Nader Campaign Update (Whoopdedoo.)
Portland-area blogger Michael Totten links to this post by The Nation’s Marc Cooper on Ralph Nader’s pick for VP. As Totten puts it, Nader has “jumped the shark” with his choice of Green Party figure Peter Camejo, a former Socialist Workers Party presidential candidate.
Cooper has some interesting final words on Nader’s campaign and his re-alliance with the Greens:
Nader could very well then finish this weekend as, once again, the official Green nominee. But the Party itself is almost certain to emerge from the convention weakened and split.
I dont think much of this matters very much as I wrote earlier this year. The Green Party, like Western Civilization, is a good idea that never really got off the ground. Nader, meanwhile, seems to be rapidly squandering a lifetimes worth of well-earned respect. Running a third party campaign during this election cycle would have been tough enough even if conceived and implemented in the most thought-out, strategic, and serious manner. Now, with Camejo as his running mate, Naders lonely quest threatens to turn into nothing more than a carnival sideshow.
I like Marc Cooper quite a bit, and check in with his blog pretty often. (More often than Josh Marshall, these days.) But that comment about Western Civilization comment just baffles me. As a thoughtful leftist (a rare breed, it seems) I’m surprised he’d disparage what the Enlightenment has wrought. Just a bizarre comment.
Also, having seen Camejo show himself to be a very smart (if misguided) man in the California recall debates, I’m also surprised that he agreed to be Nader’s running mate. Cooper is probably right about what effect this will have on the Green Party. (As a Republican I might be disappointed by that, but as a libertarian conservative (lib-con, let’s say) I’ll be happy to see the lack of an organized left unable to pull the Democrats leftward. The more right-leaning our two parties are, the better, methinks.