Democrats demonstrate hypocrisy with Nader

Well, in case you were wondering the “Green Monster” is back. No, I’m not talking about Fenway Park – and let’s face it, the only thing that park will be seeing is Alex Rodriguez’s baseballs hitting off the side of it. Ralph Nader has announced he will run for president in 2004 on a third-party ticket. Now for any true-blue Massachusetts liberal, and Red Sox fan, this has to have been a horrible month. First A-Rod and now Nader? If I were the Boston police, I would definitely be stationing a suicide watch along the Charles River. However, as much as I want to regale you with connections of baseball and politics, I’d much rather talk about Nader as a sign of the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party. Let me first get something out of the way – I do not like or agree with the positions of Nader and feel he would make a horrible president. With all that said, no one should tell an American citizen whether they have the right or duty to run for public office. I mention this because Terry McAuliffe and the rest of the Democratic Party seem to be throwing a hissy fit of gargantuan proportions. The Drudge Report has the Nader story under the link “Back to Crash the Party.” I have this image of John Kerry throwing some second grade temper tantrum as the “evil” Nader comes along and smashes up his favorite toy. Are these guys even adults? No, as I alluded to before, they are not adults, they are hypocrites.Close your eyes and think back for a second – heck, do this while in class, you’ll blend in with all the other people sleeping – to 1992. Remember Ross Perot? No? OK, let’s try this. Remember Dana Carvey playing Perot? OK, good, at least we have that going for us. In 1992 Perot broke onto the scene and captured many of the conservative, or mildly conservative base, of George H. W. Bush. Now I don’t seem to remember the Democratic Party crusading against his campaign. I don’t remember the DNC party head saying of Perot that, “It’s very unfortunate that Ross decided to run.There are people all over the country wishing he hadn’t done it.” That was the statement by McAuliffe, who has been trying to convince Nader not to run, on Nader’s decision.Now imagine the outcry the media would’ve given if the Republicans had done this in 1992. There’d have been cries that the GOP was trying to squelch democracy, and they were a party of the elites afraid of the “little man.” They would be accused of underhanded tactics, which would spawn reports on 20/20, 60 Minutes and whatever other shows have numbers in their titles, on how the right-wing is anti-democracy. Instead, the media has almost harped along right with the Democratic Party. They’ve jumped all over Nader, just like they did in 2000. I remember a Katie Couric interview in which she asked how bad Nader felt for stealing votes from Al Gore. His response was perfect. I have to paraphrase, but he said, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t under the impression anyone had votes. I’ve always believed you had to earn them.”This is the hypocrisy of the Democrats, which goes far beyond some comparison to Perot. This party claims to speak for the little guy. What are they in reality? They are a tool of the unions, both business and education, and for all their talk of campaign finance I guess we’ll just have to ignore the fact that their front runner just said “screw the rules” and went with private financing. They are also the party that preaches they are in favor of the little man, yet they only want him to make his stand when it hurts a Republican. Even though Perot helped bring to office a man I consider reprehensible, I’m never going to say he didn’t have a right to run. Let’s face it, George W. Bush’s father destroyed his base and their only true response was to go elsewhere. Perot provided the outlet, and the rest is history. The Democrats, however, are the ones who say Nader shouldn’t run. Why? Because it hurts them. How dare they say, in this open society of ours, that someone doesn’t have the right to run. Nader has just as much right as anyone else to run. I see that they haven’t yelled at Buchanan for running in any election, nor a Communist candidate. Even worse than saying someone shouldn’t run, is that they’ll only say that against someone who has the ability to hurt them. The little man can do whatever he wants, provided the Democratic Party doesn’t have to worry about him at the polls. That’s not the position of a respectable party. That’s not even the position of a true party – that’s the position of a group of elites who care for nothing more than their own power. This is the position of the Democrats, though I doubt you’ll see it in one of Kerry’s speeches – the common man need not apply. Clemm can be reached at rclemm@campustimes.org.