A Nader Voter Sings the Bush Blues

After George W. Bush was elected president, my Gore-loving neighbor gave me a green “Unrepentant Nader Voter” bumper sticker. After the Florida fiasco, she thought I would be ashamed to stick it on my car. Wrong. I immediately slapped it on my Honda. It was beautiful.

In March, shortly after bombs began dropping on Baghdad, I took a razor blade from my garage and excised the letters “un” from “unrepentant,” leaving “repentant Nader Voter” on my bumper.

It was a liberating act of self-correction that all Nader voters should think about.

It took more than two years before I felt sufficiently repentant about my Nader vote to admit my mistake. I hadn’t been a passive Nader voter. To me, there was Tweedledee, Tweedledum and Ralph Nader.

I picked every fight I could with Democrats or Republicans. Gore supporters were incredulous that I would vote for Nader in such a close election, but I didn’t care. I wanted Nader to get 5% of the vote so he’d be entitled to federal campaign money in 2004. These funds would have given him a real chance to inject his views in the “debate.”

The benefits of this outcome seemed to far exceed the downside of having Bush, rather than Gore, as the next president. Many of my closest friends, including my wife, thought otherwise, and we spent hours dissecting what a Bush presidency would mean for government, including -- oh my God -- the Supreme Court.

I did not repent even after the big Bush tax cut sailed through Congress in 2001.

But after 9/11, I had my first repentant thoughts about voting for Nader, not so much because of individual Bush initiatives -- like the horrific Patriot Act -- but because his administration was brazenly creating a climate of fear just to get more Republicans elected. It worked, and the Republicans gained control of Congress.

More guilt and repentance set in after Bush invaded Iraq -- as the world watched in shock. I could not make myself believe that Democrats would have started it, especially without United Nations support. This was Bush’s war.

What really pushed me toward total repentance was the realization that Bush was just getting started.

Bush talks about his tax cuts as if more are on the way, favoring the very wealthy at the expense of the poor and disabling the federal government from the inside out.

I would not be surprised if our country went to war again with Bush at the helm. The U.N., which is our greatest hope for world peace and global prosperity, stands no chance of recovery as long as Bush is in power.

As for civil liberties, the Patriot Act II has apparently already been drafted. Everywhere you turn, there’s more disaster waiting to happen, including, yes, the Supreme Court.

Tweedledee is still Tweedledee. But Tweedledum has turned into global tyrant. We’ve given this tyrant more power than any other person on Earth, and he’s using it.

And so, yes, I corrected my “Unrepentant Nader Voter” bumper sticker. I decided to support the Tweedledee most likely to defeat Bush in the next election. At some other time, I probably will support a third-party candidate like Nader ... when the choice again is between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.