Where Were They Going When They Went for Nader?

In admitting that Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign was a mistake, Jason Salzman shows a rare integrity (“A Nader Voter Sings the Bush Blues,” Commentary, July 6). Most of his fellow Greens still absurdly consider their action to have been politically and morally progressive. It is the height of arrogance for Americans to turn their presidential election into street theater when the fate of so much of the world depends on the results.

Mary H. Farley

Pasadena

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Unlike Salzman, I am an unrepentant Nader voter. And I’ll gladly cast my vote for Nader should he run in 2004, as well. What folks like Salzman -- and most Democrats -- fail to realize is that a vote for Nader was not a vote for George W. Bush. Tens of thousands of us who backed Nader would not have voted at all had he not been on the ballot.

If one does the math, it’s plain to see that a vote for Nader was a vote for Nader. I am getting very tired of having to explain this, nearly three years after the fact, to folks who continually blame us for the debacle that was the 2000 presidential election.

Ellen Brown

San Diego

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Salzman’s honesty in repenting for his Nader vote is impressive. However, he ends his confessional by stating that in the future, after the next election, he will “probably support a third-party candidate like Nader.” Support a viable third-party candidate, yes, but not one like Nader. His actions during the election revealed his inability to lead as he shortsightedly squandered the power handed him. With the number of votes at stake that were critical to defeat Bush, Nader made it all about making the Democrats pay.

Well, we’re payin’, but where is Nader? A current visit to his Web site shows him cranking out op-ed pieces exposing Bush and cronies as corporate-lovin’ warmongers. Now, that’s cutting-edge. So, now that nothing’s better and a lot more is screwed up, I ask you, Ralph, to explain yourself. What was the point? With all his great ideas, the guy had no vision. He snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and hampered the formation of a successful third-party voice.

Nancy Swaim

Marina del Rey

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Salzman’s acknowledgment that he is a “repentant Nader voter” reminded me of 1993, when two friends and a family member all admitted to being repentant Ross Perot voters from 1992. It took them less than a year of watching President Clinton to figure out that they had made a terrible mistake, and they looked forward to coming back to the Republican Party to make him a one-term president in 1996. It was too late. Clinton won over the swing voters during his first term, and all the vitriol aimed at Clinton by staunch Republicans and “repentant Perot voters” could not prevent a second term.

Now staunch Democrats and “repentant Nader voters” look forward to sending Bush back to Texas in 2004, but they are destined to suffer the same fate: four more years.

Paul Simon

Arcadia