Let’s not do this again. The Washington Times:
President Obama’s smooth path to the Democratic nomination may have gotten rockier Monday, after a group of liberal leaders, including former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, announced plans to challenge the incumbent in primaries next year.
The group said the goal is to offer up a handful of candidates from various fields and areas where the president either has failed to stake out a “progressive” position or where he has “drifted toward the corporatist right.”
. . . . “We need to put strong Democratic pressure on President Obama in the name of poor and working people,” said Cornel West, author and professor at Princeton University who has been highly critical of Mr. Obama’s tenure since helping him get elected in 2008. “His administration has tilted too much toward Wall Street, we need policies that empower Main Street.”
Notes and Rests Make Music 
Has anyone in recent US history done more to undermine the cause for which he supposedly fights than Ralph Nader? I’d be hard-pressed to name one. Some people hurt their own cause because they mess up. Anthony Weiner is an example of this, albeit on a relatively small scale. But Nader does this not by accident or miscalculation. He does it by design. He is an evil egomaniac and should be ignored by every liberal.
Geez horton, have you read any of his books, essays or transcripts from his court appearances and submissions to Congress/Senate hearings? Have you watched any of his various lectures or appearances on tv where he can talk in more than soundbites (like cspan)?
Rather than shooting the messenger I suggest you, at least, read the original letter that this story refers to.
Click to access nader-letter.pdf
To me it fits Obamas repeated requests for grass roots public participation in Federal politics.
And of course Naders action is by design. It’s called democracy.
This description of Nader is spot on. This is the man who brought us George W. Bush and there is no more stinging indictment than that.
That said, there is some merit to the idea of developing some nagging threat on the Left to keep the White House honest. Heaven knows there are enough nodes of influence to pull Obama to the right.
“brought us George W. Bush”? Florida 2000? 537 votes… Many thousands went uncounted for various reasons both dubious and legitimate. Multiple other left candidates (including a communist) received more than 537. Clinton didn’t win Arkansas (6 electoral votes) for the VP. Gore didn’t even win his home state of Tennessee (11 ev). Alter any of those factors, which had nothing to do with Nader, for Gore rather than Bush and Gore is president.
What about the exit polls that suggested Nader voters would’ve stayed home or not voted for Gore?
That fact that other factors might have put Gore over the top is really no answer. Nader knew very well his candidacy would detract votes from the major parties. That was, indeed, the entire point to his candidacy. While he didn’t garner very many, he did lure away enough in a critical state to tip the election. (You can’t seriously contend that fewer than a couple of thousand of the Nader voters would have gone to Gore). This was always a risk and Nader chose to run it in order to pursue what was essentially a vanity campaign.
The subsequent course of the Bush administration proved powerfully that Nader’s thesis that there was no difference between the two parties was flat wrong.