Unsafe in Any Election Cycle: Nader Proposes a Buffet of Leftist Challengers to Obama

Just when you thought Ralph Nader had run out of ways to deliver wins to the GOP, he unveils the Legion of Super Loonies:

Nader proposes to assemble a large group of Democratic candidates to take Obama to task on a variety of issues.

The press would ignore one lesser-known candidate, Nader told The Daily Caller, but an unorthodox “slate” of candidates would attract more attention.

“So you have to have several people of distinguished backgrounds — different distinguished backgrounds — run as a slate in various primaries so that he can’t ignore someone who has a military-foreign policy background, environmental background, poverty-labor background. See what I mean?” Nader explained.

Sounds like Ralph himself, Wes Clark (or a reasonable facsimile) and the Ghost of Joe Hill. But what about a Former-PUMA Hockey Mom Veteran Who Hates Fur and Has a Mortgage That’s Underwater? Or a Folk-Singing Boilermaker Who Quotes Korzybski and Can Prove That “America” is Just a Psycholinguistic Construct? I mean, in terms of Far-Left archetypes, Ralph is barely scratching the surface.

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 09/02/11 at 11:39 AM • Permalink

Categories: Politics • Election '12 • Barack Obama • Manic Progressives •

Share this post:

It’s going to be a looooooooooooooooooooong silly season, isn’t it? I propose they just dig up FDR and be done with it.

Comment by asiangrrlMN on 09/02/11 at 12:25 PM

Nader? Again?!?! Fool me how many times?

Comment by StringonaStick on 09/02/11 at 12:29 PM

Time to put old Ralph in a Corvair and send him down the road.

Comment by Maude on 09/02/11 at 12:35 PM

Well, if Nader has his way, we know there won’t be anyone representing those pesky irrelevant “gonadal politics,” right, Ralphie Boy?

Comment by Oblomova on 09/02/11 at 12:42 PM

Nader, an environmental advocate who ran as a Green Party candidate for president in 2000, offered high praise for protesters holding a daily vigil outside the White House against the Keystone XL “tar sands” pipeline from Canada.

“It’s going to become a historic marker in the history of environmental activities,” he proclaimed.

He’ll be joining the protests soon, Nader said, but he won’t join the growing list of well-known Americans arrested for a sit-in.

“No. I’m a writer, like you,” he said.

*wipes coffee off screen*

Comment by YAFB on 09/02/11 at 01:04 PM

Nader pissing on his legacy again. Did he not tarnish that legacy enough the last time?

Comment by Anya on 09/02/11 at 01:14 PM

After the hideous time I just had on Twitter fighting with Oliver Willis who has gone all firebagger, I would say that the primo bloggers should all get behind Nader’s initiative.

Markos, KangroX, didby, Atrios, Oliver, etc are all on the same “Obama is a pussy” rant today.

Comment by gimmeabreak on 09/02/11 at 01:25 PM

Well, I stand with Sir Charles at Cogitamus...

I think if Perry is the nominee that Obama basically starts the election with Kerry’s states pretty much in his pocket. Look at those states and see if you disagree—is there a one in which you see Perry having a great deal of appeal? From there, Obama just has to put together one, in the case of Florida, or a couple of the other states he took in 2008—Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada in order to win.

Now I could be wrong. The economy looks to remain abysmal enough through 2012 that it should preclude victory for an incumbent president. But here is what I think has changed a great deal in the last 30 years. From 1966 until relatively recently, the culture wars worked for the GOP—both because it mobilized their base and because middle of the road voters tended not to care.

I think that has changed. I think that changes in demographics and societal attitudes—see e.g. gay marriage—have now made the religious and social extremism of the Republican base a genuine liability in large parts of the country. Throw in the attacks on popular programs like Social Security and Medicare—a tough sell in Florida methinks—the usual casual racism against Blacks and Latinos, the ugly homophobia, and the ultimate indifference toward the unemployed, and I see a party that is going to have a hard time closing the deal with the American electorate—even in a dismal economy.

Comment by Davis X. Machina on 09/02/11 at 02:38 PM

Markos, KangroX, didby, Atrios, Oliver, etc are all on the same “Obama is a pussy” rant today.

And this differs from every other day, um, how?

Comment by Mr. Whipple on 09/02/11 at 02:58 PM

I feel bad about Oliver. He’s a nice guy. He just doesn’t get that 12,000 potential premature ozone deaths don’t mean shit to the 14 million (more like 30 million, including the terminally unemployed) folks who are starting to think of premature death as a practical retirement plan.

Comment by StrangeAppar8us on 09/02/11 at 03:08 PM

Nader/Palin 2012. All the irrelevant whinging bullshit in one distasteful basket.

Comment by Hunger Tallest Palin on 09/02/11 at 03:42 PM

I feel bad about Oliver. He’s a nice guy.

Likewise, but I started feeling bad for him when I found out his site has the most tiresome trolls imaginable.

Comment by Xecky Gilchrist on 09/02/11 at 03:54 PM

It’s a horrible place now, Xecky. I just scanned a few threads today. A lot of Lib blogs are indistinguishable from Free Republic now, at least in the comment sections.

Comment by StrangeAppar8us on 09/02/11 at 04:08 PM

Markos, KangroX, didby, Atrios, Oliver, etc are all on the same “Obama is a pussy” rant today.

What each would have done in Obama’s place:

Markos - would have declared himself King Of America (he is already the self-professed King of the Hispanic vote) and ordered Boehner to be put to death by forcing the Ohio Oompa Loompa to read read one of his excremental books.

KangroX - have no idea who this person is, and would like it to remain that way.

Digby - would have slit his/her/it’s wrists the first time Joe Lieberman/Ben Nelson/Olympia Snowe demanded input into any bill. Would currently be pining for the fjords.

Atrios - would have sentenced the entire Congress to death by SUPERTRAINS! when Paul Krugman failed to get Senate confirmation as Treasury Secretary. Now without a Congress to legislate things, would currently be trying to turn entire country into an Urban Hellhole, using the magic of SUPERTRAINS!

O-dub - would have quit 6 months into term after deciding that’s it’s more fun to sit in his basement taking pot shots on the intertrons and eating take-out pizza than trying to get shit done. Come to think of it, that’s a good for every one of the fuckwits I listed above. Ignore what is written above.

And now for something completely different…..

Comment by Hunter Gathers on 09/02/11 at 06:31 PM

Wasn’t Markos one of the “dumb motherfuckers” like Ed Schultz, Taylor Marsh, etc. who used to be a Republican or “Reagan Republican” or whatever-the-fuck people who voted for the Gipper call themselves? Why the fuck does anybody care what he says, given that he helped create the decades-long clusterfuck of conservative control in this country by being a dumb motherfucker looking for emotional validation from a Daddy-Substitute Prez? Or did he just really, really think Reagan had smart policy initiatives to offer?

Quick, Kos - name a legislative or electoral gate that you PERSONALLY have crashed en route to lining your media-maven pockets. Can’t do it? Then this lifelong Democrat, feminist, and liberal invites you and the rest of your do-nothing whiny ilk to imbibe a nice hot cup of STFU. Don’t choke on it. Or do. Makes no difference to me.

Comment by Oblomova on 09/02/11 at 06:57 PM

Oh and Kos? Thanks for working on Henry Hyde’s re-election in 1988. As a pro-choice feminist, that earns you a place in my version of hell forever. Hint: It involves giving Karl Rove tongue baths.

Comment by Oblomova on 09/02/11 at 07:00 PM

I feel bad about Oliver. He’s a nice guy.

Likewise, but I started feeling bad for him when I found out his site has the most tiresome trolls imaginable.

At Oliver’s latest post (Air Still Dirty, All Obama’s Fault or something like that), someone named Jen7 starts out by saying that this is why she’s staying home next November and refusing to vote.

When someone points out that this is how you get Republicans elected, she huffs “Tell that to my son when he coughs up a lung.”

As though her son’s lungs would stay healthier under a Republican administration.

Comment by MaryRC on 09/02/11 at 08:30 PM

As though her son’s lungs would stay healthier under a Republican administration.

Exactly.

Comment by marindenver on 09/02/11 at 08:34 PM

So what would Jen7-Bales-Short-of-a-Load say to somebody else’s daughter who can’t get an abortion—even in cases of rape and incest—once Rick Perry’s SCOTUS tears up Roe v. Wade? Silly question—she obviously only cares about HER EgoSpawn and HER Fee-Fees!

Comment by Oblomova on 09/02/11 at 08:35 PM

So what would Jen7-Bales-Short-of-a-Load say to somebody else’s daughter who can’t get an abortion

An inability to empathize is a completely non-partisan failing.

I had someone on DU recently tell me that if you could only get an UI extension, and the extension of the Bush-era income tax cuts at the expense of extending them for the rich, that it was o.k. with them for people to go hungry and suffer and lose their houses, so long as he got to stick it to the rich.

Like the rich’d even notice. And like the people he’s never met now sleeping on their brother-in-law’s enclosed porch care.