Pennsylvania Democrats Want Nader to Pay for Bush’s Election

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/11/2460/

Pennsylvania Democrats Want Nader to Pay for Bush’s Election
by Maria Recio

WASHINGTON - Ralph Nader, the independent presidential candidate Democrats love to hate, is afraid that Pennsylvania authorities trying to dun him for $61,000 are about to freeze his personal bank account.

Nader ran into a buzz saw when he tried to get on the Pennsylvania ballot in 2004 as an independent presidential candidate.

Democratic activists kept him off the ballot, beat him in court for turning in fraudulent signatures his campaign had collected and are on the verge of getting officials in his home city of Washington to attach his assets.

Nader, who’s contemplating a 2008 run, claims that the smell of politics permeates the conflict. Democrats in the Keystone State blame him for tilting the 2000 election to George W. Bush.

T.J. Rooney, chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said that the mention of Nader’s name sent his blood pressure up 50 points. Told of the judgment against Nader, Rooney laughed.

“I think that’s great,” he said. “You’re goddamned right he should pay, and he should go away, because he didn’t learn his lesson in 2000.”

more...

[still_one]

1. Let me preface this by saying I cannot stand Nader, however

is he being treated as every other candidate?

Nader has every right to run as anyone else, and if people are stupid enough to vote for him then they will get the candidates they least desire

[pnwmom]

3. He doesn't have the right to deliberately turn in fraudulent signatures.

Nobody does.

And from what I recall, the fraud was pretty blatant.

[BridgeTheGap]

6. Did Nader personally turn them in?

ACORN caught flack from the freepers for the same thing. You can't control the people out doing the registrations.

[pnwmom]

11. When you pay people by the signature and give them very tight deadlines

you're looking for trouble.

His campaign had an obligation to check over the petitions before sending them in. Two thirds of the names on them had to be tossed.

And his campaign had warnings -- one of his staff observed petition gatherers writing on each other's petitions, and told them to stop. So they knew this kind of thing could happen.

[still_one]

12. I didn't say that. /nt

[BridgeTheGap]

2. I know a number of people

in different states, who are Dems and voted for Nader where Gore had no chance of winning BECAUSE Nader's position on issues more closely reflected their own. That said, Nader should have kept his word in 2000 and not campaigned in battleground states.
As I heard Dennis Kucinich say in 2004:"I've had members of congress come to me distraught over the fact that a green party candidate was running against them. I tell them: it's simple, take on their issues and they're no longer a threat!"

[pnwmom]

5. If you become a Nader clone, he is no longer a threat (supposedly).

So you don't have to worry about him running and taking 3% of the votes away.

Instead, you lose the 48% of voters who would NEVER vote for a Ralph Nader type.

[BridgeTheGap]

7. What issues that Nader stands for do you think

turn people off in such large numbers?
I find most people don't support him because that don't think he has a chance in hell of winning, even those that agree with what he is saying. People say the same thing about Kucinich - they really like what he is saying, agree with him BUT won't vote for him because he has no chance.
I wonder how Kucinich would do if all those people voted for him any way.

[pnwmom]

9. He's righteous, rigid, and remote.

And willing to sacrifice the whole country's well being for the sake of showing off his power.

Other than that, he's great.

[BridgeTheGap]

14. I have met him twice and did not find him to be

either rigid or remote - righteous, yeah...willing to sacrifice the country - yeah.
But the people who vote for Nader are not voting for him because of his personality but because of his stand on a number of issues, the primary one being corporate, monied interests control of campaigns and government (through contributions and lobbying).
The Dem Party (of which I'm a member) has a hierarchy that is part and parcel of "the problem."
I choose to try and generate change from within the Dem party. I catch hell for that.
Attacking Nader is getting sucked into the whole "cult of personality" phenomenon rather than looking deeper to find the causes of vexing problems.

[pnwmom]

16. His personality would be as important as his stands if he were

President. If you can't get along with people, you shouldn't be President. I don't know in what situation you met him, but he has had falling outs with many many people who were close to him. More here (Salon):

http://www.hereinstead.com/DARK-SIDE-OF-RALPH.htm

While Nader's legacy as a consumer advocate is unparalleled, it is worth noting that the onetime national hero wasn't celebrating his landmark birthday surrounded by the hundreds of people he has worked with and influenced over four decades. Indeed, virtually no one who worked with him since the heady days of Nader's Raiders is supporting him politically or personally today. He has inspired almost no loyalty and instead has alienated many of his closest associates. The estrangement between Nader and many of his former intimates is not a new phenomenon; it's not the result of his ruinous campaign for president in 2000; it dates back to his earliest days as a public figure.

Dozens of people who have worked with or for Nader over the decades have had bitter ruptures with the man they once respected and admired. The level of acrimony is so widespread and acute that it's impossible to dismiss those involved as disgruntled former employees, disillusioned leftists or self-seeking turncoats. Usually it was Nader himself who ratcheted up what was often just a parting of ways into professional warfare and vitriolic personal attacks.

While Nader continues to campaign against corporate abuse, his own record, according to many of those who have worked closely with him, is characterized by arrogance, underhanded attacks on friends and associates, secrecy, paranoia and mean-spiritedness -- even at the expense of his own causes. If he were a corporate CEO, subject to the laws governing publicly held and federally regulated firms, there can be little doubt he would have been removed long ago by his company's board of directors.

SNIP

___________________________________________________________________________

The type of personality that is described above is that of a narcissist -- attention seeking, unable to take criticism, needing to strike back when facing anything perceived as abandonment. We currently have a major narcissist in the WH. The last thing we need is another one.

[BridgeTheGap]

18. Well, there's not a chance in hell that he'll EVER get elected president

so no worry there!
I'm sure there were a few times that Hillary thought Bill was a real asshole too!

[pnwmom]

4. Here's an interesting point of view, from a petition checker:

http://www.votelaw.com/blog/archives/002436.html

"I volunteered to review Nader's petitions in PA. The level of fraud we found was appalling. My first task was going through the petitions for Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), looking signers up in the phone book, and calling them to verify whether they knew what they had signed. Less than half of the people I reached even realized the petition had anything to do with Nader.

"If that sounds weird, keep in mind that Nader's campaign printed up a bunch of hard-to-read petitions (tiny font, single-spaced wall of text, only 6 signature lines on the first page so the rest of the petition didn't have ANYTHING saying what it was about). Then they hired a bunch of students and homeless people to get signatures, offering them $1/signature--they put ads up saying "STUDENTS! EARN $200 DAY!" --but as the students and homeless people discovered, the only way to earn anywhere near that much was to lie about what the petition was about.

"Of the petition signers I called, more than half of them were anywhere from surprised or outraged that their name was on a pro-Nader petition. They told me the petition circulators had said things like, "Sign here to help the environment," "sign here to beat Bush," "Sign here to verify that you're a registered voter," etc. The worst one I heard was from a union steamfitter who told me that he had had the following exchange with the petition circulator:
Circulator - "Are you a registered voter?"
Steamfitter - "Heck yeah, I'm a Democrat!"
Circulator - "Great! Sign here to block Nader this November!"

"But it's not even just about fraud on the part of the petition circulators. People at Nader's campaign HQ routinely went through petitions and filled in any missing information -- such as city and state, or date of signature -- that signers frequently left out; they even wrote in made-up first names where people had written only their initials. Under PA law the petition signer has to write all the information or else the signature is invalid; but at Nader HQ they didn't seem to mind committing FRAUD if it helped their candidate get his greasy paws on PA taxpayers' money (which is the only reason he wants on the ballot--he knows as well as anyone else that his supporters can write his name in if they want to.)"

SNIP

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

8. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! ROFLMAO!!!!!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[BlooInBloo]

10. FUCK THAT! It's the FUCKWIPES who voted for him!

[ShaneGR]

13. He turned in fake signatures and cost the State that money....

He should have to pay for it.

[KAT119]

15. Nader has Karma to Pay, imo....

[WinkyDink]

17. I've met T.J. PA. Dems ROCK, baybay!

[TahitiNut]

19. It's easier to blame another person than do a better job, I guess.

The rhetoric is almost identical to a sheepherder accusing a rustler. The "entitlement" partisans seem to regard votes like sheep ... owned by the herders. It's really quite sad, imho. For a nation that claims to be a democracy, there sure isn't a whole lot of respect for the authority of "We The People" as sovereigns over their own votes.