Conspiracy theories, like scapegoating, are tactics we on the left really don't need to be appropriating from the conservatives in this country.

Ralph Nader may have made a pact with Satan himself, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be allowed to run for president.

Now, I'm a very strong Obama supporter, and I really hope that people who consider voting Nader take a long, hard look at Obama first.

But that doesn't mean Nader shouldn't run, or that he had anything to do with Gore losing in 2000. Gore lost all on his own.

We Democrats need to grow up already, and stop indulging in undemocratic scapegoating of third party candidates. If Nader wants to run, so be it. We'd do better to spend our time proving that our candidate is a vastly stronger choice, rather than indulging in weak-sauce conspiracy theories like this.

Then again, Conason's been Nader-baiting ever since his beloved Gore lost in 2000.

I am getting on in years. I am no longer a woman of a certain age. I am actually (gasp) almost elderly. I still have a lot of the gray matter I started out with but not all.

That said, there ought to be an age limit for running for President of the United States. It wouldn't have to be a number but rather it ought to depend on a fMRI and the finding that there is only minimial and expected damage typical of a healthy ageing brain. I think both McCain and Nader are beyond that threshhold and Nader, especially, is way, way beyond that threshhold.

I think the American people are entitled to know that the POTUS is not in the early stages of senile dementia. The late Ronald Reagan was not sick when he began his first term and only showed symptoms late in the second so it has nothing to do with chronological age. Rather, it is a matter of knowing whether our chief executive has brain damage. I'm not sure George Bush would pass given his alcohol and drug history but certainly a person over 70 ought to be asked the question. Too much depends on the judgement of the President, not only at time of election but all the way through.

is that Nader believes his own hype. (I mean, I guess even Hitler thought he was a good guy). But Nader has created an unintended self-parody of himself, and has in effect ended any real chance he could make a meaningful difference in American life.

PNTR and NAFTA, both have resulted in fewer mfg jobs in the US. This has hit union workers particularly hard.

billary supported both.

Nader strongly opposed both. His warnings regarding those trade agreements were accurate.

Obama and billary offer nothing to those stung by cheap overseas labor.

This is a big issue. joe conason didn't even mention it. Union workers were bamboozled by the clintons.

It's corporate money Nader is opposed to, not money from private donors who may also have given money to another party. The purpose of corporate money is to influence policy. The purpose of Republican money is to fund a spoiler. You may not like the difference, but it's there.

I was listening to this 18-year old Obama fanatic going on and on about Nader the other day, when it occurred to me this kid was TEN YEARS OLD during the 2000 election. The only George Bush he knows is the disaster in the White House, and the only Al Gore he knows is the environmental Nobel rock star. That's not what it looked like in 2000. While Al was uninspiring, George just seemed fumbling and incompetent, but in a "folksy" sorta way. They both campaigned toward the center, and shared enough planks in their platforms to make Nader's platform salient and appealing.

It's not like Ralph Nader was the ONLY reason Gore lost Florida. There were butterfly ballots and dirty Roveian tactics - including posters in minority neighborhoods advertising the incorrect day for Election Day and warning people that they will not be able to vote if they have any outstanding debts (including rent and credit debt or parking fees) - which also cost Florida Democratic votes. So while Ralph Nader may seem an easy target, you could also point your finger at these dirty partisan tricks from the Right, not to mention all the other third party candidates who also got more votes than the 500 or so that separated Bush and Gore, triggering the recount.

But let's no worry about all that. Pitchforks at the ready! That Nader!! Oooh, what an ego!!!

It's not exactly a "conspiracy theory" to discuss Ralph Nader's increasing financial support from the GOP. If Obama or Clinton was accepting a lot of fnancical help from corproate GOP bigwigs, I kind of think that would be worth discussing, too, don't you?

Nader isn't some fragile untouchable who lives in an egg shell and makes anyone who examines his actual practices-- versus the rhetoric he offers-- a "hater." He's a politician.

It's an old story. What happens with many politicians is that they have a good and strong and noble idea. And they try and sell that idea, and it doesn't get as far as where they want it to go. So they take a little help from some dubious sources here and there-- it couldn't hurt, could it? And it'll help sell that noble idea? And then, that doesn't get them as far as they wanted to go, either. So then they take a little more help. And a little more. And, not so suddenly, their campaign, which still has as its basis a noble idea, is now also intricately entangled with favors and obligations and people you have to be nicer to than you once planned. And so you're out there on the campaign stump selling that noble idea, while behind the scenes you're taking an awful lot of help from people who represent the antithesis to that idea you once had. And it suddenly starts to be apparent that you're not very different than the kinds of politicians you went into politics to criticize: those that have one public face, while doing something quite different behind-the-scenes.

That ain't "conspiracy theory," that's probably the oldest story in politics. Particularly for the politicians who think it'll never happen to them. Unless you're genuinely a cultist, there's nothing about Ralph Nader that renders him immune from that potential scenario, and his actions ought to be examined.

It's an extremely relevant question as to whether Nader lives by the principles he espouses. I, for one, don't "hate" Nader supporters: I think they often are idealists with a noble idea of weeding corruption out of the system. But some of them have obviously begun to confuse Nader himself with that original noble idea. Nader's a person. People don't always fulfill our hopes or truly represent what they once did. If Nader is preaching about corruptions in the two party system, while allowing one of those parties to help fund his campaign, I think it's time to seriously discuss whether the messenger still adequately represents the message, or if he's another in a long line of political idealists who slowly let themselves slip away from their original ethics.

If anything, what the left needs is a young upstart who takes on Nader from the point of that original noble idea, and not where Nader sits today. If the Green Party wants to be a real party instead of a cult of personality movement where Nader is King, then let's see some young idealist challenge "daddy" for the nomination. Some people posting here offer some pretty respectable views about the problems in the two party system. Why is it always Nader who has to represent you on this? Your ethics may currently be purer than his. Why not take him on and live by the idea, not the person? It can't be "well, Nader's the one with the money and the power and the public access, so he's the one who has to run"-- that's a root of the very ideas an idealist would challenge. Where's the young gun who's going to stand for the idea and not the person?