Nader is right. These are all good questions. But somehow I believe Obama will be a great President, He makes me feel like I did back in college in 1960 when JFK was running. And after 48 years of the military-corporation ruling class and endless war and corruption, I am going to vote for Obama. The People Yes!

Brilliant insights condensed into a fictional Obama appearance. I'm afraid Mr. Nader is correct. Obama is mostly fluff... vapid drifting fluff like the kind that falls from cottonwood trees and clogs up your window screens in the summer. Where is the "there" in Mr. Obama? There's no "there" there. It's all like an offshoot of that weird cultish thing promoted on Oprah's show. Like everyone is supposed to "manifest" love and goodnesss now that Obama has arrived. That's how we'll solve the world's problems. Through more magical thinking. Meanwhile the same corporate machinations continue unabated just below the surface of American society... undermining our nation, eating us away, hollowing us out from within so the corporate logo can be branded onto our core. So we can forget ourselves completely, forget the aspirational qualities of America, forget the Constitution and the humanistic principles of the Enlightenment, forget forget forget until we find ourselves wondering why no one stopped the work camps, no one stopped the arbitrary arrests, no one stopped the amassing of all power into the executive-corporate branch of the government. Whither America whither have you gone?

Barack is better than Hillary; can't think of anything else to say on his behalf.

i am beginning to think nader is one of the moderators , here. obama promises change , are we certain that is a good thing ?the right wing wanted a return to 'christian' values and got a killing spree of the non-christian. are we sure we want the change obama offers ? personally , i don't think we can handle it . so far , the worst thing on our shores is probably the event of 9/11 .we will not know what kind of change obama is really talking about ,until it is too late... i am betting the left will do no better than the right , and probably much worse.

pax4all , i don't agree.

ah yes, those wonderful years of the Bay of Pigs,
green berets and advisers in Viet Nam,
activating reserves to Germany.
reminds me more of "I Like Ike" and "Time for a Change"
("after 20 years of treason") in 1952 prior to overthrowing
democracies in Iran, Guatemala...or Reagan, as the slaughter
in Central America accelerated...
does anyone ask how we can compensate the people for the
wrongs inflicted on them? screw this feel-good politics
which is just another cover-up.

Luther, snap out of it! Your comment is a neat and nightmarish encapsulation of everything that is wrong with grassroots politics in America. "Somehow" you believe Obama will be a great president? Even though you agree that he hasn't honestly and clearly answered any of the "good questions" in Nader's comment? Really? Huh? Why do we check our brains at the door like this? Why are we so willing to fall for these carny barkers? What the hell is wrong with us?

luthervanummersen - yes, it's all about the way you *feel* dude.

Excellent piece Ralph!

Maybe it's because ther's nothing left to do but laugh to keep from crying, but you should show this witty side more often!

Obama vs Huckabee would be the election of the funny name politicians.

I presume that Luther was being sarcastic...

Wake up. He's popular because Republicans want him to be. They are caucusing for him. They want him to be the nominee. His mentor was Lieberman, need I say more.

atruepatriot. , yes , that is why, barak has gained strength , oprah hasn't hurt either , she is as giddy as a young nubile neophyte=in love..... my esteem level is going up in notches for hillary , as i watch the republican machine scrambling around behind the scenery , pulling the strings to form a noose for poor hillary-believe it or not....

heh-heh

Obama says what he has to say to get elected. If he espoused left-wing policies, the corporate media would fall on him like a ton of bricks. And that is because the election process in the US has become completely broken as the economic and cultural descent has continued.

All the voters can choose in the current USA is a form of lottery ticket, hoping that the candidate is really bamboozling the corporate oligarchy and not the common people, against great odds. Given Obama's past and his racial background, the chances that Obama will doublecross the oligarchy are probably as high or higher than the odds for any other candidate with some prospect of winning (with the possible exception of Edwards), but still are lottery odds.

He makes me feel - giddy! - yes, he-he-he, so, so young and un-baby-boomer-like! I'm voting for Obama! yes! I said it! I feel so *good* now! - hope! change! free beer for everyone!

Barack Obama is going to be President of the United States.

Ralph Nader never will be.

This article shows why.

Nader whines that Obama isn't shooting himself in the foot with a list of talking points loaded with enough specifics that nearly nearly every potential supporter will strongly disagree on some point or other.

That's how Ralph ran his campaigns, and see how well it worked.

As president, Obama will have the opportunity to do some of the things Nader would do if he were president.

If he wins a strong mandate, Obama will be able to do many of the things Nader would do, including really big things that will generate lots of opposition from conservatives and corporations.

So what are you going to do, Ralph?

Act out of spite or out of hope? The choice is yours.

I'll tell you what to do, Ralph. First, support Obama for president. Then, when he's in, help to organize the grassroots movements that will be needed to demand really big changes like single-payer health insurance and nuclear weapons abolition.

Push President Obama and the Democratic Congress from the streets, but first let them get into position to respond to the pressure.

Flashback to 2000

Ralph Nader: "We need to end corporations as we know it!"
Guy 1 "What about all the tens of millions of people who work for corporations?"
Ralph Nader: "They're bad people they work for corporate greed I have no allegiance to their jobs, their livelihoods, their families."
Guy 2 "I am afraid voting for you will lead to a nightmare of a Bush presidency!"
Ralph Nader: "There is no difference at all between Gore & Bush, it is the same thing, the two parties are identical."
Guy 3 "Why are you such a cranky jerk?"
Ralph Nader: "I was born in 1934, so I am an old old old old old old old old man. I don't like newfangled things I don't understand."

Barack Obama is going to be President of the United States? No. He's an inspiring speaker, and I love it that he won the white-bread Iowa caucuses. Race relations usually improve at a snail's pace in this country, but I sense that Obama is a unique kind of breakthrough figure.

That said, he is hopelessly beholden to the very forces that are destroying working families in the U.S. (just as Hillary is -- corporations, insurance cos., banks, etc. etc.) I suppose that's because he thought he couldn't raise enough money without hitting up the plutocrats, but it means I absolutely cannot support him, and Edwards gets my vote.

g50 - all for change? How about a diaper change?

Nader2000, Exactly.

Yeah Nader never did no good for nobody - who is he anyways? Like he's so old man, he don't know nuthin. Whatever. Dude. Were's my gameboy? I'm bored. This is all so, whatever, you know?

Not the first time I've heard "there is no 'there' there" about Obama. This fable is sadly too true. "I'm for change, damn it, trust me!" Just like people trusted Bush to be a "compassionate conservative" (another empty, meaningless phrase, like "audacity of hope.")

The "sheeple" want hope more than they want a fight, and we, the ones paying attention, will end up with President McRomneyBee, and heaven help us.

John Edwards is speaking the truth, truth to power if you want the cliche, but people like the feel-good quality of voting for the empty vessel (the color of which just happens to be a shade darker than the others) and thinking that's "change."

It's good to see so many here can see through Obama. I just wish the word had spread beyond these pages. Here in NH, I will continue to work for John Edwards until the polls close. It's been nice having Hillary take on Edwards' message (talk about or fight for change instead of hope for it) but it's also pathetic to hear her talk about herself as the candidate of change.

Here are some other subjects Obama and the candidates don't discuss because they aren't asked at debates. How would they feel about new workday rules: 12 hours on, 12 hours off. Make it the law. That's an issue that never comes up. I'm writing this on a fourteen hour shift.

Here's another, why not make election day a FORCED HOLIDAY - No sales, no Walmart, nothing, only hospitals and police.

Where's Ralph on these consumer issues?

Obama is campaigning as a feel-good liberal who avoids taking scary positions. For many white voters, he is the anti-Sharpton, which allows them to feel comfortable supporting him. As a political strategy, this makes eminently good sense. Whether or not Obama will revert to his earlier progressive self should he become President is an open question. Personally, I prefer Edwards and Kucinich, but I will give Obama the benefit of the doubt. The election of an African-American President would surely be a watershed event in American history.

Thanks Nader2000, now I finally understand. In order to be a Progressive candidate it is necessary to avoid, at all costs, sounding like a Progressive! It's all clear.

I wish I had known that when Carter and Bill Clinton were running. Little did I know they would implement great left wing policies once they got elected. The left wing policies that most polls show that most Amreicans support.

A Democratic candidate just can't talk about them. We just need to trust that they are, deep down inside, in their heart of hearts, true Populist/Progressives. Just like Jimmy and Bill.

Obama-mania is another bunch of Charlie Browns knowing, for sure, this time, make no mistake, that Lucy is not going to pull the football away. AARRGGHH

>> But somehow I believe

"Faith" isn't the way to vote. You look at the record of their votes on important issues.

Nader has likely saved more lives than Bush has taken out with his wars. That's no small feat, and it requires no "faith" or "hope" or beliefs. He did the work because he saw an injustice.

Saying "I'll make change" is different from making change.

Check this link out at MotherJones and you'll see that ALL the candidates are getting their money primarily from Finance, Real Estate, Insurance companies and Law firms.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/01/campaign-contributions-by-industry.html

Who needs writers for sitcoms when we have Ralph. Obama is no more than a made-for-TV fraud. But as was said above, he's better than Hillery, which says a lot about how much a bigger fraud she is. At Znet today are two items, one by Street, the other by Rothschild, http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=90&ItemID=14670 and http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=90&ItemID=14663

Clinton promised Hope and Change. Bush promised Change and Unity. Obama promises all three. As Nader's piece points out without saying, Obama is like a ballon--empty on the inside.

Major - Making Election Day forced holiday would just give people another excuse for a BBQ and beach day. You can't make anyone vote, I know I have been trying. All I hear is how no matter who you vote for , nothing changes, they do what they want anyway.

I can't say I disagree witht them , I just keep telling them to have hope that one day, one of these people will actually care about the people paying thier salary more that the Corps. lining their pockets.

The concern with Hillary was that she is just god awful, poor leader, a polarizing figure, and a corrupt politician.

The concern with Obama is that it's appearent he is a politician like all the others. But the large concern with him is something we don't really find in any of the other canidates; and that is the fact that he is a great Orrator and Rhetorician. His tone of voice, body language, the rhetorical tactics he uses - all things considered, he's by far the best speaker, one of the best I've seen in quite awhile. And that (and to some extent his looks) goes a long way in influencing people into voting for him - though of course very few will bring themselves to admit they're influenced by it - it's the same attitude as in my field, Market Research, something like 80% of people say Advertising works and is influential, but just not on them; people think everyone else but themselves is influenced by advertising. Political Advertising is no different. As I said before, when a canidate says "I will tax the rich to pay for this," that's not an answer at all; it's a rhetorical glittering generality, propoganda that manipulates the voters.

Thus, it is clear that Obama is nothing more than and elegant political advertiser, and a manipulator of the masses with his cunning Orration and propoganda.

So i'd like to hear what Obama voters think?

Nader has done a lot for this country
Please do not take that away from him

A sports Bar where folks think about stuff?

OK I guess it could happen in a Dream...

Just as a reminder about how politicians that win don't talk about Details and stick to gleaming generalities (sound familiar Ralph?) Look what honesty did for your turnout!

Just remember JFK didn't talk about one thing that he got killed over.

That's politics... and you know that Ralph.

yes , i was kind of gung ho for ron paul for about two weeks , just long enough to get myself in trouble.then i saw him on meet the press and altho i cheered what he had to say , he seemed quite mad, a mad-hatter , a cross between robin williams and howard dean (i do have respect for both williams and dean )but one worries what might happen if they went off their meds or if they don't take meds , a fear that they might start taking them. anyway what was i thinking ..i don't care what color a man is , men have done a piss-poor job of running the world. seraphicmom , i thought that was a funny and perhaps astute observation about nader...there was a poster here at cd awhile back ,that i really enjoyed and looked for her postings and the last thing i saw her post was some very unkind thing about nader , something to the effect that he had sold his soul to the devil , and i have never seen her , again. so , mr. nader you are my favorite human , i loved your article and i wish you were president. p.s. and you are very handsome , too.

The Pied Piper of 'Hope'.
Barack Obama keeps talking about 'hope' to get people to hope he will make things better; lots of people, especially young people, wanting to believe him, are going along.
Talking about hope to get people's hopes up, as a way of getting them to vote for you, may seem clever to some; to people looking for a candidate who will give them good reason to be hopeful, it's just deceitful.
To people looking for change, it's no change.
America is drowning in her own bullshit; not 'simulated drowning', real drowning; if she drowns she'll take the rest of the world with her. Americans need to stop feeding themselves and each other bullshit.
Tell your friends, especially your young friends, in case they don't get it; tell them to sober up, this could be the last chance to save their country.

Thank you again, Ralph Nader!

Quoting directly from Nader's article above:

>>> Guy number three (with an Obama face mask)-"I'm the old Obama, remember me? I was for single-payer, full medicare for everyone. I was strongly for Palestinian rights and for replacing NAFTA and WTO, not for tweaking them. I was for taxing the super-rich and defending class actions. I was for capping credit-card and loan shark interest rates. What happened to me?"

You see, Nader himself knows Obama's strongly progressive roots. Yet he fails to appreciate the need for Obama's current moderate rhetoric in order to get where he needs to be to make any of that real. Instead, he mocks Obama for being an intelligent political strategist:

>>> Obama-"Stay tuned. One leap at a time. We are one people. Get me there first."

Exactly.

Ralph, that was great of you to say good things about Edwards,,,

I think he has a good chance too.

Happy New Year!

edwards sounds great , but i remember bush saying he was against "nation building" and he would help the environmentalists...bush's first day in office he threw out clinton's national park, forests and wildlife protection bills. i just think edwards is a poser. nayoibi , that is interesting , it could be just a coincidence .

All I know is what I see on this screen (not) but I just got this in the Mail :

Judge Him by His Laws
By Charles Peters
Friday, January 4, 2008; A21

People who complain that Barack Obama lacks experience must be unaware of his legislative achievements. One reason these accomplishments are unfamiliar is that the media have not devoted enough attention to Obama's bills and the effort required to pass them, ignoring impressive, hard evidence of his character and ability.

Since most of Obama's legislation was enacted in Illinois, most of the evidence is found there -- and it has been largely ignored by the media in a kind of Washington snobbery that assumes state legislatures are not to be taken seriously. (Another factor is reporters' fascination with the horse race at the expense of substance that they assume is boring, a fascination that despite being ridiculed for years continues to dominate political journalism.)

I am a rarity among Washington journalists in that I have served in a state legislature. I know from my time in the West Virginia legislature that the challenges faced by reform-minded state representatives are no less, if indeed not more, formidable than those encountered in Congress. For me, at least, trying to deal with those challenges involved as much drama as any election. And the "heart and soul" bill, the one for which a legislator gives everything he or she has to get passed, has long told me more than anything else about a person's character and ability.

Consider a bill into which Obama clearly put his heart and soul. The problem he wanted to address was that too many confessions, rather than being voluntary, were coerced -- by beating the daylights out of the accused.

Obama proposed requiring that interrogations and confessions be videotaped.

This seemed likely to stop the beatings, but the bill itself aroused immediate opposition. There were Republicans who were automatically tough on crime and Democrats who feared being thought soft on crime. There were death penalty abolitionists, some of whom worried that Obama's bill, by preventing the execution of innocents, would deprive them of their best argument. Vigorous opposition came from the police, too many of whom had become accustomed to using muscle to "solve" crimes. And the incoming governor, Rod Blagojevich, announced that he was against it.

Obama had his work cut out for him.

He responded with an all-out campaign of cajolery. It had not been easy for a Harvard man to become a regular guy to his colleagues. Obama had managed to do so by playing basketball and poker with them and, most of all, by listening to their concerns. Even Republicans came to respect him. One Republican state senator, Kirk Dillard, has said that "Barack had a way both intellectually and in demeanor that defused skeptics."

The police proved to be Obama's toughest opponent. Legislators tend to quail when cops say things like, "This means we won't be able to protect your children." The police tried to limit the videotaping to confessions, but Obama, knowing that the beatings were most likely to occur during questioning, fought -- successfully -- to keep interrogations included in the required videotaping.

By showing officers that he shared many of their concerns, even going so far as to help pass other legislation they wanted, he was able to quiet the fears of many.

Obama proved persuasive enough that the bill passed both houses of the legislature, the Senate by an incredible 35 to 0. Then he talked Blagojevich into signing the bill, making Illinois the first state to require such videotaping.

Obama didn't stop there. He played a major role in passing many other bills, including the state's first earned-income tax credit to help the working poor and the first ethics and campaign finance law in 25 years (a law a Post story said made Illinois "one of the best in the nation on campaign finance disclosure"). Obama's commitment to ethics continued in the U.S. Senate, where he co-authored the new lobbying reform law that, among its hard-to-sell provisions, requires lawmakers to disclose the names of lobbyists who "bundle" contributions for them.

Taken together, these accomplishments demonstrate that Obama has what Dillard, the Republican state senator, calls a "unique" ability "to deal with extremely complex issues, to reach across the aisle and to deal with diverse people." In other words, Obama's campaign claim that he can persuade us to rise above what divides us is not just rhetoric.

I do not think that a candidate's legislative record is the only measure of presidential potential, simply that Obama's is revealing enough to merit far more attention than it has received. Indeed, the media have been equally delinquent in reporting the legislative achievements of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, both of whom spent years in the U.S. Senate. The media should compare their legislative records to Obama's, devoting special attention to their heart-and-soul bills and how effective each was in actually making law.

Charles Peters, the founding editor of the Washington Monthly, is president of Understanding Government, a foundation devoted to better government through better reporting.

I have nothing but respect and admiration for Mr. Nader. And I agree that there are many serious questions Mr. Obama needs to answer. Unfortunately we Americans don't like our politicians to be too serious about anything. We love our myths and will continue to support them, reality be damned. I will probably vote for Obama because he is a very inspirational speaker and I do believe he has the kind of charisma that can move people to act. All major political movement comes from the bottom up not from the top down. People need to be emotionally engaged. It may not be too late to turn this ship around.

i believe that if we fail to impeach bush/cheney , before they leave office...this ship may sink. seraphicmom , that was what i thought , so i asked a friend of mine to sign up to be a poster , so that he could find out what happened to her . he posted here about a week and then inquired about her and poof , he was an instant casualty in cyberspace. i don't want to make waves ,so sorry i mentioned it , because i like it here..(.please , don't kill me , ralph)- i love you , really i do .. (been taking lessons from our government)

Good one, Ralph! You should bring back "SEINFELD" and write episodes about nothing, since that fits in with most of your activities during the last decade. Obama does indeed consist of empty platitudes, but the best even his worshippers can say about him is that "He's better than Hillary!" Gee, what a record of achievement!

Ralphie-boy, open the window the next time you want to pass gas!

Anyone but those Republicans. Truthfully, I'd love to see a decent person in there unlike Bush and Bush and Reagan. Someone who at least shows a little compassion, a little feeling for people. All of the Democrats seem like decent people. I mean, what choice really do we have. I'm tired of writing letters to the White hOuse. My world view is like diametrically opposed to theirs. they have no room in their hearts for a liberal. hell they didn't even respond when MILLIONS of us marched against the war in Iraq,BEFORE IT BEGAN. One other reason I'm glad it'll either be Edwards or Obama rather than Ms. Clinton. She said if she got the right intelligence...cmon. I'd be proud to have an African American president like Mr. Obama, even if he does sidle up to a few corporations. Thats the reality of power politics

Are all of these Nader slanderers forgetting that in 2000, Bush was actually to the left of Gore on some issues - and never mentioned foreign policy much less a global oil war. Remember VP Gore was already compplicit in the deaths of 0.5 to 1.0 million Iraqis.

With these two choices, damn right I voted for Nader.

Or, on November 6, 2000, did you have some kind or clairvoyant powers?

I look forward to the democrat candidate once again positioning himself in full agreement with whatever looney republican get the nomination - all in the name of doing away with "partisanship". What a laughable FARCE!!!

news tonite, republican machine already projecting obama/mccain as winners...........any evil fool can deliver a beautiful speech....any evil fool can lie and sound sincere...but the unguarded and emotional real hillary i heard today, cannot be faked.congratulations , you are gonna do it again , and your monster is gonna be worse than the right wing monster...cause now, with two wings , right and left this beast is really gonna soar. i don't care if you tear my words apart , i'm gonna tell you , hillary has been playing ball with the devil , to try to help us....

Rico, well, you better be ready to march again when Obama invades Pakistan and perhaps, Iran.

Obama seems to falsify the status quo by repeatedly stating that "The US senate is now divided & I am going to unify all of them". What in reality we have is a unity that cuts across both party ranks when it comes to supporiting the corporating kleptocracy, supporting war in Iraq, marginalizing the poor and the middle classes. Where does Obama see a division in the ruling powers?

What we need indeed is a house divided - between the incumbent rulers who have sanctified corporate kleptocracy & war histeria at the expense of the american commoners & a new body of elected representative who can stand agaist those vested interests. So far, Obama has not measured up to the latter.

Hari

Hari

Republicans are secretly supporting Osama since they know he will be defeated and their guy will win.

I just have to say as an independent voter who is still weighing the Democratic field: I can't believe the shallow depth at which Nader(who I voted for), Michael Moore and most people on here discuss candidates. Why doesn't everyone take 3-4 hours and do some research outside of reading daily kos, commondreams and whatever news articles.
I think it is very dangerous just to base your vote on one issue like the war...That displays the same level of thought as those folks in kansas who went to the polls to persecute homosexuals...then vote for bush
Look into this:
Overall Obama has a more liberal voting record than Kucinich! (basically a statistically meaningless difference)
How do we know that Kucinich has not swung to the far left simply to claim a slice of progressive fame? He used to be pro-life.
Do you really think Edwards is going to "fight" the corporations? The reason wealth continues to prevail, is because the middle class and lower classes are divided (red,blue) we will never properly regulate and tax the elite until we lower classes quick bickering about diversion issues like cultural wars.
Edwards has a abysmal rating from the league of conservation voters. (which is consistent with that clear-cut where he placed his sprawling mansion with 10 bathrooms) do you really trust this guy, a populist talker living in a huge mansion? You will just take him at his word?
Barack has a 100% score from LOCV and Hillary is in the 90's.

Thoughts?

More Poli-beers all around! Everyone is drunk on image, terrified of taking on reality. Yeah, Yeah Change! Yeah, Yeah Rahm Emmanuel!

Gravel, Kucinich, Paul. So the rest of us don't have to deal with your hangover in the morning.