NO, NADER, NO

Ralph Nader has declared his candidacy for president of the United States. His run in 2000 is widely credited with taking votes from Al Gore and handing the presidency to George Bush, and Nader is notoriously credited with claiming that the two were so similar -- “Tweedledum and Tweedledee” -- that it didn’t matter which one got elected.

Jonathan Chait, of The New Republic, noted in 2002 that Nader has believed such things for a long time. He quotes Nader as saying about the 1980 election that “The two-party system, by all criteria, is bankrupt -- they have nothing of any significance to offer the voters, so a lot of voters say why should they go and vote for Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”

Chait dryly reminded his readers that the race that year was between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

There are, of course, tremendous differences between the past and current candidates, and for Nader to say otherwise goes beyond rhetoric into lunacy. That he is running again shows he is unrepentant and even further out of touch with reality. He has no voter base, with even Howard Dean making it clear on Feb. 18 that he “will not run as an independent or third-party candidate [and] urge my supporters not to be tempted to support any effort by any other [such] candidate. The bottom line is that we must beat George W. Bush in November --whatever it takes.”

With that, Dean went a great distance toward redeeming himself with the Democratic party, while Nader, in the aftermath of his 2000 run merely reinforced his pointlessly renegade status.

Radio Free Mike has a bitingly poetic take on the situation. For more literal ammunition against a man who seems to hold the same positions not just since 1980 but -- incredibly -- since 9/11, consider the following Feb. 18, 2001, interview with Nader in the Times’ Week in Review section:

Q. Are you watching this presidency with fear and trepidation?

A. The same decision makers under Clinton-Gore are operating under Bush-Cheney. They’re all over the place and they’ve always been all over the place. We’re talking about the politicians taking their orders from corporate paymasters.

Q. So you really believe that the two parties are the same?

A. Yes, on most issues. On the most basic issues of cordoning power from people as voters, consumers and taxpayers, they’ve very similar. Look at the massive mergers that went on during Clinton-Gore. GATT, Nafta, corporate crime, corporate welfare -- the same.

Q. You kept calling Gore and Bush Tweedledee and Tweedledum during the campaign. So you still think there’s hardly any difference between the two?

A. On most issues. In foreign policy, the Commerce Department, agriculture, criminal justice, defense, the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and even most of the regulatory agencies.

Q. Do you think Gore would have appointed John Ashcroft attorney general?

A. No. He wouldn’t have appointed Ashcroft. But the Justice Department under Clinton-Gore has been horrendous. Their litigation enforcement rate is lower than the administration before them on illegal police violence and affirmative action. Environmental crimes prosecution is down more than 25 percent under Clinton-Gore than it was during the Reagan-Bush administration. This surprises a lot of people, but it’s true. Only in housing anti-discrimination enforcement were they better. The similarities regarding the concentration of corporate power over our government tower over the dwindling differences between the two parties. . . .

Q. And abortion?

A. They differ on abortion. But I don’t believe that Roe v. Wade is going to be overturned. And both parties condone the criminal injustice system, corporate prisons, the death penalty, the failed war on drugs.

Q. Guns?

A. On guns they’re different, but not that different. We’ll put guns in the column of a real difference. But are they that different on corporate armament? That’s what the frightened liberals don’t think about. They think that the five issues that the two parties differ on are the only ones. They’re different on abortion. And on forest regulation they’re very different. But the way I look at it, I make a list of all the departments and check where they differ. The F.A.A. has been asleep for eight years. OSHA’s been asleep. The F.D.A. There’s no difference. So that’s the way really to rigorously support the conclusion that on most of the issues involving the corporate takeover of elections and the weakening of democracy, the two parties are humming along on parallel tracts, moving to the marching orders of the corporate paymasters.