Ralph Nader is thinking about running for president again

Posted 50 weeks 1 day ago by Joel

So: Ralph Nader may run for president again.

I'll admit, my first reaction upon seeing this was this: Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!

My second reaction: Feh.

Here's the thing: The people who voted for Nader in 2000 -- and thus gave George W. Bush the presidency -- were by and large voting against the Democrats. They were liberals who came out of the Clinton presidency thinking he'd governed more or less exactly as a Republican would've.

To some extent, that's true. The economic policies of the leading Democrats may be left of the Republican approach, but they're not that different. Hillary Clinton is proposing restoring the old (under her husband) tax rate of roughly 39 percent. Right now it's 35 percent. As she pointed out in the New York Times a few days ago, there was a time in this country that the top tax rate was closer to 70 percent. So the leading Democrats are hardly socialist, and given the public-private partnerships they envision in their health plans, they're only barely collectivist.

But there's nobody -- except the most deluded fringe voters -- who thinks the last eight years wouldn't have been significantly different under a Gore presidency. Would we be in Iraq right now? Let's call that one doubtful.

Thanks to the Bush presidency, voters on the left have a much clearer understanding that there are important differences between the parties ... even if those differences aren't as big or sharp, sometimes, as they'd like.

So let Ralph run. He'll probably pick up a few votes, but they'll probably be votes that wouldn't have gone to the Democrats anyway.