Inuzuka Skysword

Ron Paul! Ron Paul! Ron Paul!

WaspStar

That's why I plan to vote for Nader (if he's not on the ballot here in PA, then I'll cast my vote for the Socialist or some other third party candidate). Two songs come to mind; the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" and, more relevantly, Magazine's "Shot By Both Sides."

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"This sure doesn't look like 'Crazy Ernie's Amazing Emporium of Total Bargain Madness!'"

COBHCNick

Nader? You've gotta be joking. He only runs because he gets kickbacks from the GOP for taking away potential votes for democrats.

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Blooddrunk!

Inuzuka Skysword

Nader easily beats McCain and Obama.

Sparky

not when it comes to actually winning

sleepy jack

Well he thinks Nixon and Reagan were fantastic so it shouldn't be too hard to guess.

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Son of JayJamJah

Are you speaking on my behalf now little fella?

@ Matious...

To answer the question, Perot was impressive, I really like Ron Paul as a concept, but not sure he has what it takes to make his vision reality. Most candidates are by default hapless, handicapped by party restraints.

I am easy to figure out, the more freedom, the better. I prefer, though i don't know how to get there, a government that is involved only with national defense, criminal detainment and minimal flat income tax collection no higher then 25%, preferably around 10%. Leave the rest up to the people and private enterprise. Both the republicans and democrats are rapidly moving away from this concept.

Son of JayJamJah

This is of course...sarcasm...?

COBHCNick

You didn't know that Nader gets money from the GOP in support of his campaign? He acknowledges it himself, and when confronted about it on a radio show basically all he said was "Republicians are human beings too" which doesn't really answer why.

Nader's vice presidential running-mate Peter Camejo told a Chronicle reporter that the campaign would consider returning money from Republicans hoping to help Bush against Kerry: "We don't want that money."

Days later, Camejo flip-flopped, telling the same reporter: "It is conceivable that pro-Bush, pro-Republicans believe we have a right to be on the ballot. We will not establish lie detector tests for people who give us money."

I like Ron Paul, he has sound outstanding ideas. But some of his are so nutty and far from reality, it pushes away potential voters. Like going back to the gold standard...I mean really, we don't have enough gold in the world to go back to that. And overturning Roe vs Wade is way too radical right wing for me.

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Blooddrunk!

Son of JayJamJah

@ Cobhcnick

If you listen long enough you'll hear everyone suggest every hair brained scenario imaginable. You have to decide for yourself what seems reasonable and what seems like hyperbole or outright fallacy. In two searches I was able to find a report contradicting your claims as well as this counter claim:

Ralph Nader and Democratic Candidate John Kerry held a widely publicized meeting early in the 2004 Presidential campaign, which Nader described in An Unreasonable Man. Nader said that John Kerry wanted to work to win Nader's support and the support of Nader's voters. Nader then provided more than 20 pages of issues that he felt were important and he "put them on the table" for John Kerry. According to Nader the issues covered topics ranging from environmental, labor, healthcare, tax reform, corporate crime, campaign finance reform and various consumer protection issues.

Nader reported that he asked John Kerry to choose any 3 of the issues and highlight them in his campaign and if Kerry would do this, he would refrain from the race. Several months passed and Kerry failed to adopt any of Nader's issues as benchmarks of his campaign, so on February 22, 2004, Nader announced on NBC that he would indeed run for president as an independent, saying, "There's too much power and wealth in too few hands."

Paying Nader not to run — Nader also reported in the documentary An Unreasonable Man that many wealthy Democratic donors offered to give money to his public interest groups if he declined to run, however, none of these groups would go a step further to guarantee that his issues would get a fair hearing in Washington. Nader replied, "why should I spend all of your money working on issues that are just going to run into a brick wall in Washington?"


The fact that people are willing to vote for candidates they know won't win suggests maybe the major candidates are not meeting expectations.