedia entry shouldn't simply repeat the gist of my unverified attack ad to show that my opponent was supported by the cigarette industry; and, if the article does repeat that information (properly attributing it to my attack ad, and properly characterizing it as such), it would only be fair to point out, if true, that my own campaign had received $10,000 from the same PAC, or that every politician in the state had received money from the same PAC, or whatever other trthfulu information would help the reader better understand what was really going on. (I'm pretty sure Nader has refused to accept any PAC money, which means that his presidential campaigns have received money from individual donors only. If true, this is an interesting fact, isn't it?)

I noticed that there is another, separate, Wikipedia entry for the 2004 Presidential campaign of Ralph Nader. It seems mostly to have collected some possibly incomplete ballot access information as of some time in October. I don't know whether or not that would be a more appropriate location (with a proper cross-referencing link) for some of the more detailed information.

Anyway, I guess this discussion is now very long, probably too long. Thank you for discussing this with me.

P.S. REGARDING THE REFORM PARTY & NADER in 2004:

After thinking that I had signed off for the night, I just now looked at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article that is linked from the Wikipedia article, quoting Reform Party Chair Shawn O'Hara (to the effect that Mr. O'Hara voted for Bush in 2000 and is working to keep John Kerry from becoming president). This quote seems to have been included to show that elements from the "Right" (namely, the Reform Party) supported Mr. Nader, presumably in order to get Mr. Bush elected. What the Wikipedia article does not say is that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article actually quotes Mr. O'Hara as saying that Republican President George W. Bush "has lied to the American public" about the "illegal war in Iraq." The selective quote in the Wikipedia article from Mr. O'Hara was used to build the case that Mr. Nader was being supported by the Right, but this case could not have been made if the article had also included the following adjacent passage from the Post-Gazette article, quoting Mr. O'Hara (but again this was omitted from the Wikipedia article): <<>> "I'm not a George Bush fan anymore. My man's Ralph Nader," O'Hara said. <<>> The same selective and out-of-context quote that is included in this section of the Wikipedia article was also used by the anti-Nader groups, to create the impression that the Reform Party was insincere in its support for Ralph Nader. The anti-Nader groups, like the Wikipedia article, never mentioned that Mr. O'Hara said that he was disillusioned with both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry and was now supporting Ralph Nader. The anti-Nader groups did not quote Mr. O'Hara's expression of support for Ralph Nader's opposition to the war in Iraq. Instead, the quotes used by the anti-Nader groups (and, unfortunately, repeated by the Wikipedia article) were designed to make it appear as though Mr. O'Hara (and perhaps the rest of the Reform Party) is actually supporting Mr. Bush. What did the Post-Gazette article actually quote Mr. O'Hara as saying? - - - -"I'm not a George Bush fan anymore. My man's Ralph Nader," O'Hara said.- - - - Another instance of somewhat misleading information about the Reform Party's nomination of Nader is the Wikipedia article's statement that conservative Pat Buchanan was nominated by the Reform Party in 2000. Although that bare statement is not untrue, the implication in the context of the article is that Nader in 2004 was being supported by the same right-wingers who had taken over the Reform Party in 2000 (in a struggle the Buchananites won against Jesse Ventura, John Hagelin, and even Perot himself to some extent). However, what happened to the Reform Party after Buchanan's dismal showing in 2000 is that the Buchanan supporters bailed out of the Reform Party after draining its pot of money and most of them went elsewhere, including many who went over to the so-called "America First Party," which endorsed the ultra-conservative Constitution Party presidential candidate in 2004. The 2000 Buchanan supporters did not nominate Ralph Nader in 2004. The Reform Party convention in 2004 can be criticized for having been very small, but it is false to say that the Reform Party in 2004 was a right-wing organization. As I explained earlier, the Reform Party had to some extent become a shell that offered potential ballot access in about seven states. If, as appears true, most of Mr. Nader's support within the Reform Party came from people who actually agreed with Mr. Nader's views on issues of war and peace, campaign finance reform, reining in corporate abuse, etc., then it is misleading to cite the Reform Party nomination as an example showing that Ralph Nader was being propped up by the Right. That's not what actually happened.

My sense is that the discussion of the Reform Party nomination within this section of the Wikipedia article was perhaps an instance of uncritical recital of information originating from the spin generated by anti-Nader groups. It is this kind of mistake I'm hoping we can avoid, by carefully checking the facts and not simply repeating the attack talking points generated by UPforVictory and other such axe-grinding groups.

I hope this P.S. helps clarify. Thanks again.

When I have time I'll make the two separate sections, and also remove some of the pro-Nader POV. For example, it's not neutral to say that O'Hara "clarified" he'd become disillusioned with Bush, a phrasing that accepts his politically convenient assertion as truth. Beyond the POV issue, I thought this article already had somewhat too much discussion of general issues of third-party politics. It's a bio of Nader, who, after all, never joined the Green Party and who chose not to work within the Green Party structure in 2004. The additional detail about whether the Greens should continue their relentless sabotage of any hope for progressive politics in America -- uh, pardon me, I mean the additional detail about possible courses of action for the Greens -- would be more appropriate to the article about the Green Party. JamesMLane 17:05, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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"Political extremists"

Come on, I'm hostile to Nader and even I think this categorization is absurd. In fact, the category is inherently POV. It should be deleted. Anyone who wants to chime in on the question is invited to visit Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Political extremists and comment or vote. JamesMLane 20:32, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Trimming the article

I think some of these trims go too far. The deleted material was incorporated as a result of the lengthy discussions above, to present assessments of Nader's effect on the 2004 race while being fair to him. In particular, I don't see the point of trying to "shorten" an article by deleting inline references, which appear simply as bracketed numbers. What's the rationale for the deletions? JamesMLane 12:54, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The main reason for shortening the article is that once wiki articles get over 35-40 kb, browser problems increase exponentially. That's why, for example, an article about the nation XYZ will (or, at least, should) include a short synopsis of its history, with a wikilink to a separate article "History of XYZ" for more detail. Come to think of it, that would be a good idea here: A two- or three-paragraph discussion of the 2000 race, with much of this material moved to a separate article linked from here, probably including the material that I deleted.

(That's also why I archived part of the Talk ... this page was so long my browser choked. It's still longer than recommended levels, but I couldn't break up the enormous chunk of text just above this.) (See Wikipedia: Article size for discussion)

Readability suffers in overlong articles, too. The main point of an encyclopedia is not to provide vast reams of details for people already knowledgeable about a subject, but to give an overview and context for casual readers. If, say, a Kenyan who had barely heard of Ralph Nader was interested in figuring out what effect he had in the 2000 election, there is so much detail here that it would be very difficult for him/her to figure it out. Americans who followed the election and already know the story might be helped, but everybody else would be flummoxed. Breaking it up into separate articles could help that, too - the hypothetical Kenyan wouldn't have to follow the links to the more detailed article.

Finally, Wikipedia has always frowned on external links within the text, because when you follow them, you can't easily return to wikipedia. One of the major points of creating this encyclopedia was to have a huge sea of interlinked knowledge - sending readers outside the sea hurts that. We're not trying to recreate the Web. The links can be included as external links at the bottom for those who want to know more, but we shouldn't break up the text with them. - DavidWBrooks 14:07, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree that Wikipedia frowns on external links in text. It's definitely our policy to cite your sources. Let's take a specific example, the first citation deleted from this article. As you can see earlier on this talk page, an ardently pro-Nader anon questioned whether there was indeed organized Republican backing for Nader's campaign. I inserted an inline link to a July 20, 2004 article by Jeff Cohen, found at http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0720-15.htm, although, to minimize disruption to the text, I used brackets to make it a numbered link: [3]. Here are three ways to deal with that citation:

Using APA style. In articles on scientific subjects, APA style seems most prevalent. The format is described at Wikipedia:Cite sources#An example citation style. I gather this is what you mean by referring to links "included as external links at the bottom". In this instance, it would mean that the example citation would be replaced by "(Cohen 2004)" in the text, with the Cohen article then listed in a bibliography near the end of the article. I think the intrusion of "(Cohen 2004)" is more disruptive than a simple numbered link. Furthermore, it's less convenient for a reader who wants to do a quick check of the cited source. That reader has to go down to the bottom of the article, find the reference, and then, after reading it, return to the Wikipedia article and try to find his or her place.
The method I used is described at Wikipedia:Cite sources#Embedded HTML links for citations. The advantages and disadvantages are discussed there. In the citations involved here, I don't think the mentioned disadvantages are significant. Many of these, like the Cohen article, are citations to online sources. If the Common Dreams website folds, that article won't be available to the reader no matter how much bibliographic information is given in a References section.
Eliminating all the citations. This alternative means that controversial points are simply asserted. The reader has no way of knowing whether there's any support for the statement, let alone assessing the reliability of the source, and also can't go to the source for more detail. This is the worst of the three alternatives, yet it's the one now in place in this article for several significant points.

On the general subject of article length, I agree with you that articles shouldn't get too long. Nevertheless, we shouldn't deal with the problem by losing valid information. (See Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Long article layout: "[W]e must remove information from entries periodically. This information should not be removed from Wikipedia: that would defeat the purpose of the contributions. So we must create new entries to hold the excised information.") In this instance, the information in question is significant enough to be in an encyclopedia, so it should be included either in this article or in Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2004. I'll look at that article later and see how we might allocate information between the two. For now, I don't even see a link to that article in this one, so I'll add it. JamesMLane 21:02, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

photo vandalism

Boy, what is it with this article and anon vandals replacing the picture with a really really funny (to a 12-year-old) photo-mash? It must be on the bookmark list at some middle school ... - DavidWBrooks 20:27, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Veep for McGovern?

What is the source of the story that Nader was asked by George McGovern to be his running mate in 1972?

Good question. I just tried Googling this and I can't find any substantial source for McGovern asking Nader to be his running mate? Anybody have a source? Griot 23:24, 13 October 2005 (UTC)Griot

I'm going to remove this Veep reference. I can find no evidence of it anywhere. Griot 00:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Sounds fair. Could you determine who had added it? Schizombie 00:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It was added long ago. I asked for a citation way back in October 2005. It was in the article back then. I'm not that much of a detective. :) Griot 00:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It appears it was 12.217.121.245 possibly citing "The Making of the President, 1972." Schizombie 00:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC) See the 05:28, 2 December 2005 and 01:44, 3 September 2005 edits. Schizombie 02:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Nader makes this claim in Crashing the Party: Taking on the Corporate Government in an Age of Surrender, pages 37-38. Schizombie 04:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I think I've tracked down the contemporary origin of the story that George McGovern asked Nader to be his running mate in 1972. What I found tends to undermine the notion that McGovern extended an actual offer to Nader, although McGovern did mention Nader's name in public. The accurate story would seem to be be that Nader's name was mentioned by McGovern in a hypothetical list of "fresh faces," who were not Democratic Party political insiders, but who might have characteristics that would make them potentially worthy of selection as a running mate. The source I found was a news story written by William Greider in the Washington Post, from August 4, 1972, covering a McGovern press conference (an "office conversation" with reporters) concerning the fact that several Democratic Party Senators had declined to become his replacement for Sen. Eagleton. This is consistent with Nader's statement in *Crashing the Party* (pp. 37-38) that after Eagleton withdrew as the vice-presidential nominee, George McGovern called Nader and "asked if I would be willing to be considered for the vice presidential nomination." According to Nader's account, the "would you be willing to be considered?" overture from McGovern was considerably short of a direct offer.

In the Nader documentary "An Unreasonable Man", Nader discusses this. According to the people interviewed in the movie, including Nader himself, McGovern personally called Ralph to ask if we was willing to be considered, along with several other people, for the VEEP spot on his ticket. I have no idea how to find a clip of that or anything, but it is in the movie.

SOURCE: "3 Reject Offers by M'Govern" By William Greider Washington Post Staff Writer The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973); Aug 4, 1972; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The Washington Post (1877 - 1990) pg. A1: Greider's report of McGovern's list of names that included Ralph Nader (and Jacob Javits and John Garnder) begins with the phrase, "Without trying to suggest that they are under active consideration, McGovern mentioned, for example . . . " The "three" referenced in the title of the article who rejected an offer from McGovern were Senators Humphrey, Ribicoff, and Kennedy. ~~

Sorry re:photo revert

Sorry, everyone, I accidentally reverted the photo back to the original. I think I changed it back to the latest (bigger) one, but if I didn't, can someone please do it for me? I didn't realize what "rev" meant.

Apologies!--ViolinGirl 19:28, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Pie in the face.

I think the bit about being pied should remain in the article, but, as an event that occurred in 2003, it is out of place in the middle of a section about his 2000 campaign. -12.217.121.245 07:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Jan D. Pierce, Karen Sanchirico, and other Vice Presidential stand-ins

I had added that little bit to the article about Jan D. Pierce, but now I wonder if it is too trivial for the intro and if it should be deleted or moved below to the section on 2004. I did add it to the Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2004 article with more specifics, and also another stand-in I hadn't been aware of, Karen Sanchirico. Does anyone know why these people appeared instead of Peter Camejo, and who they are? Schizombie 10:28, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

This page http://www.drivingmrnader.org/chapter4.htm has some information about stand-ins in Nader's 1996 presidential campaign. I don't know if they were only on the petition to get on the ballot, or if they actually appeared on the ballot (although at least one of them, Muriel Tillinghast, did). Schizombie 22:13, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Third parties in Florida

Regarding recent edits by Griot and Ben Manski: If Bush's margin over Gore in Florida was 537 votes, the Green, Reform, Libertarian, Natural Law/Reform, Constitution, Socialist Workers Party, and Socialist Parties all got more votes than that margin http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/2000presge.htm#FL . Schizombie 02:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

My edits have to do with the Alantic Monthly's assessment of Nader. Nothing more. Griot 02:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

References

I remember reading in one of michael moore's books - either stupid white men or dude where's my country - moore comments on helping out with ralph nader's election campaign, but see i cant remember the exact book or reference, anyone else care to post?

New Link

I was wondering if this could be added under the appearances section or perhaps an external link. I thought the link was a funny testement to the pop culture icon Nader has been made. http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/nader.php Cjflash 02:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)cjflash

Making the article NPOV

Here are my disagreements with the set of edits made by an anonymous user at 16:20, 24 Nov 2004:

For Republican help, changing “several states” to “Michigan” is inaccurate if it implies that Michigan was unique in this respect. The Common Dreams article itself discusses Oregon. There were other examples, too. I think the general “several states” is better than burdening the reader with a blow-by-blow catalog, but if you won’t accept “several states”, then I’ll just list every one I can find, rather than leave a false implication that Michigan was an isolated event.
Characterizing Democratic opposition to Nader as an attempt to “discredit” him is POV. We already include the charge that the Democrats were attempting to “smear” Nader, but that quotation is properly attributed to Nader’s campaign. Having quoted his press release verbatim, we don’t need to amplify the point, let alone endorse it.
Changing “[the campaign] accepted contributions from donors who were....” to “[the campaign] accepted campaign contributions from several individual donors who were” seems to add a few words to no purpose. Obviously contributions to a campaign were campaign contributions. The additions aren’t inaccurate, but isn’t the shorter version just as clear?
SBVT: This edit said that Nader’s campaign had accepted “a donation from one individual” also backing SBVT. Stating or implying that there was only one is inaccurate. The “Up for Victory” site says that FEC reports show eight such donors. [4]
Organization: The way the article presented the information about Nader’s effect on the major-party candidates (the subject of this section) was to describe what the Bush supporters said and did, then what the Kerry supporters said and did, then what the Nader campaign said and did. The new edit disrupts that logical structure by interpolating one Democratic group (Up for Victory) after some of the material about Bush supporters, then immediately giving Nader’s POV, before returning to the subject of the Bush supporters. The logic is broken up. In addition, the Nader campaign’s main talking point, about Kerry having accepted donations from donors to Republicans, is now in the article twice. The former version cited the same contribution statistics cited by Nader and even quoted his press release, so I don’t think that version was unfair to him.
This edit is very POV with regard to the Nader campaign’s sanctimonious (my POV!) claim of not accepting right-wing help. The edit reports the claim uncritically. It omits Camejo’s initial reaction of “We don’t want that money” and the subsequent reversal. In Michigan, the Nader campaign made similar pronouncements, then flip-flopped. [5] The edit falls all over itself to justify Nader’s collaboration with the Republicans in Michigan. Can any instances be cited, anywhere in the country, in which the Nader campaign went beyond lip service, and actually turned down Republican help that would have been of real benefit? If the campaign already had enough signatures of its own to qualify for some state’s ballot, then turning down Republican signatures is a meaningless gesture. I thought it made more sense to omit the subject, but if we're going to report the Nader campaign's claim on the point, then we'll have to go into detail on the other side as well.
While I’m venting: A previous anon edit also seemed to reflect a pro-Nader POV with regard to the O’Hara quotation. The edit changed “voted for Bush in 2000 and has said....” to “voted for Bush in 2000 and was quoted as saying....” This phrasing isn’t used for other quotations in this article or in Wikipedia generally. Its only purpose seems to be to cast doubt on the accuracy (maybe he didn’t really make this comment that Naderites find embarrassing). The quotation is from an established newspaper, the source is given, and people can click on the link and confirm it. I didn’t bother correcting this change before but there’s a lot of other pro-Nader POV that will have to be cleaned out of this article, so that passage might as well be restored.