Ralph Nader, Third Parties, and the Youth Vote

Ralph Nader, appearing on Meet the Press this morning, declared his intention to run for President on the Green Party ticket.

I always get nervous when I hear Nader is jumping in the race. In part it's a reaction to 2000, and in part it is because third party candidacies tend to attract idealistic younger voters discontent with the two party system. In 1992, when Bill Clinton was first elected, Ross Perot ran as a third party candidate and attracted 22% of the 18 - 29 year old vote. Back in 2000, when Nader first ran under the Green Party banner against Al Gore and George Bush, his third party candidacy also appealed to a certain segment of young people. In 2000, Ralph Nader garnered 5% of the 18 - 29 vote. (Full disclosure, I was part of that 5% who voted for Nader). That wasn't anywhere close to the amount of support that Perot received, but nevertheless, it was enough to cost Gore the election.

I don't think Nader will have as substantial an impact in 2008 as he did in 2000 - he's created too much ill will among some of his core constituency with these hopeless runs at the Presidency. It also helps that Obama has a huge lock on the youth vote and his "post-partisan" message swipes the rug out from under the kind of third party outsider rhetoric we're likely to hear from Nader. Nevertheless, I'd like to lay out the case for why I think this is not only a fools errand, but bad politics.

On Meet the Press, Nader delivered a number of rationalizations for his candidacy, some of which I heard out of the mouths of young voters in 2004:

Nader claimed that "people are sick of the two parties," which are all but the same. We need to promote a third party and break the two party system.

The lesson of the last 8 years is that the parties, which seemed very similar in 2000, are vastly different. It seems like a lot of people are pretty interested in both the Obama and Clinton campaigns, and in the Democratic Party. Almost 1 million people have donated to the Obama campaign along - that's a revolution in party building. Turnout is unprecedented in this primary season - it's up in almost every single state. The youth vote is doubling, tripling, even quadrupling. People are paying more attention and are more engaged than ever. This is not an apathetic electorate turned of by the parties, and Nader's recycled rhetoric shows that he has not come to grips with the new political playing field.

I sympathize Nader and with those who want to see a viable third party in the US, but running hopeless bids for the Presidency is not the way to do it. On Meet the Press, Nader quoted the success of the Greens in Europe as a rationale/justification for his actions, however the European Greens didn't start at the top of the ticket, and the comparison is apples to oranges at best. The European Greens built themselves up from the bottom up. They were aided in this by the presence of proportional, parliamentary systems in Europe, not the winner take all system we have in America. If Nader and the Greens were serious, rather than sabatoge the electoral prospects of fellow progressives, they would devote all of their resources to building strongholds at the state and local level as a first step toward building a nationally competitive party.

Nader's candidacy allows him to voice dissent and drive the parties to the left on the issues.

Not really. Nader's quixotic presidential runs have had at best a minimal impact on the policies of the Democratic Party. John Edwards, however, did set the agenda for Obama and Clinton on the Iraq War, poverty, and corporatism run amok. And he did it all within the context of the Democratic Primary. Movement is possible within the two party system - more so than from quixotic third party bids that split voters who essentially agree on 95% of the issues.

Nader did not cause Gore's defeat in Florida, rather, Gore was defeated by himself and a poorly run campaign.

In 2000, Nader himself stated that his campaign was solely for the purposes of building up the Green Party, not of competing with Vice President Al Gore. Nader even went so far as to make a promise not to campaign in battleground states, a promise he broke. Having broken that promise, it's hard to argue that Nader didn't draw votes from Gore in the crucial state of Florida, effectively granting Bush the presidency.

Worse, this showed an incredible lack of political savvy. As we've seen during Bush's tenure, Nader's campaign worked at cross purposes to his own stated policy goals. Eight years of Bush did nothing to move America closer to the vision of Mr. Nader or the green party. In fact, it moved us further away. Nader was not only a spoiler for Gore and the Democrats, but he sabotaged his own policy goals.

As I said, I don't foresee Mr. Nader catching a youth wave, or even stripping many votes from the Democrats this time around. But if anyone is thinking about giving Nader the time of day - think about these things first and ask yourself if Mr. Nader is the most effective vehicle for accomplishing your political goals.