For Ralph Nader, but Not for President

By Aziz P. -
Dean's op-ed in the New York Times argues the case against Nader's presidential run:

Everyone expects this year's presidential election to be decided by razor-thin margins in a few battleground states. Everyone also expects the candidacy of Ralph Nader to make the race between John Kerry and George Bush even closer. As I know from experience, however, voters have a way of proving everyone wrong.
[...]
But I don't believe that the best way to do justice to Ralph Nader's legacy is to vote for him for president. Re-electing George Bush would undo everything Ralph Nader has worked for through his entire career and, in fact, could lead to the dismantling of many of his accomplishments.

Voting for Ralph Nader, or for any third-party candidate for president, means a vote for a candidate who has no realistic shot of winning the White House. To underscore the danger of voting for any third-party candidate in elections this close, a statistic from the 2000 campaign may prove useful: a total of eight third-party candidates won more votes than the difference between Al Gore and George Bush nationwide.
[...]
Ralph Nader once said that your best teacher is your last mistake. Too many of us learned the consequences of not standing together four years ago.


Already, one conservative apologists is whoring for an Instapundit link, making hay out ofthe fact that Dean mentions Bush X times and Nader Y times, but Kerry only once. Given that the entire essay is about Nader's potential for re-spoiling 2004 the way he did in 2000, it's not clear to me why this is so damning. However, the part that the Bush apologists won't quote is the following:

"Our agenda is rooted in hope and real American values — opportunity, integrity, honesty. This is the way to defeat George Bush."

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