Talk:Ralph Nader

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Contents

[edit] Nader's Religious Stance

I don't personally know anything about his religious views, but I have been told that he does adhere to some religious precepts, such as not utilizing credit cards.

Response: Why is common sense (not buying on credit) suddenly a religious precept? 193.6.158.61 12:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)KA

Some subsets of muslims, jews, christians, and possilby non abramic religions refuse to use credit. 88.212.136.185 15:58, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Nader has written for The Humanist magazine, a publication of the American Humanist Association, and he has never been known to be outwardly religious. It's highly unlikely that he consders himself a "Christian" in the traditional sense of the word (that is, believing in the divinity of Christ or other Christian supernaturalism). It seems much more likely that he is a humanist. His opposition to corporate power and excessive consumerism is not inconsistent with a humanist worldview.

[edit] Making the article NPOV

Here are my disagreements with the set of edits made by an anonymous user at 16:20, 24 Nov 2004:

  • For Republican help, changing “several states” to “Michigan” is inaccurate if it implies that Michigan was unique in this respect. The Common Dreams article itself discusses Oregon. There were other examples, too. I think the general “several states” is better than burdening the reader with a blow-by-blow catalog, but if you won’t accept “several states”, then I’ll just list every one I can find, rather than leave a false implication that Michigan was an isolated event.
  • Characterizing Democratic opposition to Nader as an attempt to “discredit” him is POV. We already include the charge that the Democrats were attempting to “smear” Nader, but that quotation is properly attributed to Nader’s campaign. Having quoted his press release verbatim, we don’t need to amplify the point, let alone endorse it.
  • Changing “[the campaign] accepted contributions from donors who were....” to “[the campaign] accepted campaign contributions from several individual donors who were” seems to add a few words to no purpose. Obviously contributions to a campaign were campaign contributions. The additions aren’t inaccurate, but isn’t the shorter version just as clear?
  • SBVT: This edit said that Nader’s campaign had accepted “a donation from one individual” also backing SBVT. Stating or implying that there was only one is inaccurate. The “Up for Victory” site says that FEC reports show eight such donors. [1]
  • Organization: The way the article presented the information about Nader’s effect on the major-party candidates (the subject of this section) was to describe what the Bush supporters said and did, then what the Kerry supporters said and did, then what the Nader campaign said and did. The new edit disrupts that logical structure by interpolating one Democratic group (Up for Victory) after some of the material about Bush supporters, then immediately giving Nader’s POV, before returning to the subject of the Bush supporters. The logic is broken up. In addition, the Nader campaign’s main talking point, about Kerry having accepted donations from donors to Republicans, is now in the article twice. The former version cited the same contribution statistics cited by Nader and even quoted his press release, so I don’t think that version was unfair to him.
  • This edit is very POV with regard to the Nader campaign’s sanctimonious (my POV!) claim of not accepting right-wing help. The edit reports the claim uncritically. It omits Camejo’s initial reaction of “We don’t want that money” and the subsequent reversal. In Michigan, the Nader campaign made similar pronouncements, then flip-flopped. [2] The edit falls all over itself to justify Nader’s collaboration with the Republicans in Michigan. Can any instances be cited, anywhere in the country, in which the Nader campaign went beyond lip service, and actually turned down Republican help that would have been of real benefit? If the campaign already had enough signatures of its own to qualify for some state’s ballot, then turning down Republican signatures is a meaningless gesture. I thought it made more sense to omit the subject, but if we're going to report the Nader campaign's claim on the point, then we'll have to go into detail on the other side as well.
  • While I’m venting: A previous anon edit also seemed to reflect a pro-Nader POV with regard to the O’Hara quotation. The edit changed “voted for Bush in 2000 and has said....” to “voted for Bush in 2000 and was quoted as saying....” This phrasing isn’t used for other quotations in this article or in Wikipedia generally. Its only purpose seems to be to cast doubt on the accuracy (maybe he didn’t really make this comment that Naderites find embarrassing). The quotation is from an established newspaper, the source is given, and people can click on the link and confirm it. I didn’t bother correcting this change before but there’s a lot of other pro-Nader POV that will have to be cleaned out of this article, so that passage might as well be restored.

In sum, I think the article as it stood was factual and NPOV. The changes criticized above made it worse, not better.

In an unrelated point, I previously added some of the data about Nader's vote total in 2004. As more votes are being counted, Nader has done a little better, so that passage will need to be changed. In the lead section, my inclination is that it should be re-ordered to put Nader in context as to who he is -- activist attorney, presidential candidate -- before summarizing his views. The main reason is that some readers, especially non-Americans, won’t really know who Nader is. They’re being told the opinions of some random guy before they’ve been given the full picture about why his opinions are worth reporting. JamesMLane 19:41, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

__________

In hope of advancing the dialogue, I want to address some of the points noted above by James M. Lane:

I think it would be helpful if James M. Lane (or someone) would make good on the offer to list each of the states where Nader's campaign is supposed to have accepted organized Republican assistance in 2004, or in any other election year, together with a detailed explanation of the exact type of assistance that was involved.

It's important to distinguish between (1) "organized Republican assistance" (which Nader's campaign said it was making a point of eschewing, except regarding petitioning help for ballot access in the case of Michigan----and there may be other exceptions that Jame L. Lane will list), versus other types of activity, such as the following: (2) individual registered Republican voters voting for (or endorsing) Nader; (3) individual campaign contributions given by voters who were registered as Republicans; (4) the Nader campaign hiring a ballot access lawyer in Florida whose practice usually represented Republicans in election law cases; (5) other types of "help from Republicans" that are not properly characterized as "organized Republican Party help."

For example, with regard to item (4) listed above, Kerry campaign spokepersons repeatedly accused Nader of "accepting Republican help" when the Nader campaign hired an election law attorney in Florida who normally represented Republicans. Taken out of context, the accusation ("a top Republican lawyer helped Nader in Florida!") would perhaps appear to support the thesis of Republican help for Nader, but if one understands the nature of legal representation (the lawyer in question was evidently paid by the Nader campaign at the market rate), and if one understands the specialized nature of ballot access law and also understands that the expert election lawyers who typically represent Democratic Party candidates were unavailable because they were under pressure (including professional "conflict of interest" pressure) either to help the Democratic Party's efforts to block Nader's ballot access, or in any case not to represent Nader, then a truer picture emerges and the Nader campaign's hiring of that lawyer is seen not to support an "N-R conspiracy" theory.

Several so-called "big Republican donors" to Nader seem to have been individuals who have had longstanding relationships with Nader that transcend politics (e.g., classmates at Princeton or at Harvard Law School), and, when interviewed, some donors explained that they thought it was important to support the opportunity for certain of Ralph Nader's views to be part of the political dialogue, such as his views on the Middle East, or on environmental protection, etc. Peter Tanous apparently hosted a house party for Nader, but he seems genuinely to have been supportive of Nader's views on foreign policy, Nader's fiscally conservative critique of fraud, waste, and abuse, etc. One can question whether, for example, Ben Stein was being candid when he said that he supports many of Nader's views, but it unfairly bolsters an anti-Nader POV, to say only enough to create the impression that the Republican Party was behind Nader's campaign and/or that Nader was seeking to help elect Bush.

I think Wikipedia should be especially careful about inadvertently joining a partisan effort to associate Nader with the obnoxious "Swift Boat" group. First, information concerning the individual donors should be taken from the publically accessible FEC reports themselves, not from a story on Buzzflash.com, which in turn took its report from Up With Victory (a group created by the Democratic Party for the express purpose of opposing Nader). Nader actually criticized the ugly "Swift Boat" ads, and did so much more strongly than John Kerry did. It is misleading to imply that Nader was supporting flak against critique of the Vietnam War. Nader remains staunchly critical of U.S. military action in Vietnam (and he strongly opposes the invasion and ongoing war in Iraq), whereas John Kerry for purposes of the campaign in 2004 distanced himself from his own antiwar views and actions.

Likewise, very little credibilty should be given uncritically to the article by anti-Nader activist Jeff Cohen on the Common Dreams website. Mr. Cohen was one of the main ogranizers of the effort to discredit Nader by associating Nader with the Right. Even Mr. Cohen's article alludes to the Democratic Party's organized and successful effort to sabotage Nader's efforts to achieve ballot access in Oregon in 2004. As you probably know, organizations like Jeff Cohen's group (with funding from the Democratic Party) succeeded in keeping Nader off the Oregon ballot in 2004.

If readers are given enough information to understand the reasons "Republican help" was needed for Nader to exercise the right to ballot access in Michigan (namely, the Democratic Party's team of lawyers first succeeding in removing Nader's name as the Reform Party nominee, and then the same Democratic Party lawyering team's further challenges to the subsequent indepedendent petition drive on the ground that Nader "had failed to coordinate with the Republicans" during that petition drive, readers may see more of the overall context and may perhaps be less likely to assume a nefarious Nader-Republican conspiracy. It is especially interesting that the Democratic Party's argument in court (trying to knock Nader off the ballot the second time in Michigan) was precisely that Nader's campaign had NOT coordinated with the petition drive organized by Republicans. The court acknowledged the fact that Nader's campaign had not coordinated with the Republican petition circulators but ruled in Nader's favor, on the fundamental right to ballot access in Michigan. I don't know whether this background amounts to a "justification" for accepting help in Michigan, but it strikes me as misleading to mention "Republican help in Michigan" without a fuller explanation.

People in the Democratic Party, especially who worked to stop Nader, freely admit that they sought to "discredit" Nader as an "insane egomaniac," a "Republican dupe," a "selfish spoiler," etc. The websites of the big anti-Nader groups make no bones about this being their main strategic aim (in addition to their efforts to knock, or to keep, Nader off ballots wherever possible, by whatever means).

To clarify my own POV: It happens that I did not vote for Ralph Nader in 2004. The fact that I am not anti-Nader does not necessarily mean that my POV is pro-Nader. Moreover, I am not unsympathetic to the concerns of many Democrats who were worried that Nader's presence might help the election of George W. Bush (for whom I cannot imagine voting). But it seems to me that the concerted (and often misleading) Democratic Party attacks on Nader in 2000 and 2004 are an important story. Without including information about the organized nature of the attacks against Nader, it would be misleading simply to repeat as true the gist of the anti-Nader attacks (even if a partial rebuttal or denial by the Nader campaign is included a few paragraphs later).

If it can be shown that Nader's campaign in 2004 systematically accepted organized Republican Party help, I believe this would be a relevant and important point to be brought out, but such information should be brought out accurately and should be accompanied by sufficient explanation and context, including contextual information from the FEC about the funding of Democratic Party candidates from some of the same "Republican" individuals the anti-Nader groups pointed to as having donated to Nader's campaign, as well as the Republican and Democratic parties' dependence on various corporate donors.

The quote from Reform Party Chair Mr. O'Hara appears to have been taken out of context, to build the case that the Reform Party's support for Nader was essentially from the right, and, in particular, was at its heart anti-Kerry. This isn't an accurate picture. Likewise, the reference to the 2000 nomination of Pat Buchanan seems designed to make it appear that it was right-wingers within the Reform Party in 2004 who nominated Ralph Nader. This is not at all what happened at the 2004 Reform Party convention. The Reform Party underwent a huge organizational upheaval in 1998-2000, with Ross Perot supporters (and Jesse Ventura supporters) losing control of the organizational apparatus to a pro-Buchanan group (that apparently included some supporters from the New Alliance Party). The Reform Party, which had at one time stood for a variety of reforms ("fiscal conservatism" plus some important progressive electoral reforms), in essence had become by 2000 little more than a vehicle for ballot access, and even then only in certain states, with a small pot of FEC-awarded money in disupte. After Buchanan's dismal showing in 2000, the Reform Party returned in most states to the status of being more or less an empty shell (not a bastion of right-wing ideology). The Reform Party's relevance was not based on a platform or ideology but instead on the fact that it had available ballot lines in certain states. The existing article suggests (inaccurately) that Nader made ideological compromises to collaborate with right-wing bigots, in order to win the Reform Party nomination. There is no evidence that anything like this happened.

I do not think Wikipedia should be used to try to help build the case that Nader's campaign "flip-flopped" on the issue of contributions from Republicans, unless we are willing to do the work of examining each facet of each such allegation closely and offering Nader's campaign an opportunity to be heard.

I also don't think we should rely on Buzzflash or on anti-Nader activist Jeff Cohen's Common Dreams article as "neutral" news sources, to attack Nader's credibility. Now that the election is over, one hopes that it might be easier for a truer picture of what happened to emerge, at a less breathless pace of attack, denial, and self-righteousness. If Nader's spokesman sanctimoniously contradicted himself or misspoke himself or said something that was outright false, such a false statement might be a relevant fact, but one hopes we will have a chance to be fair about this and to do more detailed fact-checking, now that most people are no longer in campaign-spin mode.

I do agree with the evaluation that the organization of the article could be improved, but I don't think it would improve the article or its organization, simply to revert to a largely anti-Nader presentation in this section.

I hope we continue these discussions, in an effort to make this article more accurate.

The main thing you should note is that the information isn't adduced to show that Nader is a sleazeball. The point of it is to shed light on the question of Nader's effect on the major-party candidates. (That's the section it's in.) There's no way to know for sure whether Nader pulled more votes from Bush or from Kerry, or whether his presence on the ballot was important to their race in other ways (e.g. if his criticisms of Kerry caused some left-leaning voters to conclude that there was no significant difference between Kerry and Bush, and therefore to stay home). Because we can't know that for sure, the article presented information along the lines of "experienced politicians who weren't affiliated with the Nader campaign showed by their actions that they thought Nader would hurt Kerry and help Bush".
In that context, I think that the simple phrase "Republican organizations in several states worked to gather petition signatures to place Nader on the ballot" is fine. Going state-by-state is more detail than is needed. If they worked to gather the signatures, that shows their assessment of Nader's effect. If you think that mentioning this fact will lead some readers to think ill of Nader unjustifiably, and you want to add factual information about some action taken by the Nader campaign, that would be one thing, but just quoting Nader's self-serving statement that they weren't accepting such help is misleading unless the full information is presented. That's why I thought it was better to present the facts about what the Republicans did and not get into presenting the pros and cons of Nader's response. (Republicans helped him, so that shows he's a sleazeball, but he said he wouldn't accept the help, so he's not a sleazeball, but he did accept it in Michigan, so he is a sleazeball, but he accepted it only because otherwise he wouldn't have gotten on the ballot, so he's not a sleazeball, and by the way it was some Democrats who persuaded the court that the Reform Party hadn't met the legal requirements for a ballot line in Michigan, and they made inconsistent arguments, so it's really the Democrats who are the sleazeballs... I just think this whole back-and-forth should be eliminated.)
I suggest that this section of the article be returned to this version (as of 13:39, 19 Nov 2004). Nothing in that text is unfair to Nader. For example, it doesn't even mention the alleged flip-flopping on standards for accepting campaign contributions. I agree with you that we shouldn't give one side of that argument without giving all sides, but omitting it is also fair. JamesMLane 20:42, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)


____

Responding to James M Lane: Let's present well-checked, documented facts, rather than "facts" originated and supplied either by pro-Nader, or by anti-Nader, sources. The version to which you suggest reversion contains quite a bit that is objectionable as inacccurate and misleading.

I think it's factually important to distinguish different kinds of "Republican help" that could be alleged.

The point about the Democratic Party's argument in the Michigan courts was not to show that they're "sleazeballs," but instead to point to an important inconsistency and an important fact: the gist of the anti-Nader attacks were that Nader was "collaborating" or "coordinating" with the Republicans (and the one admitted example has been the drive for ballot access in Michigan); but, by the Democratic Party's own admission (and the court's findings), Nader's campaign carefully avoided any direct involvement in that Michigan petitioning effort. Doesn't this fact seem significant in light of the UPforVictory allegations that Nader was "working with right-wing Republicans to elect Bush"?

If anyone can point to any circumstances, apart from ballot access petitions in Michigan, where the Nader campaign accepted organized Republican Party support, then please do bring this up and document it. I want to know and I want the Wikipedia article to be accurate. So far, the information I have suggests that these accusations against the Nader campaign are false.

With regard to ballot access in Michigan, if you are willing to study the full story of Nader's initially being denied ballot access in Michigan, it would be difficult to read your preferred edits as other than showing anti-Nader POV. The Democratic Party's attacks on Nader, including their intense efforts to keep Nader off the ballot in Michigan, do seem relevant to the topic of how Nader's expected effect was perceived by others (under the rubric "effects on major part candidates"). But simply to repeat (and to credit) those attacks by suggesting a Nader-Right collaboration (beyond what is warranted by the facts) is not accurate.

The discussion of the Reform Party's nomination in 2004 likewise tends to be considerably misleading, as noted above in this Talk section. Worse still, trying to pin "Swift Boat" stuff on Nader seems a rather Willie-Hortonesque device; this line of attack was originated by the anti-Nader groups, and (especially because of Nader's actual antiwar views) it seems not unworthy of Karl Rove himself. If you believe that this sort of stuff is important to include, you really need to check the facts carefully and document them (and not just by relying on UPforVictory), including providing an opportunity for the Nader campaign to be heard.

The point of going state by state is that this method could well bear out (or disprove) my information that there was virtually no organized Republican support for Nader's campaign. Instead, it appears that most of the information about supposed Republican support was circulated, misleadingly, by dedicated anti-Nader groups, for immediate political gain. To repeat generalized allegations (in the nature of attack ads) seems highly inaccurate and partisan. But if the details are there to bear it out, then that would be a different story.

Despite your protestations that the point of your preferred edits is not to smear Nader as a "sleazeball," the discussion has been framed in such a way as to invite exactly that reading.

Let's take thee time to gather actual FACTS, and not simply recite political attack material. I'm willing to work with you on this. The first place to start, would be to determine where the Nader campaign did accept organized Republican help, and what the circumstances were.

You continue to approach the whole topic from the point of view of "anti-Nader attacks" and "accusations against the Nader campaign" (your phrases). My concern is that the approach you suggest seems likely to result in a much greater level of detail of facts relevant to those subjects, with the result of obscuring the subject I was trying to address, namely the assessment of Nader's likely impact. It seems we need two sections. The section about "Effect on major-party candidates" would be based on the earlier version, with a cross-reference to a new section, which would focus on charges and responses about whether Nader was collaborating with the right. Some readers will be most interested in the indications that Republicans thought Nader's candidacy would help Bush. Other readers will be more interested in whether Nader acted honorably in response to what was said and done by people who weren't part of his campaign. (Some of the comments attibuted to Nader belong in the "Effect" section, though. For example, if he denounced the Swift Boat ads, that fact strengthens the implication that those donors were supporting him because they thought he'd hurt Kerry. His comment about Republicans donating to Kerry cuts the other way.) Such a separation would deal with the problem that a lot of this information, such as the detail about ballot access litigation in Michigan, is irrelevant to the undisputed point that both major parties thought a ballot line for Nader would help Bush. JamesMLane 22:27, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

___


First, I would note that it is not entirely undisputed that both major parties thought ballot access for Nader in 2004 would help Bush. Some people within each of those two parties no doubt had some such perception, but if you read the information toward the bottom of this message, you might agree that there is some reason to doubt that these supposed perceptions were in fact held by strategists in the two major parties.

To characterize the information disseminated by UPforVictory, StopNader, etc., as "anti-Nader attacks" does not seem inaccurate (or POV). Indeed, attacking Nader was the whole mission of those groups (just as it does not seem "POV" to say that the SwiftBoat ads were an anti-Kerry attack).

It seems quite in keeping with one of your aims in this section (namely, to show that some Democrats felt that Nader would hurt Kerry), to mention those attacks by Democratic Party groups, who evidently felt that, by attacking and hurting Nader, they might help Kerry. Likewise, to the extent it can be shown that some Republicans also felt that Nader would lower Kerry's results, accurate information about specific Nader-supporting actions by those Republicans would also be relevant for this purpose. (One of my points, though, is that, in order to write accurately about supposed organized Republican help, if indeed there was any beyond the Michigan petition drive, it is necessary to provide actually verified information, and not just repeat the generalized allegations of "Nader being in cahoots with right-wingers" leveled by the anti-Nader partisans.)

It seems a far cry from NPOV, simply to recite as factual, without further documentation, accusations against Nader that were made by UPforVictory, StopNader, etc.

I'm not sure what you mean, by "For example, if [Nader] denounced the Swift Boat ads, that fact strengthens the implication that those donors were supporting him because they thought he'd hurt Kerry." First, it's not yet proven (as far as I can tell) that anyone directly involved in the Swift Boat 527 group gave anything to Nader's campaign. I've heard an allegation that at least one donor to the pseudo-independent 527 group that ran the Swift ads also made an individual donation to the Nader campaign. Is information about support for Nader from Swift Boat veterans verified by the FEC reports? Did Nader's campaign accept money from Swift Boat operatives, and, if so, did it knowingly accept this money? Did these same individuals, if there are any, also give to other political campaigns and, if so, to which ones? If the same individuals also gave money to John Corzine or Nancy Pelosi, for example, this information could shed light on the whole story.

Does it make a difference to the "implication" you feel is strengthened by Nader's denunciation of the Swift ads, if it turns out that Nader denounced the first Swift Boat ad immediately, within days of its having first been broadcast, before anyone had ever made any allegation (which originated with UPforVictory and StopNader) that Nader had received campaign money from individuals who had also donated to the pseudo-"independent" group that ran the awful Swift Boat ads?

Maybe you are right, that more than one section is needed. I guess your idea is that one section could discuss assessments (or perceptions) of Nader's likely impact. Another section could try to sort out the details (relevant to the truth or untruth) of the various allegations and perceptions. Still another section could lay out what the actual campaign finance practices were of the Bush campaign, the Kerry campaign, and the Nader campaign. When the discussion makes Nader's campaign the only campaign under scrutiny with respect to allegedly "improper" donations, some necessary context is missing. (It would be relevant to mention in this connection that Nader's campaign at least to some extent took a principled approach to campaign finance, by refusing corporate PAC money altogether. This exercise of restraint is worth noting, especially in light of the fact that there was no restraint at all shown by the Kerry or Bush campaigns. If it turns out that Nader violated his own self-imposed principles, or if it turns out that some of the individuals who gave the Nader campaign donations were actually Bush operatives, it will be important to find this out. But to establish this requires facts and documentation, not innuendo.)

On the issues of Nader's likely impact and perceived likely impact on the 2004 election, below you can find some polling information (the gist of which was available to the Democrats and to the Republicans months before November 2004). This polling information supports the conclusion that Nader was not actually "taking net votes away from" Kerry in the Kerry-versus-Bush contest in 2004.

One creative theory that might give Karl Rove too much credit is the suggestion that some top Republican strategists thought it would be clever to leak information about Nader hurting Kerry, in order to trick the Democrats into diverting some warchest resources into attacking Nader (similar to the "leaked" Republican polls in late October supposedly showing that Hawaii was leaning toward Bush-Cheney); whether or not this was a deliberate strategy, it seems likely that the Republicans were not unhappy to encourage the impression that they expected Nader to hurt Kerry, if they thought this would make Kerry's campaign waste some resources hitting Nader. Another theory is that some of the Democrats' attacks against Nader were not necessarily even based on their own belief or perception that Nader might take votes away from Kerry in the 2004 election. The top Kerry strategists knew about the polls and knew by August or September that it was not likely that Nader would have an effect. Instead (according to this theory), the Democrats were mostly concerned to keep young activists from being drawn into the Nader campaign, where they might become dangerous critics (from the left) of the Democratic Party's rightward "centrist" slide the past fifteen years or more. So (according to this theory), the Democrats played along with the scare tactic of Nader as bogeyman, rather than actually being frightened about Nader in the 2004 election. They sought to diminish and revile Nader because Nader was accusing both major parties (including their own Democratic Party) of being corporate-dominated; such accusations are ultimately (regardless of any expected or unexpected 2004 election result) extremely threatening to the Democratic Party in the longer term, because the Democratic Party generally tries to position itself as the party of the "people" ("the party of working families" seems to be the newer phrase), in contrast to the Republican Party, which the Democrats characterize as the coporate party or the party of "the rich," etc. I'm not endorsing any of these alternative theories, but I think they are interesting because they are perhaps supported by data that tend to dispute what you said was undisputed (regarding perceptions within the two major parties of the likely effect of Nader's candidacay).

From the November 2004 Ballot Access News: "NADER MAY NOT BE HURTING KERRY The Washington Post carried a story on October 22, quoting officials of four leading national pollsters that Nader’s presence on the ballot does not hurt Democratic nominee John Kerry. Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll, said his research has shown for months that when Nader is removed from poll questionnaires, the margin separating the two major candidates is unaltered. Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center, Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports, and Richard Bennett of the American Research Group, agreed."

The Washington Post story referred to above in Ballot Access News is evidently the article by Manuel Roig-Franzia and Jonathan Finer, "A Fading 'Nader Factor'?; Consumer Advocate Has Been Stripped of Much of His Support," The Washington Post: Oct 22, 2004. pg. A.01. The abstract from that article reads: "A survey conducted this month for the Democratic National Committee by pollster Stanley Greenberg showed [Ralph Nader] averaging 1.5 percent of the vote in a dozen battleground states where his name appears on the ballot, compared with about 3 percent in the summer. It also showed that most of the support Nader lost had shifted to [John F. Kerry] and indicated that his remaining backers would be as likely to vote for Bush as for the Massachusetts Democrat, if Nader were not running. Other studies indicate that Nader supporters are unlikely to support either major-party candidate. Pew's [Scott Keeter] said the majority of the Nader voters he has tracked do not identify with either major political party. Richard Bennett of the New Hampshire-based American Research Group said: "Especially since the debates, where Kerry shored up his base, it does not appear that many of the remaining Nader voters would vote for either Bush or Kerry."

Even assuming these polling numbers are accurate (and that this was known months before November), of course, it does not follow that the Democratic Party was therefore not concerned about Nader's potential effect. For example, the Democrats could have fully believed these polls, but still also believed that it was only through their own ongoing successful efforts to demonize Nader that the polls were showing Nader to be a non-factor.

My discussion on this page has largely been critical of what I take to be the inadvertent advancement of a polemical anti-Nader position. I don't suggest that this is your intention at all, but it could be the effect. I'll conclude for now, by saying that I think we should be able to work out a genuinely improved NPOV discussion, but it might take some time.

I think the statement about the prevailing opinion within each party during most of the campaign is accurate. The main reason for doubting that Nader would hurt Kerry was the growing evidence, as Election Day neared, that Nader was going to draw many, many fewer votes (from anyone) that he had in 2000. I think most experts expected him to decline, but few expected him to decline so precipitously. At any rate, from the point of view of describing the major-party reactions, the late-October poll you cite doesn't affect the fact that many Democrats were campaigning against Nader, seeing him as a threat. It might well be the case that Democrats devoted less resources to that front than they did in 2000, but if so, it was because of Nader's overall fade, not because they changed their assessment that he'd provide a net benefit to Bush.
You're correct that I think the article should mention major-party attitudes toward Nader, as a way of gauging his likely effect -- but that doesn't mean that every such statement or action needs to be included. Describing all the "UP for Victory" type groups would be too much detail on that point for a general bio of Nader. That's why the section I wrote just stated the general point and gave a few examples. It would be unfair to Nader to have his bio dominated by the subject.
The point of my comment about SBVT was that, if Nader denounced those ads, then that makes it even more clear that people who helped get the ads on the air weren't giving to Nader because they liked him or agreed with his views. They were donating to Nader for the same reason they donated to SBVT: to hurt Kerry.
You write: 'When the discussion makes Nader's campaign the only campaign under scrutiny with respect to allegedly "improper" donations, some necessary context is missing.' This article is about Nader, not about campaign finance in general. In any event, there's no claim of "improper" donations that I know of. The donations shed light on the donors' assessment of the race, not on the recipient's campaign finance practices.
Finally, with regard to sources, there are plenty of sources available online that have an agenda. We don't normally just dismiss them entirely. If UP for Victory or some other source makes a statement about a matter of fact, like campaign contributions, some Wikipedia editor who doubts it can find and cite opposing data. JamesMLane 23:44, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Continued: Making the article NPOV

You are surely right, that it was conventional wisdom that Nader's presence in the 2004 presidential race would be expected to reduce the number of Kerry votes more than it would be expected to reduce the number of Bush votes. And it is not at all unreasonable to imagine that some Democrats, and some Republicans, believed they should take action based on that conventional wisdom.

But I think it will take careful writing, to avoid oversimplifying this "common sense" idea to the point of inaccuracy. For example, based on the verified information now available, it would not be accurate for the article to give the impression that Nader's campaign was generally soliciting or generally accepting organized Republican donations. You offered to list (or at least to identify in this discussion---maybe you're right that the details do not belong in the article itself) each of the states where Nader's campaign is supposed to have accepted organized Republican assistance in 2004, with some documentation of the exact type of assistance that was accepted. If there is documented evidence that Nader accepted organized Republican help other than in the case of the non-coordinated Michigan petition drive, please share any such information. If you can find evidence that Nader's campaign accepted organized Repubican contributions of campaign money, that would also be very important and I would appreciate learning about it.

If it were so clearly true that the Republican Party in 2004 was eager to promote Nader (as part of a strategy to hurt Kerry), one might have expected the Republicans to take some steps to help Ralph Nader get into the 2004 presidential debates. As you probably know, the supposed "commission" on presidential debates is essentially a joint creature of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. As it actually happened, however, the Republican Party appeared every bit as opposed as the Democratic Party, to opening up the debates to Nader (in 2000 and in 2004).

You write that you do not want to be unfair to Nader, and I agree that fairness is a worthy aim. I would urge that it is unfair to repeat, uncritically, unsupported allegations from political groups that were created with the specific mission of attacking Nader and/or taking votes from Nader (mostly by disseminating information alleging that Nader was associated with right-wingers). It would not be fair for the article about Nader to perpetuate the false impression that Nader was being substantially financially supported by the Right, without checking into the falsehood/spin/veracity of the partisan-orchestrated statements upon which the article relied in creating that impression. Because the Nader campaign states that the allegations are false and/or misleading, some verification should be in order before those allegations are simply repeated as if true.

About the Washington Post article: I thought you might be interested in the October Post article. (I want to point out that the article discussed similar polls that had been reported much earlier than October, but I'm not disagreeing with you, that the polling results reported in that Post article are consistent with the idea that the early Democratic Party attacks on Nader were effective.) I didn't (and still don't) claim to know what conclusion (if any) to draw from the polling.

Nader did denounce the SBVT ads. I'm going only from memory now, but I think Nader referred to those ads as deceptive covert slime sponsored by Bush proxies (through a 527). (Nader was also critical of 527 Kerry-sponsored ads.) I'm still not sure what your inference is, about Nader's denunciation of the SBVT attack ads. I think it would take more information and analysis before it would be warranted to conclude, from the fact (if it is a fact) that donor-X donated to fund-Y (a 527 fund) and also donated to the campaign committee for candidate N, that it is obvious exactly what X's intentions were. (Political money moves in ways that are not always obvious.) Another basic step is to check the actual FEC records, which are publically available on the web from www.fec.gov. I also think some context is required, so that readers have a frame of reference for understanding the scale of any donations, typical practices, etc.

If it turns out that the organized Democratic Party attacks on Nader were largely false and/or misleading, the falsehood of those attacks (if they were false) should become highly relevant to the article on Nader's 2004 campaign, especially in the context of discussing major party perceptions of, attitudes toward, and actions regarding Nader.

A very important element of Nader's presidential campaigns (at least, as far as I know) has been self-imposed principled limits on the sources of campaign funding, so I think an article about Nader properly mentions his approach to campaign finance, which sets him apart from the big party candidates. What I think the article should not do, however, is to repeat unverified "scandal"-misinformation about Nader's campaign finance practices. (Verified flat-out hypocrisy should of course be fair game.) Or, if such allegations are included, then the article should offer appropriate context so that readers are not left with a mistaken impression. For example, if my own campaign broadcasts an attack ad stating that one of my opponents is taking money from Big Tobacco and is therefore profiting from killing our kids (say, based on a $500 contribution from PM-PAC), an encyclopedia entry shouldn't simply repeat the gist of my unverified attack ad to show that my opponent was supported by the cigarette industry; and, if the article does repeat that information (properly attributing it to my attack ad, and properly characterizing it as such), it would only be fair to point out, if true, that my own campaign had received $10,000 from the same PAC, or that every politician in the state had received money from the same PAC, or whatever other trthfulu information would help the reader better understand what was really going on. (I'm pretty sure Nader has refused to accept any PAC money, which means that his presidential campaigns have received money from individual donors only. If true, this is an interesting fact, isn't it?)

I noticed that there is another, separate, Wikipedia entry for the 2004 Presidential campaign of Ralph Nader. It seems mostly to have collected some possibly incomplete ballot access information as of some time in October. I don't know whether or not that would be a more appropriate location (with a proper cross-referencing link) for some of the more detailed information.

Anyway, I guess this discussion is now very long, probably too long. Thank you for discussing this with me.

P.S. REGARDING THE REFORM PARTY & NADER in 2004:

After thinking that I had signed off for the night, I just now looked at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article that is linked from the Wikipedia article, quoting Reform Party Chair Shawn O'Hara (to the effect that Mr. O'Hara voted for Bush in 2000 and is working to keep John Kerry from becoming president). This quote seems to have been included to show that elements from the "Right" (namely, the Reform Party) supported Mr. Nader, presumably in order to get Mr. Bush elected. What the Wikipedia article does not say is that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article actually quotes Mr. O'Hara as saying that Republican President George W. Bush "has lied to the American public" about the "illegal war in Iraq." The selective quote in the Wikipedia article from Mr. O'Hara was used to build the case that Mr. Nader was being supported by the Right, but this case could not have been made if the article had also included the following adjacent passage from the Post-Gazette article, quoting Mr. O'Hara (but again this was omitted from the Wikipedia article): <<>> "I'm not a George Bush fan anymore. My man's Ralph Nader," O'Hara said. <<>> The same selective and out-of-context quote that is included in this section of the Wikipedia article was also used by the anti-Nader groups, to create the impression that the Reform Party was insincere in its support for Ralph Nader. The anti-Nader groups, like the Wikipedia article, never mentioned that Mr. O'Hara said that he was disillusioned with both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry and was now supporting Ralph Nader. The anti-Nader groups did not quote Mr. O'Hara's expression of support for Ralph Nader's opposition to the war in Iraq. Instead, the quotes used by the anti-Nader groups (and, unfortunately, repeated by the Wikipedia article) were designed to make it appear as though Mr. O'Hara (and perhaps the rest of the Reform Party) is actually supporting Mr. Bush. What did the Post-Gazette article actually quote Mr. O'Hara as saying? - - - -"I'm not a George Bush fan anymore. My man's Ralph Nader," O'Hara said.- - - - Another instance of somewhat misleading information about the Reform Party's nomination of Nader is the Wikipedia article's statement that conservative Pat Buchanan was nominated by the Reform Party in 2000. Although that bare statement is not untrue, the implication in the context of the article is that Nader in 2004 was being supported by the same right-wingers who had taken over the Reform Party in 2000 (in a struggle the Buchananites won against Jesse Ventura, John Hagelin, and even Perot himself to some extent). However, what happened to the Reform Party after Buchanan's dismal showing in 2000 is that the Buchanan supporters bailed out of the Reform Party after draining its pot of money and most of them went elsewhere, including many who went over to the so-called "America First Party," which endorsed the ultra-conservative Constitution Party presidential candidate in 2004. The 2000 Buchanan supporters did not nominate Ralph Nader in 2004. The Reform Party convention in 2004 can be criticized for having been very small, but it is false to say that the Reform Party in 2004 was a right-wing organization. As I explained earlier, the Reform Party had to some extent become a shell that offered potential ballot access in about seven states. If, as appears true, most of Mr. Nader's support within the Reform Party came from people who actually agreed with Mr. Nader's views on issues of war and peace, campaign finance reform, reining in corporate abuse, etc., then it is misleading to cite the Reform Party nomination as an example showing that Ralph Nader was being propped up by the Right. That's not what actually happened.

My sense is that the discussion of the Reform Party nomination within this section of the Wikipedia article was perhaps an instance of uncritical recital of information originating from the spin generated by anti-Nader groups. It is this kind of mistake I'm hoping we can avoid, by carefully checking the facts and not simply repeating the attack talking points generated by UPforVictory and other such axe-grinding groups.

I hope this P.S. helps clarify. Thanks again.

When I have time I'll make the two separate sections, and also remove some of the pro-Nader POV. For example, it's not neutral to say that O'Hara "clarified" he'd become disillusioned with Bush, a phrasing that accepts his politically convenient assertion as truth. Beyond the POV issue, I thought this article already had somewhat too much discussion of general issues of third-party politics. It's a bio of Nader, who, after all, never joined the Green Party and who chose not to work within the Green Party structure in 2004. The additional detail about whether the Greens should continue their relentless sabotage of any hope for progressive politics in America -- uh, pardon me, I mean the additional detail about possible courses of action for the Greens -- would be more appropriate to the article about the Green Party. JamesMLane 17:05, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

_______ _______

[edit] "Political extremists"

Come on, I'm hostile to Nader and even I think this categorization is absurd. In fact, the category is inherently POV. It should be deleted. Anyone who wants to chime in on the question is invited to visit Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Political extremists and comment or vote. JamesMLane 20:32, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Trimming the article

I think some of these trims go too far. The deleted material was incorporated as a result of the lengthy discussions above, to present assessments of Nader's effect on the 2004 race while being fair to him. In particular, I don't see the point of trying to "shorten" an article by deleting inline references, which appear simply as bracketed numbers. What's the rationale for the deletions? JamesMLane 12:54, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The main reason for shortening the article is that once wiki articles get over 35-40 kb, browser problems increase exponentially. That's why, for example, an article about the nation XYZ will (or, at least, should) include a short synopsis of its history, with a wikilink to a separate article "History of XYZ" for more detail. Come to think of it, that would be a good idea here: A two- or three-paragraph discussion of the 2000 race, with much of this material moved to a separate article linked from here, probably including the material that I deleted.
(That's also why I archived part of the Talk ... this page was so long my browser choked. It's still longer than recommended levels, but I couldn't break up the enormous chunk of text just above this.) (See Wikipedia: Article size for discussion)
Readability suffers in overlong articles, too. The main point of an encyclopedia is not to provide vast reams of details for people already knowledgeable about a subject, but to give an overview and context for casual readers. If, say, a Kenyan who had barely heard of Ralph Nader was interested in figuring out what effect he had in the 2000 election, there is so much detail here that it would be very difficult for him/her to figure it out. Americans who followed the election and already know the story might be helped, but everybody else would be flummoxed. Breaking it up into separate articles could help that, too - the hypothetical Kenyan wouldn't have to follow the links to the more detailed article.
Finally, Wikipedia has always frowned on external links within the text, because when you follow them, you can't easily return to wikipedia. One of the major points of creating this encyclopedia was to have a huge sea of interlinked knowledge - sending readers outside the sea hurts that. We're not trying to recreate the Web. The links can be included as external links at the bottom for those who want to know more, but we shouldn't break up the text with them. - DavidWBrooks 14:07, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I don't agree that Wikipedia frowns on external links in text. It's definitely our policy to cite your sources. Let's take a specific example, the first citation deleted from this article. As you can see earlier on this talk page, an ardently pro-Nader anon questioned whether there was indeed organized Republican backing for Nader's campaign. I inserted an inline link to a July 20, 2004 article by Jeff Cohen, found at http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0720-15.htm, although, to minimize disruption to the text, I used brackets to make it a numbered link: [3]. Here are three ways to deal with that citation:
  • Using APA style. In articles on scientific subjects, APA style seems most prevalent. The format is described at Wikipedia:Cite sources#An example citation style. I gather this is what you mean by referring to links "included as external links at the bottom". In this instance, it would mean that the example citation would be replaced by "(Cohen 2004)" in the text, with the Cohen article then listed in a bibliography near the end of the article. I think the intrusion of "(Cohen 2004)" is more disruptive than a simple numbered link. Furthermore, it's less convenient for a reader who wants to do a quick check of the cited source. That reader has to go down to the bottom of the article, find the reference, and then, after reading it, return to the Wikipedia article and try to find his or her place.
  • The method I used is described at Wikipedia:Cite sources#Embedded HTML links for citations. The advantages and disadvantages are discussed there. In the citations involved here, I don't think the mentioned disadvantages are significant. Many of these, like the Cohen article, are citations to online sources. If the Common Dreams website folds, that article won't be available to the reader no matter how much bibliographic information is given in a References section.
  • Eliminating all the citations. This alternative means that controversial points are simply asserted. The reader has no way of knowing whether there's any support for the statement, let alone assessing the reliability of the source, and also can't go to the source for more detail. This is the worst of the three alternatives, yet it's the one now in place in this article for several significant points.
On the general subject of article length, I agree with you that articles shouldn't get too long. Nevertheless, we shouldn't deal with the problem by losing valid information. (See Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Long article layout: "[W]e must remove information from entries periodically. This information should not be removed from Wikipedia: that would defeat the purpose of the contributions. So we must create new entries to hold the excised information.") In this instance, the information in question is significant enough to be in an encyclopedia, so it should be included either in this article or in Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2004. I'll look at that article later and see how we might allocate information between the two. For now, I don't even see a link to that article in this one, so I'll add it. JamesMLane 21:02, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] photo vandalism

Boy, what is it with this article and anon vandals replacing the picture with a really really funny (to a 12-year-old) photo-mash? It must be on the bookmark list at some middle school ... - DavidWBrooks 20:27, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Veep for McGovern?

What is the source of the story that Nader was asked by George McGovern to be his running mate in 1972?

Good question. I just tried Googling this and I can't find any substantial source for McGovern asking Nader to be his running mate? Anybody have a source? Griot 23:24, 13 October 2005 (UTC)Griot

I'm going to remove this Veep reference. I can find no evidence of it anywhere. Griot 00:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Sounds fair. Could you determine who had added it? Schizombie 00:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
It was added long ago. I asked for a citation way back in October 2005. It was in the article back then. I'm not that much of a detective. :) Griot 00:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
It appears it was 12.217.121.245 possibly citing "The Making of the President, 1972." Schizombie 00:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC) See the 05:28, 2 December 2005 and 01:44, 3 September 2005 edits. Schizombie 02:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Nader makes this claim in Crashing the Party: Taking on the Corporate Government in an Age of Surrender, pages 37-38. Schizombie 04:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I think I've tracked down the contemporary origin of the story that George McGovern asked Nader to be his running mate in 1972. What I found tends to undermine the notion that McGovern extended an actual offer to Nader, although McGovern did mention Nader's name in public. The accurate story would seem to be be that Nader's name was mentioned by McGovern in a hypothetical list of "fresh faces," who were not Democratic Party political insiders, but who might have characteristics that would make them potentially worthy of selection as a running mate. The source I found was a news story written by William Greider in the Washington Post, from August 4, 1972, covering a McGovern press conference (an "office conversation" with reporters) concerning the fact that several Democratic Party Senators had declined to become his replacement for Sen. Eagleton. This is consistent with Nader's statement in *Crashing the Party* (pp. 37-38) that after Eagleton withdrew as the vice-presidential nominee, George McGovern called Nader and "asked if I would be willing to be considered for the vice presidential nomination." According to Nader's account, the "would you be willing to be considered?" overture from McGovern was considerably short of a direct offer.

SOURCE: "3 Reject Offers by M'Govern" By William Greider Washington Post Staff Writer The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973); Aug 4, 1972; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The Washington Post (1877 - 1990) pg. A1: Greider's report of McGovern's list of names that included Ralph Nader (and Jacob Javits and John Garnder) begins with the phrase, "Without trying to suggest that they are under active consideration, McGovern mentioned, for example . . . " The "three" referenced in the title of the article who rejected an offer from McGovern were Senators Humphrey, Ribicoff, and Kennedy. ~~

[edit] Sorry re:photo revert

Sorry, everyone, I accidentally reverted the photo back to the original. I think I changed it back to the latest (bigger) one, but if I didn't, can someone please do it for me? I didn't realize what "rev" meant.

Apologies!--ViolinGirl 19:28, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pie in the face.

I think the bit about being pied should remain in the article, but, as an event that occurred in 2003, it is out of place in the middle of a section about his 2000 campaign. -12.217.121.245 07:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jan D. Pierce, Karen Sanchirico, and other Vice Presidential stand-ins

I had added that little bit to the article about Jan D. Pierce, but now I wonder if it is too trivial for the intro and if it should be deleted or moved below to the section on 2004. I did add it to the Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2004 article with more specifics, and also another stand-in I hadn't been aware of, Karen Sanchirico. Does anyone know why these people appeared instead of Peter Camejo, and who they are? Schizombie 10:28, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

This page http://www.drivingmrnader.org/chapter4.htm has some information about stand-ins in Nader's 1996 presidential campaign. I don't know if they were only on the petition to get on the ballot, or if they actually appeared on the ballot (although at least one of them, Muriel Tillinghast, did). Schizombie 22:13, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Third parties in Florida

Regarding recent edits by Griot and Ben Manski: If Bush's margin over Gore in Florida was 537 votes, the Green, Reform, Libertarian, Natural Law/Reform, Constitution, Socialist Workers Party, and Socialist Parties all got more votes than that margin http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/2000presge.htm#FL . Schizombie 02:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

My edits have to do with the Alantic Monthly's assessment of Nader. Nothing more. Griot 02:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

I remember reading in one of michael moore's books - either stupid white men or dude where's my country - moore comments on helping out with ralph nader's election campaign, but see i cant remember the exact book or reference, anyone else care to post?


[edit] New Link

I was wondering if this could be added under the appearances section or perhaps an external link. I thought the link was a funny testement to the pop culture icon Nader has been made. http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/nader.php Cjflash 02:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)cjflash

Good articles Ralph Nader has been listed as a good article under the good-article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do.
If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a review.
Citation
This page was cited by Yale Law & Policy Review

Talk:Ralph Nader (archive)

[edit] Making the article NPOV

Here are my disagreements with the set of edits made by an anonymous user at 16:20, 24 Nov 2004:

  • For Republican help, changing “several states” to “Michigan” is inaccurate if it implies that Michigan was unique in this respect. The Common Dreams article itself discusses Oregon. There were other examples, too. I think the general “several states” is better than burdening the reader with a blow-by-blow catalog, but if you won’t accept “several states”, then I’ll just list every one I can find, rather than leave a false implication that Michigan was an isolated event.
  • Characterizing Democratic opposition to Nader as an attempt to “discredit” him is POV. We already include the charge that the Democrats were attempting to “smear” Nader, but that quotation is properly attributed to Nader’s campaign. Having quoted his press release verbatim, we don’t need to amplify the point, let alone endorse it.
  • Changing “[the campaign] accepted contributions from donors who were....” to “[the campaign] accepted campaign contributions from several individual donors who were” seems to add a few words to no purpose. Obviously contributions to a campaign were campaign contributions. The additions aren’t inaccurate, but isn’t the shorter version just as clear?
  • SBVT: This edit said that Nader’s campaign had accepted “a donation from one individual” also backing SBVT. Stating or implying that there was only one is inaccurate. The “Up for Victory” site says that FEC reports show eight such donors. [4]
  • Organization: The way the article presented the information about Nader’s effect on the major-party candidates (the subject of this section) was to describe what the Bush supporters said and did, then what the Kerry supporters said and did, then what the Nader campaign said and did. The new edit disrupts that logical structure by interpolating one Democratic group (Up for Victory) after some of the material about Bush supporters, then immediately giving Nader’s POV, before returning to the subject of the Bush supporters. The logic is broken up. In addition, the Nader campaign’s main talking point, about Kerry having accepted donations from donors to Republicans, is now in the article twice. The former version cited the same contribution statistics cited by Nader and even quoted his press release, so I don’t think that version was unfair to him.
  • This edit is very POV with regard to the Nader campaign’s sanctimonious (my POV!) claim of not accepting right-wing help. The edit reports the claim uncritically. It omits Camejo’s initial reaction of “We don’t want that money” and the subsequent reversal. In Michigan, the Nader campaign made similar pronouncements, then flip-flopped. [5] The edit falls all over itself to justify Nader’s collaboration with the Republicans in Michigan. Can any instances be cited, anywhere in the country, in which the Nader campaign went beyond lip service, and actually turned down Republican help that would have been of real benefit? If the campaign already had enough signatures of its own to qualify for some state’s ballot, then turning down Republican signatures is a meaningless gesture. I thought it made more sense to omit the subject, but if we're going to report the Nader campaign's claim on the point, then we'll have to go into detail on the other side as well.
  • While I’m venting: A previous anon edit also seemed to reflect a pro-Nader POV with regard to the O’Hara quotation. The edit changed “voted for Bush in 2000 and has said....” to “voted for Bush in 2000 and was quoted as saying....” This phrasing isn’t used for other quotations in this article or in Wikipedia generally. Its only purpose seems to be to cast doubt on the accuracy (maybe he didn’t really make this comment that Naderites find embarrassing). The quotation is from an established newspaper, the source is given, and people can click on the link and confirm it. I didn’t bother correcting this change before but there’s a lot of other pro-Nader POV that will have to be cleaned out of this article, so that passage might as well be restored.

In sum, I think the article as it stood was factual and NPOV. The changes criticized above made it worse, not better.

In an unrelated point, I previously added some of the data about Nader's vote total in 2004. As more votes are being counted, Nader has done a little better, so that passage will need to be changed. In the lead section, my inclination is that it should be re-ordered to put Nader in context as to who he is -- activist attorney, presidential candidate -- before summarizing his views. The main reason is that some readers, especially non-Americans, won’t really know who Nader is. They’re being told the opinions of some random guy before they’ve been given the full picture about why his opinions are worth reporting. JamesMLane 19:41, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

__________

In hope of advancing the dialogue, I want to address some of the points noted above by James M. Lane:

I think it would be helpful if James M. Lane (or someone) would make good on the offer to list each of the states where Nader's campaign is supposed to have accepted organized Republican assistance in 2004, or in any other election year, together with a detailed explanation of the exact type of assistance that was involved.

It's important to distinguish between (1) "organized Republican assistance" (which Nader's campaign said it was making a point of eschewing, except regarding petitioning help for ballot access in the case of Michigan----and there may be other exceptions that Jame L. Lane will list), versus other types of activity, such as the following: (2) individual registered Republican voters voting for (or endorsing) Nader; (3) individual campaign contributions given by voters who were registered as Republicans; (4) the Nader campaign hiring a ballot access lawyer in Florida whose practice usually represented Republicans in election law cases; (5) other types of "help from Republicans" that are not properly characterized as "organized Republican Party help."

For example, with regard to item (4) listed above, Kerry campaign spokepersons repeatedly accused Nader of "accepting Republican help" when the Nader campaign hired an election law attorney in Florida who normally represented Republicans. Taken out of context, the accusation ("a top Republican lawyer helped Nader in Florida!") would perhaps appear to support the thesis of Republican help for Nader, but if one understands the nature of legal representation (the lawyer in question was evidently paid by the Nader campaign at the market rate), and if one understands the specialized nature of ballot access law and also understands that the expert election lawyers who typically represent Democratic Party candidates were unavailable because they were under pressure (including professional "conflict of interest" pressure) either to help the Democratic Party's efforts to block Nader's ballot access, or in any case not to represent Nader, then a truer picture emerges and the Nader campaign's hiring of that lawyer is seen not to support an "N-R conspiracy" theory.

Several so-called "big Republican donors" to Nader seem to have been individuals who have had longstanding relationships with Nader that transcend politics (e.g., classmates at Princeton or at Harvard Law School), and, when interviewed, some donors explained that they thought it was important to support the opportunity for certain of Ralph Nader's views to be part of the political dialogue, such as his views on the Middle East, or on environmental protection, etc. Peter Tanous apparently hosted a house party for Nader, but he seems genuinely to have been supportive of Nader's views on foreign policy, Nader's fiscally conservative critique of fraud, waste, and abuse, etc. One can question whether, for example, Ben Stein was being candid when he said that he supports many of Nader's views, but it unfairly bolsters an anti-Nader POV, to say only enough to create the impression that the Republican Party was behind Nader's campaign and/or that Nader was seeking to help elect Bush.

I think Wikipedia should be especially careful about inadvertently joining a partisan effort to associate Nader with the obnoxious "Swift Boat" group. First, information concerning the individual donors should be taken from the publically accessible FEC reports themselves, not from a story on Buzzflash.com, which in turn took its report from Up With Victory (a group created by the Democratic Party for the express purpose of opposing Nader). Nader actually criticized the ugly "Swift Boat" ads, and did so much more strongly than John Kerry did. It is misleading to imply that Nader was supporting flak against critique of the Vietnam War. Nader remains staunchly critical of U.S. military action in Vietnam (and he strongly opposes the invasion and ongoing war in Iraq), whereas John Kerry for purposes of the campaign in 2004 distanced himself from his own antiwar views and actions.

Likewise, very little credibilty should be given uncritically to the article by anti-Nader activist Jeff Cohen on the Common Dreams website. Mr. Cohen was one of the main ogranizers of the effort to discredit Nader by associating Nader with the Right. Even Mr. Cohen's article alludes to the Democratic Party's organized and successful effort to sabotage Nader's efforts to achieve ballot access in Oregon in 2004. As you probably know, organizations like Jeff Cohen's group (with funding from the Democratic Party) succeeded in keeping Nader off the Oregon ballot in 2004.

If readers are given enough information to understand the reasons "Republican help" was needed for Nader to exercise the right to ballot access in Michigan (namely, the Democratic Party's team of lawyers first succeeding in removing Nader's name as the Reform Party nominee, and then the same Democratic Party lawyering team's further challenges to the subsequent indepedendent petition drive on the ground that Nader "had failed to coordinate with the Republicans" during that petition drive, readers may see more of the overall context and may perhaps be less likely to assume a nefarious Nader-Republican conspiracy. It is especially interesting that the Democratic Party's argument in court (trying to knock Nader off the ballot the second time in Michigan) was precisely that Nader's campaign had NOT coordinated with the petition drive organized by Republicans. The court acknowledged the fact that Nader's campaign had not coordinated with the Republican petition circulators but ruled in Nader's favor, on the fundamental right to ballot access in Michigan. I don't know whether this background amounts to a "justification" for accepting help in Michigan, but it strikes me as misleading to mention "Republican help in Michigan" without a fuller explanation.

People in the Democratic Party, especially who worked to stop Nader, freely admit that they sought to "discredit" Nader as an "insane egomaniac," a "Republican dupe," a "selfish spoiler," etc. The websites of the big anti-Nader groups make no bones about this being their main strategic aim (in addition to their efforts to knock, or to keep, Nader off ballots wherever possible, by whatever means).

To clarify my own POV: It happens that I did not vote for Ralph Nader in 2004. The fact that I am not anti-Nader does not necessarily mean that my POV is pro-Nader. Moreover, I am not unsympathetic to the concerns of many Democrats who were worried that Nader's presence might help the election of George W. Bush (for whom I cannot imagine voting). But it seems to me that the concerted (and often misleading) Democratic Party attacks on Nader in 2000 and 2004 are an important story. Without including information about the organized nature of the attacks against Nader, it would be misleading simply to repeat as true the gist of the anti-Nader attacks (even if a partial rebuttal or denial by the Nader campaign is included a few paragraphs later).

If it can be shown that Nader's campaign in 2004 systematically accepted organized Republican Party help, I believe this would be a relevant and important point to be brought out, but such information should be brought out accurately and should be accompanied by sufficient explanation and context, including contextual information from the FEC about the funding of Democratic Party candidates from some of the same "Republican" individuals the anti-Nader groups pointed to as having donated to Nader's campaign, as well as the Republican and Democratic parties' dependence on various corporate donors.

The quote from Reform Party Chair Mr. O'Hara appears to have been taken out of context, to build the case that the Reform Party's support for Nader was essentially from the right, and, in particular, was at its heart anti-Kerry. This isn't an accurate picture. Likewise, the reference to the 2000 nomination of Pat Buchanan seems designed to make it appear that it was right-wingers within the Reform Party in 2004 who nominated Ralph Nader. This is not at all what happened at the 2004 Reform Party convention. The Reform Party underwent a huge organizational upheaval in 1998-2000, with Ross Perot supporters (and Jesse Ventura supporters) losing control of the organizational apparatus to a pro-Buchanan group (that apparently included some supporters from the New Alliance Party). The Reform Party, which had at one time stood for a variety of reforms ("fiscal conservatism" plus some important progressive electoral reforms), in essence had become by 2000 little more than a vehicle for ballot access, and even then only in certain states, with a small pot of FEC-awarded money in disupte. After Buchanan's dismal showing in 2000, the Reform Party returned in most states to the status of being more or less an empty shell (not a bastion of right-wing ideology). The Reform Party's relevance was not based on a platform or ideology but instead on the fact that it had available ballot lines in certain states. The existing article suggests (inaccurately) that Nader made ideological compromises to collaborate with right-wing bigots, in order to win the Reform Party nomination. There is no evidence that anything like this happened.

I do not think Wikipedia should be used to try to help build the case that Nader's campaign "flip-flopped" on the issue of contributions from Republicans, unless we are willing to do the work of examining each facet of each such allegation closely and offering Nader's campaign an opportunity to be heard.

I also don't think we should rely on Buzzflash or on anti-Nader activist Jeff Cohen's Common Dreams article as "neutral" news sources, to attack Nader's credibility. Now that the election is over, one hopes that it might be easier for a truer picture of what happened to emerge, at a less breathless pace of attack, denial, and self-righteousness. If Nader's spokesman sanctimoniously contradicted himself or misspoke himself or said something that was outright false, such a false statement might be a relevant fact, but one hopes we will have a chance to be fair about this and to do more detailed fact-checking, now that most people are no longer in campaign-spin mode.

I do agree with the evaluation that the organization of the article could be improved, but I don't think it would improve the article or its organization, simply to revert to a largely anti-Nader presentation in this section.

I hope we continue these discussions, in an effort to make this article more accurate.

The main thing you should note is that the information isn't adduced to show that Nader is a sleazeball. The point of it is to shed light on the question of Nader's effect on the major-party candidates. (That's the section it's in.) There's no way to know for sure whether Nader pulled more votes from Bush or from Kerry, or whether his presence on the ballot was important to their race in other ways (e.g. if his criticisms of Kerry caused some left-leaning voters to conclude that there was no significant difference between Kerry and Bush, and therefore to stay home). Because we can't know that for sure, the article presented information along the lines of "experienced politicians who weren't affiliated with the Nader campaign showed by their actions that they thought Nader would hurt Kerry and help Bush".
In that context, I think that the simple phrase "Republican organizations in several states worked to gather petition signatures to place Nader on the ballot" is fine. Going state-by-state is more detail than is needed. If they worked to gather the signatures, that shows their assessment of Nader's effect. If you think that mentioning this fact will lead some readers to think ill of Nader unjustifiably, and you want to add factual information about some action taken by the Nader campaign, that would be one thing, but just quoting Nader's self-serving statement that they weren't accepting such help is misleading unless the full information is presented. That's why I thought it was better to present the facts about what the Republicans did and not get into presenting the pros and cons of Nader's response. (Republicans helped him, so that shows he's a sleazeball, but he said he wouldn't accept the help, so he's not a sleazeball, but he did accept it in Michigan, so he is a sleazeball, but he accepted it only because otherwise he wouldn't have gotten on the ballot, so he's not a sleazeball, and by the way it was some Democrats who persuaded the court that the Reform Party hadn't met the legal requirements for a ballot line in Michigan, and they made inconsistent arguments, so it's really the Democrats who are the sleazeballs... I just think this whole back-and-forth should be eliminated.)
I suggest that this section of the article be returned to this version (as of 13:39, 19 Nov 2004). Nothing in that text is unfair to Nader. For example, it doesn't even mention the alleged flip-flopping on standards for accepting campaign contributions. I agree with you that we shouldn't give one side of that argument without giving all sides, but omitting it is also fair. JamesMLane 20:42, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)


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Responding to James M Lane: Let's present well-checked, documented facts, rather than "facts" originated and supplied either by pro-Nader, or by anti-Nader, sources. The version to which you suggest reversion contains quite a bit that is objectionable as inacccurate and misleading.

I think it's factually important to distinguish different kinds of "Republican help" that could be alleged.

The point about the Democratic Party's argument in the Michigan courts was not to show that they're "sleazeballs," but instead to point to an important inconsistency and an important fact: the gist of the anti-Nader attacks were that Nader was "collaborating" or "coordinating" with the Republicans (and the one admitted example has been the drive for ballot access in Michigan); but, by the Democratic Party's own admission (and the court's findings), Nader's campaign carefully avoided any direct involvement in that Michigan petitioning effort. Doesn't this fact seem significant in light of the UPforVictory allegations that Nader was "working with right-wing Republicans to elect Bush"?

If anyone can point to any circumstances, apart from ballot access petitions in Michigan, where the Nader campaign accepted organized Republican Party support, then please do bring this up and document it. I want to know and I want the Wikipedia article to be accurate. So far, the information I have suggests that these accusations against the Nader campaign are false.

With regard to ballot access in Michigan, if you are willing to study the full story of Nader's initially being denied ballot access in Michigan, it would be difficult to read your preferred edits as other than showing anti-Nader POV. The Democratic Party's attacks on Nader, including their intense efforts to keep Nader off the ballot in Michigan, do seem relevant to the topic of how Nader's expected effect was perceived by others (under the rubric "effects on major part candidates"). But simply to repeat (and to credit) those attacks by suggesting a Nader-Right collaboration (beyond what is warranted by the facts) is not accurate.

The discussion of the Reform Party's nomination in 2004 likewise tends to be considerably misleading, as noted above in this Talk section. Worse still, trying to pin "Swift Boat" stuff on Nader seems a rather Willie-Hortonesque device; this line of attack was originated by the anti-Nader groups, and (especially because of Nader's actual antiwar views) it seems not unworthy of Karl Rove himself. If you believe that this sort of stuff is important to include, you really need to check the facts carefully and document them (and not just by relying on UPforVictory), including providing an opportunity for the Nader campaign to be heard.

The point of going state by state is that this method could well bear out (or disprove) my information that there was virtually no organized Republican support for Nader's campaign. Instead, it appears that most of the information about supposed Republican support was circulated, misleadingly, by dedicated anti-Nader groups, for immediate political gain. To repeat generalized allegations (in the nature of attack ads) seems highly inaccurate and partisan. But if the details are there to bear it out, then that would be a different story.

Despite your protestations that the point of your preferred edits is not to smear Nader as a "sleazeball," the discussion has been framed in such a way as to invite exactly that reading.

Let's take thee time to gather actual FACTS, and not simply recite political attack material. I'm willing to work with you on this. The first place to start, would be to determine where the Nader campaign did accept organized Republican help, and what the circumstances were.

You continue to approach the whole topic from the point of view of "anti-Nader attacks" and "accusations against the Nader campaign" (your phrases). My concern is that the approach you suggest seems likely to result in a much greater level of detail of facts relevant to those subjects, with the result of obscuring the subject I was trying to address, namely the assessment of Nader's likely impact. It seems we need two sections. The section about "Effect on major-party candidates" would be based on the earlier version, with a cross-reference to a new section, which would focus on charges and responses about whether Nader was collaborating with the right. Some readers will be most interested in the indications that Republicans thought Nader's candidacy would help Bush. Other readers will be more interested in whether Nader acted honorably in response to what was said and done by people who weren't part of his campaign. (Some of the comments attibuted to Nader belong in the "Effect" section, though. For example, if he denounced the Swift Boat ads, that fact strengthens the implication that those donors were supporting him because they thought he'd hurt Kerry. His comment about Republicans donating to Kerry cuts the other way.) Such a separation would deal with the problem that a lot of this information, such as the detail about ballot access litigation in Michigan, is irrelevant to the undisputed point that both major parties thought a ballot line for Nader would help Bush. JamesMLane 22:27, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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First, I would note that it is not entirely undisputed that both major parties thought ballot access for Nader in 2004 would help Bush. Some people within each of those two parties no doubt had some such perception, but if you read the information toward the bottom of this message, you might agree that there is some reason to doubt that these supposed perceptions were in fact held by strategists in the two major parties.

To characterize the information disseminated by UPforVictory, StopNader, etc., as "anti-Nader attacks" does not seem inaccurate (or POV). Indeed, attacking Nader was the whole mission of those groups (just as it does not seem "POV" to say that the SwiftBoat ads were an anti-Kerry attack).

It seems quite in keeping with one of your aims in this section (namely, to show that some Democrats felt that Nader would hurt Kerry), to mention those attacks by Democratic Party groups, who evidently felt that, by attacking and hurting Nader, they might help Kerry. Likewise, to the extent it can be shown that some Republicans also felt that Nader would lower Kerry's results, accurate information about specific Nader-supporting actions by those Republicans would also be relevant for this purpose. (One of my points, though, is that, in order to write accurately about supposed organized Republican help, if indeed there was any beyond the Michigan petition drive, it is necessary to provide actually verified information, and not just repeat the generalized allegations of "Nader being in cahoots with right-wingers" leveled by the anti-Nader partisans.)

It seems a far cry from NPOV, simply to recite as factual, without further documentation, accusations against Nader that were made by UPforVictory, StopNader, etc.

I'm not sure what you mean, by "For example, if [Nader] denounced the Swift Boat ads, that fact strengthens the implication that those donors were supporting him because they thought he'd hurt Kerry." First, it's not yet proven (as far as I can tell) that anyone directly involved in the Swift Boat 527 group gave anything to Nader's campaign. I've heard an allegation that at least one donor to the pseudo-independent 527 group that ran the Swift ads also made an individual donation to the Nader campaign. Is information about support for Nader from Swift Boat veterans verified by the FEC reports? Did Nader's campaign accept money from Swift Boat operatives, and, if so, did it knowingly accept this money? Did these same individuals, if there are any, also give to other political campaigns and, if so, to which ones? If the same individuals also gave money to John Corzine or Nancy Pelosi, for example, this information could shed light on the whole story.

Does it make a difference to the "implication" you feel is strengthened by Nader's denunciation of the Swift ads, if it turns out that Nader denounced the first Swift Boat ad immediately, within days of its having first been broadcast, before anyone had ever made any allegation (which originated with UPforVictory and StopNader) that Nader had received campaign money from individuals who had also donated to the pseudo-"independent" group that ran the awful Swift Boat ads?

Maybe you are right, that more than one section is needed. I guess your idea is that one section could discuss assessments (or perceptions) of Nader's likely impact. Another section could try to sort out the details (relevant to the truth or untruth) of the various allegations and perceptions. Still another section could lay out what the actual campaign finance practices were of the Bush campaign, the Kerry campaign, and the Nader campaign. When the discussion makes Nader's campaign the only campaign under scrutiny with respect to allegedly "improper" donations, some necessary context is missing. (It would be relevant to mention in this connection that Nader's campaign at least to some extent took a principled approach to campaign finance, by refusing corporate PAC money altogether. This exercise of restraint is worth noting, especially in light of the fact that there was no restraint at all shown by the Kerry or Bush campaigns. If it turns out that Nader violated his own self-imposed principles, or if it turns out that some of the individuals who gave the Nader campaign donations were actually Bush operatives, it will be important to find this out. But to establish this requires facts and documentation, not innuendo.)

On the issues of Nader's likely impact and perceived likely impact on the 2004 election, below you can find some polling information (the gist of which was available to the Democrats and to the Republicans months before November 2004). This polling information supports the conclusion that Nader was not actually "taking net votes away from" Kerry in the Kerry-versus-Bush contest in 2004.

One creative theory that might give Karl Rove too much credit is the suggestion that some top Republican strategists thought it would be clever to leak information about Nader hurting Kerry, in order to trick the Democrats into diverting some warchest resources into attacking Nader (similar to the "leaked" Republican polls in late October supposedly showing that Hawaii was leaning toward Bush-Cheney); whether or not this was a deliberate strategy, it seems likely that the Republicans were not unhappy to encourage the impression that they expected Nader to hurt Kerry, if they thought this would make Kerry's campaign waste some resources hitting Nader. Another theory is that some of the Democrats' attacks against Nader were not necessarily even based on their own belief or perception that Nader might take votes away from Kerry in the 2004 election. The top Kerry strategists knew about the polls and knew by August or September that it was not likely that Nader would have an effect. Instead (according to this theory), the Democrats were mostly concerned to keep young activists from being drawn into the Nader campaign, where they might become dangerous critics (from the left) of the Democratic Party's rightward "centrist" slide the past fifteen years or more. So (according to this theory), the Democrats played along with the scare tactic of Nader as bogeyman, rather than actually being frightened about Nader in the 2004 election. They sought to diminish and revile Nader because Nader was accusing both major parties (including their own Democratic Party) of being corporate-dominated; such accusations are ultimately (regardless of any expected or unexpected 2004 election result) extremely threatening to the Democratic Party in the longer term, because the Democratic Party generally tries to position itself as the party of the "people" ("the party of working families" seems to be the newer phrase), in contrast to the Republican Party, which the Democrats characterize as the coporate party or the party of "the rich," etc. I'm not endorsing any of these alternative theories, but I think they are interesting because they are perhaps supported by data that tend to dispute what you said was undisputed (regarding perceptions within the two major parties of the likely effect of Nader's candidacay).

From the November 2004 Ballot Access News: "NADER MAY NOT BE HURTING KERRY The Washington Post carried a story on October 22, quoting officials of four leading national pollsters that Nader’s presence on the ballot does not hurt Democratic nominee John Kerry. Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll, said his research has shown for months that when Nader is removed from poll questionnaires, the margin separating the two major candidates is unaltered. Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center, Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports, and Richard Bennett of the American Research Group, agreed."

The Washington Post story referred to above in Ballot Access News is evidently the article by Manuel Roig-Franzia and Jonathan Finer, "A Fading 'Nader Factor'?; Consumer Advocate Has Been Stripped of Much of His Support," The Washington Post: Oct 22, 2004. pg. A.01. The abstract from that article reads: "A survey conducted this month for the Democratic National Committee by pollster Stanley Greenberg showed [Ralph Nader] averaging 1.5 percent of the vote in a dozen battleground states where his name appears on the ballot, compared with about 3 percent in the summer. It also showed that most of the support Nader lost had shifted to [John F. Kerry] and indicated that his remaining backers would be as likely to vote for Bush as for the Massachusetts Democrat, if Nader were not running. Other studies indicate that Nader supporters are unlikely to support either major-party candidate. Pew's [Scott Keeter] said the majority of the Nader voters he has tracked do not identify with either major political party. Richard Bennett of the New Hampshire-based American Research Group said: "Especially since the debates, where Kerry shored up his base, it does not appear that many of the remaining Nader voters would vote for either Bush or Kerry."

Even assuming these polling numbers are accurate (and that this was known months before November), of course, it does not follow that the Democratic Party was therefore not concerned about Nader's potential effect. For example, the Democrats could have fully believed these polls, but still also believed that it was only through their own ongoing successful efforts to demonize Nader that the polls were showing Nader to be a non-factor.

My discussion on this page has largely been critical of what I take to be the inadvertent advancement of a polemical anti-Nader position. I don't suggest that this is your intention at all, but it could be the effect. I'll conclude for now, by saying that I think we should be able to work out a genuinely improved NPOV discussion, but it might take some time.

I think the statement about the prevailing opinion within each party during most of the campaign is accurate. The main reason for doubting that Nader would hurt Kerry was the growing evidence, as Election Day neared, that Nader was going to draw many, many fewer votes (from anyone) that he had in 2000. I think most experts expected him to decline, but few expected him to decline so precipitously. At any rate, from the point of view of describing the major-party reactions, the late-October poll you cite doesn't affect the fact that many Democrats were campaigning against Nader, seeing him as a threat. It might well be the case that Democrats devoted less resources to that front than they did in 2000, but if so, it was because of Nader's overall fade, not because they changed their assessment that he'd provide a net benefit to Bush.
You're correct that I think the article should mention major-party attitudes toward Nader, as a way of gauging his likely effect -- but that doesn't mean that every such statement or action needs to be included. Describing all the "UP for Victory" type groups would be too much detail on that point for a general bio of Nader. That's why the section I wrote just stated the general point and gave a few examples. It would be unfair to Nader to have his bio dominated by the subject.
The point of my comment about SBVT was that, if Nader denounced those ads, then that makes it even more clear that people who helped get the ads on the air weren't giving to Nader because they liked him or agreed with his views. They were donating to Nader for the same reason they donated to SBVT: to hurt Kerry.
You write: 'When the discussion makes Nader's campaign the only campaign under scrutiny with respect to allegedly "improper" donations, some necessary context is missing.' This article is about Nader, not about campaign finance in general. In any event, there's no claim of "improper" donations that I know of. The donations shed light on the donors' assessment of the race, not on the recipient's campaign finance practices.
Finally, with regard to sources, there are plenty of sources available online that have an agenda. We don't normally just dismiss them entirely. If UP for Victory or some other source makes a statement about a matter of fact, like campaign contributions, some Wikipedia editor who doubts it can find and cite opposing data. JamesMLane 23:44, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Continued: Making the article NPOV

You are surely right, that it was conventional wisdom that Nader's presence in the 2004 presidential race would be expected to reduce the number of Kerry votes more than it would be expected to reduce the number of Bush votes. And it is not at all unreasonable to imagine that some Democrats, and some Republicans, believed they should take action based on that conventional wisdom.

But I think it will take careful writing, to avoid oversimplifying this "common sense" idea to the point of inaccuracy. For example, based on the verified information now available, it would not be accurate for the article to give the impression that Nader's campaign was generally soliciting or generally accepting organized Republican donations. You offered to list (or at least to identify in this discussion---maybe you're right that the details do not belong in the article itself) each of the states where Nader's campaign is supposed to have accepted organized Republican assistance in 2004, with some documentation of the exact type of assistance that was accepted. If there is documented evidence that Nader accepted organized Republican help other than in the case of the non-coordinated Michigan petition drive, please share any such information. If you can find evidence that Nader's campaign accepted organized Repubican contributions of campaign money, that would also be very important and I would appreciate learning about it.

If it were so clearly true that the Republican Party in 2004 was eager to promote Nader (as part of a strategy to hurt Kerry), one might have expected the Republicans to take some steps to help Ralph Nader get into the 2004 presidential debates. As you probably know, the supposed "commission" on presidential debates is essentially a joint creature of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. As it actually happened, however, the Republican Party appeared every bit as opposed as the Democratic Party, to opening up the debates to Nader (in 2000 and in 2004).

You write that you do not want to be unfair to Nader, and I agree that fairness is a worthy aim. I would urge that it is unfair to repeat, uncritically, unsupported allegations from political groups that were created with the specific mission of attacking Nader and/or taking votes from Nader (mostly by disseminating information alleging that Nader was associated with right-wingers). It would not be fair for the article about Nader to perpetuate the false impression that Nader was being substantially financially supported by the Right, without checking into the falsehood/spin/veracity of the partisan-orchestrated statements upon which the article relied in creating that impression. Because the Nader campaign states that the allegations are false and/or misleading, some verification should be in order before those allegations are simply repeated as if true.

About the Washington Post article: I thought you might be interested in the October Post article. (I want to point out that the article discussed similar polls that had been reported much earlier than October, but I'm not disagreeing with you, that the polling results reported in that Post article are consistent with the idea that the early Democratic Party attacks on Nader were effective.) I didn't (and still don't) claim to know what conclusion (if any) to draw from the polling.

Nader did denounce the SBVT ads. I'm going only from memory now, but I think Nader referred to those ads as deceptive covert slime sponsored by Bush proxies (through a 527). (Nader was also critical of 527 Kerry-sponsored ads.) I'm still not sure what your inference is, about Nader's denunciation of the SBVT attack ads. I think it would take more information and analysis before it would be warranted to conclude, from the fact (if it is a fact) that donor-X donated to fund-Y (a 527 fund) and also donated to the campaign committee for candidate N, that it is obvious exactly what X's intentions were. (Political money moves in ways that are not always obvious.) Another basic step is to check the actual FEC records, which are publically available on the web from www.fec.gov. I also think some context is required, so that readers have a frame of reference for understanding the scale of any donations, typical practices, etc.

If it turns out that the organized Democratic Party attacks on Nader were largely false and/or misleading, the falsehood of those attacks (if they were false) should become highly relevant to the article on Nader's 2004 campaign, especially in the context of discussing major party perceptions of, attitudes toward, and actions regarding Nader.

A very important element of Nader's presidential campaigns (at least, as far as I know) has been self-imposed principled limits on the sources of campaign funding, so I think an article about Nader properly mentions his approach to campaign finance, which sets him apart from the big party candidates. What I think the article should not do, however, is to repeat unverified "scandal"-misinformation about Nader's campaign finance practices. (Verified flat-out hypocrisy should of course be fair game.) Or, if such allegations are included, then the article should offer appropriate context so that readers are not left with a mistaken impression. For example, if my own campaign broadcasts an attack ad stating that one of my opponents is taking money from Big Tobacco and is therefore profiting from killing our kids (say, based on a $500 contribution from PM-PAC), an encyclopedia entry shouldn't simply repeat the gist of my unverified attack ad to show that my opponent was supported by the cigarette industry; and, if the article does repeat that information (properly attributing it to my attack ad, and properly characterizing it as such), it would only be fair to point out, if true, that my own campaign had received $10,000 from the same PAC, or that every politician in the state had received money from the same PAC, or whatever other trthfulu information would help the reader better understand what was really going on. (I'm pretty sure Nader has refused to accept any PAC money, which means that his presidential campaigns have received money from individual donors only. If true, this is an interesting fact, isn't it?)

I noticed that there is another, separate, Wikipedia entry for the 2004 Presidential campaign of Ralph Nader. It seems mostly to have collected some possibly incomplete ballot access information as of some time in October. I don't know whether or not that would be a more appropriate location (with a proper cross-referencing link) for some of the more detailed information.

Anyway, I guess this discussion is now very long, probably too long. Thank you for discussing this with me.

P.S. REGARDING THE REFORM PARTY & NADER in 2004:

After thinking that I had signed off for the night, I just now looked at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article that is linked from the Wikipedia article, quoting Reform Party Chair Shawn O'Hara (to the effect that Mr. O'Hara voted for Bush in 2000 and is working to keep John Kerry from becoming president). This quote seems to have been included to show that elements from the "Right" (namely, the Reform Party) supported Mr. Nader, presumably in order to get Mr. Bush elected. What the Wikipedia article does not say is that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article actually quotes Mr. O'Hara as saying that Republican President George W. Bush "has lied to the American public" about the "illegal war in Iraq." The selective quote in the Wikipedia article from Mr. O'Hara was used to build the case that Mr. Nader was being supported by the Right, but this case could not have been made if the article had also included the following adjacent passage from the Post-Gazette article, quoting Mr. O'Hara (but again this was omitted from the Wikipedia article): <<>> "I'm not a George Bush fan anymore. My man's Ralph Nader," O'Hara said. <<>> The same selective and out-of-context quote that is included in this section of the Wikipedia article was also used by the anti-Nader groups, to create the impression that the Reform Party was insincere in its support for Ralph Nader. The anti-Nader groups, like the Wikipedia article, never mentioned that Mr. O'Hara said that he was disillusioned with both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry and was now supporting Ralph Nader. The anti-Nader groups did not quote Mr. O'Hara's expression of support for Ralph Nader's opposition to the war in Iraq. Instead, the quotes used by the anti-Nader groups (and, unfortunately, repeated by the Wikipedia article) were designed to make it appear as though Mr. O'Hara (and perhaps the rest of the Reform Party) is actually supporting Mr. Bush. What did the Post-Gazette article actually quote Mr. O'Hara as saying? - - - -"I'm not a George Bush fan anymore. My man's Ralph Nader," O'Hara said.- - - - Another instance of somewhat misleading information about the Reform Party's nomination of Nader is the Wikipedia article's statement that conservative Pat Buchanan was nominated by the Reform Party in 2000. Although that bare statement is not untrue, the implication in the context of the article is that Nader in 2004 was being supported by the same right-wingers who had taken over the Reform Party in 2000 (in a struggle the Buchananites won against Jesse Ventura, John Hagelin, and even Perot himself to some extent). However, what happened to the Reform Party after Buchanan's dismal showing in 2000 is that the Buchanan supporters bailed out of the Reform Party after draining its pot of money and most of them went elsewhere, including many who went over to the so-called "America First Party," which endorsed the ultra-conservative Constitution Party presidential candidate in 2004. The 2000 Buchanan supporters did not nominate Ralph Nader in 2004. The Reform Party convention in 2004 can be criticized for having been very small, but it is false to say that the Reform Party in 2004 was a right-wing organization. As I explained earlier, the Reform Party had to some extent become a shell that offered potential ballot access in about seven states. If, as appears true, most of Mr. Nader's support within the Reform Party came from people who actually agreed with Mr. Nader's views on issues of war and peace, campaign finance reform, reining in corporate abuse, etc., then it is misleading to cite the Reform Party nomination as an example showing that Ralph Nader was being propped up by the Right. That's not what actually happened.

My sense is that the discussion of the Reform Party nomination within this section of the Wikipedia article was perhaps an instance of uncritical recital of information originating from the spin generated by anti-Nader groups. It is this kind of mistake I'm hoping we can avoid, by carefully checking the facts and not simply repeating the attack talking points generated by UPforVictory and other such axe-grinding groups.

I hope this P.S. helps clarify. Thanks again.

When I have time I'll make the two separate sections, and also remove some of the pro-Nader POV. For example, it's not neutral to say that O'Hara "clarified" he'd become disillusioned with Bush, a phrasing that accepts his politically convenient assertion as truth. Beyond the POV issue, I thought this article already had somewhat too much discussion of general issues of third-party politics. It's a bio of Nader, who, after all, never joined the Green Party and who chose not to work within the Green Party structure in 2004. The additional detail about whether the Greens should continue their relentless sabotage of any hope for progressive politics in America -- uh, pardon me, I mean the additional detail about possible courses of action for the Greens -- would be more appropriate to the article about the Green Party. JamesMLane 17:05, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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[edit] "Political extremists"

Come on, I'm hostile to Nader and even I think this categorization is absurd. In fact, the category is inherently POV. It should be deleted. Anyone who wants to chime in on the question is invited to visit Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Political extremists and comment or vote. JamesMLane 20:32, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Trimming the article

I think some of these trims go too far. The deleted material was incorporated as a result of the lengthy discussions above, to present assessments of Nader's effect on the 2004 race while being fair to him. In particular, I don't see the point of trying to "shorten" an article by deleting inline references, which appear simply as bracketed numbers. What's the rationale for the deletions? JamesMLane 12:54, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The main reason for shortening the article is that once wiki articles get over 35-40 kb, browser problems increase exponentially. That's why, for example, an article about the nation XYZ will (or, at least, should) include a short synopsis of its history, with a wikilink to a separate article "History of XYZ" for more detail. Come to think of it, that would be a good idea here: A two- or three-paragraph discussion of the 2000 race, with much of this material moved to a separate article linked from here, probably including the material that I deleted.
(That's also why I archived part of the Talk ... this page was so long my browser choked. It's still longer than recommended levels, but I couldn't break up the enormous chunk of text just above this.) (See Wikipedia: Article size for discussion)
Readability suffers in overlong articles, too. The main point of an encyclopedia is not to provide vast reams of details for people already knowledgeable about a subject, but to give an overview and context for casual readers. If, say, a Kenyan who had barely heard of Ralph Nader was interested in figuring out what effect he had in the 2000 election, there is so much detail here that it would be very difficult for him/her to figure it out. Americans who followed the election and already know the story might be helped, but everybody else would be flummoxed. Breaking it up into separate articles could help that, too - the hypothetical Kenyan wouldn't have to follow the links to the more detailed article.
Finally, Wikipedia has always frowned on external links within the text, because when you follow them, you can't easily return to wikipedia. One of the major points of creating this encyclopedia was to have a huge sea of interlinked knowledge - sending readers outside the sea hurts that. We're not trying to recreate the Web. The links can be included as external links at the bottom for those who want to know more, but we shouldn't break up the text with them. - DavidWBrooks 14:07, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I don't agree that Wikipedia frowns on external links in text. It's definitely our policy to cite your sources. Let's take a specific example, the first citation deleted from this article. As you can see earlier on this talk page, an ardently pro-Nader anon questioned whether there was indeed organized Republican backing for Nader's campaign. I inserted an inline link to a July 20, 2004 article by Jeff Cohen, found at http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0720-15.htm, although, to minimize disruption to the text, I used brackets to make it a numbered link: [6]. Here are three ways to deal with that citation:
  • Using APA style. In articles on scientific subjects, APA style seems most prevalent. The format is described at Wikipedia:Cite sources#An example citation style. I gather this is what you mean by referring to links "included as external links at the bottom". In this instance, it would mean that the example citation would be replaced by "(Cohen 2004)" in the text, with the Cohen article then listed in a bibliography near the end of the article. I think the intrusion of "(Cohen 2004)" is more disruptive than a simple numbered link. Furthermore, it's less convenient for a reader who wants to do a quick check of the cited source. That reader has to go down to the bottom of the article, find the reference, and then, after reading it, return to the Wikipedia article and try to find his or her place.
  • The method I used is described at Wikipedia:Cite sources#Embedded HTML links for citations. The advantages and disadvantages are discussed there. In the citations involved here, I don't think the mentioned disadvantages are significant. Many of these, like the Cohen article, are citations to online sources. If the Common Dreams website folds, that article won't be available to the reader no matter how much bibliographic information is given in a References section.
  • Eliminating all the citations. This alternative means that controversial points are simply asserted. The reader has no way of knowing whether there's any support for the statement, let alone assessing the reliability of the source, and also can't go to the source for more detail. This is the worst of the three alternatives, yet it's the one now in place in this article for several significant points.
On the general subject of article length, I agree with you that articles shouldn't get too long. Nevertheless, we shouldn't deal with the problem by losing valid information. (See Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Long article layout: "[W]e must remove information from entries periodically. This information should not be removed from Wikipedia: that would defeat the purpose of the contributions. So we must create new entries to hold the excised information.") In this instance, the information in question is significant enough to be in an encyclopedia, so it should be included either in this article or in Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2004. I'll look at that article later and see how we might allocate information between the two. For now, I don't even see a link to that article in this one, so I'll add it. JamesMLane 21:02, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] photo vandalism

Boy, what is it with this article and anon vandals replacing the picture with a really really funny (to a 12-year-old) photo-mash? It must be on the bookmark list at some middle school ... - DavidWBrooks 20:27, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Veep for McGovern?

What is the source of the story that Nader was asked by George McGovern to be his running mate in 1972?

Good question. I just tried Googling this and I can't find any substantial source for McGovern asking Nader to be his running mate? Anybody have a source? Griot 23:24, 13 October 2005 (UTC)Griot

I'm going to remove this Veep reference. I can find no evidence of it anywhere. Griot 00:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Sounds fair. Could you determine who had added it? Schizombie 00:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
It was added long ago. I asked for a citation way back in October 2005. It was in the article back then. I'm not that much of a detective. :) Griot 00:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
It appears it was 12.217.121.245 possibly citing "The Making of the President, 1972." Schizombie 00:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC) See the 05:28, 2 December 2005 and 01:44, 3 September 2005 edits. Schizombie 02:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Nader makes this claim in Crashing the Party: Taking on the Corporate Government in an Age of Surrender, pages 37-38. Schizombie 04:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I think I've tracked down the contemporary origin of the story that George McGovern asked Nader to be his running mate in 1972. What I found tends to undermine the notion that McGovern extended an actual offer to Nader, although McGovern did mention Nader's name in public. The accurate story would seem to be be that Nader's name was mentioned by McGovern in a hypothetical list of "fresh faces," who were not Democratic Party political insiders, but who might have characteristics that would make them potentially worthy of selection as a running mate. The source I found was a news story written by William Greider in the Washington Post, from August 4, 1972, covering a McGovern press conference announcing that several Democratic Party Senators had declined to become his replacement for Sen. Eagleton. This is consistent with Nader's statement in *Crashing the Party* (pp. 37-38) that after Eagleton withdrew as the vice-presidential nominee, George McGovern called Nader and "asked if I would be willing to be considered for the vice presidential nomination." According to Nader's account, the "would you be willing to be considered?" overture from McGovern was considerably short of a direct offer.

SOURCE: "3 Reject Offers by M'Govern" By William Greider Washington Post Staff Writer The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973); Aug 4, 1972; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The Washington Post (1877 - 1990) pg. A1: Greider's report of McGovern's list of names that included Ralph Nader (and Jacob Javits and John Garnder) begins with the phrase, "Without trying to suggest that they are under active consideration, McGovern mentioned, for example . . . " The "three" referenced in the title of the article who rejected an offer from McGovern were Senators Humphrey, Ribicoff, and Kennedy.

[edit] Sorry re:photo revert

Sorry, everyone, I accidentally reverted the photo back to the original. I think I changed it back to the latest (bigger) one, but if I didn't, can someone please do it for me? I didn't realize what "rev" meant.

Apologies!--ViolinGirl 19:28, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pie in the face.

I think the bit about being pied should remain in the article, but, as an event that occurred in 2003, it is out of place in the middle of a section about his 2000 campaign. -12.217.121.245 07:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jan D. Pierce, Karen Sanchirico, and other Vice Presidential stand-ins

I had added that little bit to the article about Jan D. Pierce, but now I wonder if it is too trivial for the intro and if it should be deleted or moved below to the section on 2004. I did add it to the Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2004 article with more specifics, and also another stand-in I hadn't been aware of, Karen Sanchirico. Does anyone know why these people appeared instead of Peter Camejo, and who they are? Schizombie 10:28, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

This page http://www.drivingmrnader.org/chapter4.htm has some information about stand-ins in Nader's 1996 presidential campaign. I don't know if they were only on the petition to get on the ballot, or if they actually appeared on the ballot (although at least one of them, Muriel Tillinghast, did). Schizombie 22:13, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Third parties in Florida

Regarding recent edits by Griot and Ben Manski: If Bush's margin over Gore in Florida was 537 votes, the Green, Reform, Libertarian, Natural Law/Reform, Constitution, Socialist Workers Party, and Socialist Parties all got more votes than that margin http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/2000presge.htm#FL . Schizombie 02:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

That's correct Schizombie, you've got your facts straight. 76.166.123.129 01:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

I remember reading in one of michael moore's books - either stupid white men or dude where's my country - moore comments on helping out with ralph nader's election campaign, but see i cant remember the exact book or reference, anyone else care to post?


[edit] New Link?

I was wondering if this could be added under the appearances section or perhaps an external link. I thought the link was a funny testement to the pop culture icon Nader has been made. http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/nader.php Cjflash 02:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)cjflash

[edit] POV

This article had a large section that asserted that Gore lost the election to Bush because of Nader's votes. I removed the section. It was opinionated. It sounded like the usual rhetoric vomited up by the Democrats. Check it out. The Republicans stole that election through illegal means. Dubya was appointed by the Supreme Court. No matter how many or how few votes Nader got, Bush would have been in. This is all POV and has no place in a Wikipedia article. Here are just 2 out of many links that demonstrate this.
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=27&row=2
http://elandslide.org/display.cfm?id=181 thewolfstar 05:52, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit]  ?

Can you come back with a reasonable debate to this? I'm just going to keep editing your pov out until you can show othewise. thewolfstar 07:44, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV and NOR tags on articles

I don't agree with labeling these tags as "vandalism", but I do agree that they're not justified, so I'm removing them.

A neutrality dispute tag on an article is proper only if there is a good-faith argument that the article doesn't conform to the policy stated in Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Thewolfstar, your objection is that sections of this article "sounded like the usual rhetoric vomited up by the Democrats." That's why it's proper to include that material, because the policy instructs us to "assert facts, including facts about opinions — but don't assert opinions themselves." It would be improperly asserting opinions for us to say, "The arrogant and self-aggrandizing idiot Nader foolishly ran a third-party campaign that gave Bush the election, thus permanently destroying what would otherwise have been Nader's honorable legacy and condemning him to the obloquy of decent people for generations to come." That's fairly close to my personal opinion, as it happens, but it is just my opinion, which, as a standard for assessing the content of Wikipedia articles, is worth zero. Our article shouldn't and doesn't say that.

It's a different matter, though, to report facts about opinions. If there's a notable opinion on a subject, we report it. If one of the two major parties in the U.S. usually asserts (or, if you prefer, vomits up) a particular opinion about an election, then that opinion is notable. The article doesn't adopt the opinion, but correctly informs the reader that some people hold the opinion. It also informs the reader that other people (Nader supporters) hold a contrary opinion. In fact, I haven't looked at this article in a while, and I don't remember it as being so heavily laced with the Naderite POV. The section could usefully be tweaked to present both sides fairly, though I don't think the current pro-Nader bias is so great that a neutrality dispute tag would be justified.

The links you've provided don't show any bias or error of fact in the statements made by Wikipedia. It's undeniably true that many Democrats blame Nader. Your opinion is that they're mistaken, but there's no quantum of fact that you could cite in support of your opinion that would change the fact reported in the article, namely that many people disagree with you. Furthermore, the article's extensive coverage of the countervailing Naderite POV notes the salient factual points from the articles you link.

As for "original research", you seem not to have commented on that at all. You'll note that the template you applied directs the reader to refer to this talk page for details, but there are none here. Please spell out any specific respects in which you think that the article violates the Wikipedia:No original research policy. You can raise your concerns here without putting the template on the article. I suggest you consider that this article has been extensively edited for years now by experienced Wikipedians holding a wide variety of political views. If people who are experienced in applying the NOR policy haven't flagged this article for violating it, you might want to tread a little more cautiously in making the claim. JamesMLane t c 13:55, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I didn't add the tags, but there is a general lack of citations in the article which may be what invited the NOR tag. The way the info about the 2000 election is presented does seem a little biased, in that it doesn't mention other things such as that the number of Democrats in Florida who voted for Bush also exceeded the difference in their vote totals (but a citation would be needed for that too). Шизомби 19:50, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Speeches

Ok, my first post to Wikipedia... I'm sure there are lots of things I should know before posting, so apologies for any blunders.

I'd be very interested in sub-pages of speeches given by Nader, if anyone knows of any that are available. Leaving out speeches he's made to groups of young people, while including his entertaining quotes, is a little misleading about the way he gets his message out.

I heard Nader speak once, at U of Michigan, around '95 or '96, and I must say it was the most "interesting" speech I have ever heard. He spoke about big corporations that would kill 10,000 of their own employees to avoid a few dollars in safety improvements, and other "interesting" ideas like that.

I don't really think this article (though very balanced in his accomplishments and positive effects) fairly discusses or mentions his methods.

It's likely that it'd be impossible to have a balanced neutral-point-of-view (NPOV?) entry on the content of speeches he's given, but the speeches themselves would make interesting reading and really flesh out the comments on political extremism mentioned.

-Kevin

[edit] 2008

Is Nader running in 2008? Somewhere in this article should mention whether or not Nader is running. -- Wikipedical 02:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Because of his age, it may be a little unwise to speculate about him in the 2008 election. Wouldn't want to be throwing names around of deceased people, now would we? -24.92.41.95 02:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Could somebody fix the last sentence in the "2008" section, which is clearly incomplete: "He says that his decision to run will be influenced, especially if the Democratic Party chooses Hillary Clinton." Thanks! — Malik Shabazz | Talk 22:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Public Citizen

The section on Nader and the Activist Movement suggests that Public Citizen, founded in 1971, prompted the formation of OSHA and the EPA, both of which were created in 1970. If this is true then it should be clarified and if not then it should be removed. It should, perhaps, be noted that the Public Citizen article does not list anything that is contained in this paragraph. -- Robbie 14:03, 27 Aug 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Consumer protection organizations in other countries

An anon editor added this to the External links *http://www.3cs-dpsvk.co.nr www.3cs-dpsvk.co.nr]Consumer Care Council, Delhi Public School Vasant Kunj. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with Naderr diectly, but I'm retaining it here in case anyone knowledgable wants to comment. DJ Silverfish 20:33, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Re-Review and In-line citations

Note: This article has a very small number of in-line citations for an article of its size and currently would not pass criteria 2b.
Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 23:33, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minor Edits

Sorry, just a very minor edit that I do not know how to fix. I have yet to learn how to link names in editing, however, I noticed that someone had his sister's name as "Laura Nader Milleron" this is not correct, Prof. Nader's name is not "Milleron," I have had occasion to meet her, and her name is Professor Laura Nader. I do not know how to link this to the article about her. However, if someone would like to do this while I learn, I would greatly appreciate it.

[edit] WHY was this deleted? Nader on the "Israel lobby"

Can anyone give a justification for why the following paragraph was deleted:

In August 2004 during his presidential campaign, Nader was criticized for expressing what many saw as antisemitic attitudes when he "suggested that President Bush and Congress were 'puppets' of the Israeli government" [7] [8] [9]. Nader is quoted as saying that: "The days when the chief Israeli puppeteer comes to the United States and meets with the puppet in the White House and then proceeds to Capitol Hill, where he meets with hundreds of other puppets, should be replaced" [10]. Nader's statements regarding the Israeli influence on American foreign policy and American politicians brought him much criticism from the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish organizations. Abraham Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, was quoted soon after Nader made the comments, stating that "What he [Nader] said smacks of bigotry" [11]. Foxman, in an open letter to Nader about his comment(s), wrote: "...the image of the Jewish State as a 'puppeteer,' controlling the powerful U.S. Congress feeds into many age-old stereotypes which have no place in legitimate public discourse" [12]. Nader's response to Foxman can be found here, and Foxman's counter-reply to Nader's letter is here.

It is well sourced; so why was it deleted? --WassermannNYC 15:42, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

As has been explained on the other 4 articles into which you attempted to POV-push this trivia, it was a tempest in a teapot, and the only person who still cares about it is you, the person who is also obsessed with identifying the "Jewish lobby" and all the rich Jews in the United States, along with claiming David Irving is a "Scholar of the Holocaust". Jayjg (talk) 16:38, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
First off, I don't appreciate your smear tactics; I expect better from an admin. committed to the principle of NPOV -- and PLEASE explain yourself more fully; your ONE SENTENCE does not justify deleting valid, relevant, and well sourced information. Yes the info was inserted in to 5 different articles, but you fail to add that they were all RELEVANT articles and that identical information is copied/pasted and crosslited on Wikipedia routinely if it pertains to multiple articles. Also, anything reported in the Washington Post and investigated by the ADL (along with other reliable sources) that was said by a former presidential candidate (a multiple presidential canidate actually, and well-known national figure) is not mere "trivia." I simply cannot understand why you keep saying that this is "trivia" when that assertion is a blatant falsity; the Washington Post is (as you know) one of the top newspapers in the USA. I am not "obsessed with identifying the 'Jewish lobby' and all the rich Jews in the United States" as you write: they are simply articles that I am interested in and seek to expand/enrich with factual, well-sourced, and relevant information (how many times must I say this?) -- also, must I remind you that around 80% or more of your own edits deal with Jewish-themed articles, many of which you and other admins. fiercely protect and watch in shifts, preventing other good editors from even touching them. However, I would like to ask: isn't the job of admins. to watch/police the entirety of Wikipedia instead of having 80% or even more of your edits (and the edits of some other admins. are close to 100%) on Jewish themed-articles? (as I said, this is not just you: many other high-level admins. edit Jewish articles almost exclusively to the detriment of the rest of the project, which you all seem to conveniently ignore to spend the vast bulk of your time and energy on Jewish-themed articles).
Again, please assume good faith, as you have noticed that ALL of my edits were not vandalism; they were all made in good faith in the interest of furthering the project of an OPEN and FREE encyclopedia that ANYONE can edit. I am very interested in Jewish businesspeople in the USA (and the other List of Jewish Americans) and American-Israeli relations, and this is why I spent all of that time expanding that list only to have it unjustly deleted by you in the blink of an eye (and hence my high edit count in regards to these particular articles).
As for your other smear: "...claiming David Irving is a "Scholar of the Holocaust"...that IS NOT what I said. If you had read it correctly, I wrote: "I see that we don't have a 'Category:Independent scholars' here on Wiki. Though I find Irving's views pertaining to Jews and the Holocaust absolutely despicable..." -- I simply proposed to create a 'Category:Independent scholars' (for not only Irving but many others) as pertaining to Irving's history books that were written independently of any university or organization. Such a category would also be relevant for any other scholar or researcher that has published outside of the academic system yet still have valuable and well-researched views on their primary subjects; this had nothing to do with his personal views on the Holocaust, which I immediately denounced (Irving has never written a book on the Holocaust exclusively as far as I can find, only on WWII history). So, if you would please stop misquoting me I would certainly appreciate that. Also, since you canvassed this over my own canvasses on the pages which I added the Nader info that you later removed, I'm going to go ahead and copy/paste this response to the other smears in order to offer a rebuttal to your smearing. --WassermannNYC 03:39, 23 February 2007 (UTC)


I found that in the section on Nader's alleged "spoiling" of the 2000 election, there was no reference to the well-known allegations of vote fraud, which if true would refute the idea that Nader spoiled anything. I added to the article a paragraph mentioning that allegation, and somebody must have deleted it. Whoever did that was NOT a very nice person, and I've restored the paragraph.

[edit] The Atlantic Monthly Making Nader 96th Most Influential American

The opening paragraph of this article quotes the Atlantic Monthly magazine's making Nader number 96th on its list of influential Americans. The Atlantic is an extremely well-respected magazine, and I believe this belongs in the article. Someone, however, has been removing the quotation from the magazine that explains why the editors of the Atlantic put Nader at number 96 -- a short 17 word sentence: "He made the cars we drive safer; thirty years later, he made George W. Bush the president." Without the quote, citing the Atlantic is kind of pointless. Because the quote is short and because it encapsulates Nader's career well, I think it should remain in the first paragraph. Griot 16:17, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

+ Griot and other silent editors who revert back to this passage show no support for its appropriateness to a biography or any lack of bias, save their personal opinion, which is not sufficient for purposes of inclusion. Reasons for removing the quote are sound. The quote clearly construes a form of criticism and bias (see http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200409/littlefield2 and http://www.slate.com/?id=2064804&entry=2064909 for evidence) not appropriate to a biography, and best left out or moved to criticism. In addition, the conclusions asserted by the quote are recognized by numerous political analysts to be an inacurate assesment of Ralph Nader's involvement in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections (see 'Dude Where's My Country,' Michael Moore, 'Addicted to War,' Joel Andreas, "An Unresonable Man" and other sources). Furthermore, if it is the intention of 'The Atlantic Monthly' to contend that Ralph Nader's influential status in the United States, albeit worldwide, is reducible to one who "made George Bush the president," then the quote is not merely inaccurate but, as the Wikipedia article illustrates, blantanly obtuse.

In sum, The 'Atlantic Monthly' has been shown to be heavily biased (see http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Quality_Problems_at_Reuters_and_Atlantic_Monthly.asp, and http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/12/21/18339484.php for further evidence). As Mike Pesca states in "Nader Seen as Eroding Kerry's Support, "The national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly [James Fallows] is a former Nader Raider-cum Democrat." ('The Nation,' April 26, 2004, see http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1851372). To retain the quote "Because the quote is short" is arbitrary and absurd, and "because it encapsulates Nader's career well" has also been revealed to be false. Motion to remove quote, not appropriate to biography, or move to criticism. 76.166.123.129 22:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

That the quote could be construed as criticism is not a reason to exclude it from the article. However, I do hear what you are saying. Perhaps we can reach a comprimise on this, rather than continuing an edit war over it. Here's my suggestion. (1) Include the fact that AM rated Nader as the 96th most influential American -- certainly not a criticism, and notable in a biographical article on the person. (2) cite the fact as coming from AM. (3) Put the sentence quote in the citation, rather than in the article itself. -- Pastordavid 23:27, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. The quote from Atlantic needs to be included. It sums up Nader's career (in the view of a very respected publication) and tells reader's right away why the Atlantic put Nader in their Top 100 list. As I mentioned above, we're talking about precisely 17 words. It's not as though the ranking is followed up by a treatise. I'm just curious why this anonymous user is so dead-set against putting the quote in. It comes from an extremely well respected publication. It's not as if the quote comes from a blog or right-wing hate site. Griot 23:39, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

+Pastordavid, sounds like an interesting proposal. Please edit to show citation section with quote, how that would appear in the article.I think you're referring to the footnote? Thanks 76.166.123.129 23:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Griot, IP User has explained above his/her objection to the quote. I happen to agree with the quote, but also agree that it is not a NPOV assessment of Nader. Yes, AM is well-respected ... it also (like many well-respected publications) occassionally reports with a distinctive POV -- again, the fact that I usually agree with the POV does not change the fact that it is POV. I am going to edit the article as proposed above in a little while. -- Pastordavid 23:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
The Nervous Mermaid deleted half the article with this edit while removing the quote we have been discussing. I have restored the article. -- Pastordavid 00:45, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I have edited the article per this talk page, making clear that the statement in question was an editorial statement. -- Pastordavid 00:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Entschuldigung! I'm sorry, I did not mean to delete the article, only the 'Atlantic Monthly' sentence. I think maybe this is what happened with IP user, too? Yes, the solution to edit-wars is a good one, also. Thank you for inviting me! Bitte, The Nervous Mermaid 01:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I think you're right, apologies if it did, not intended. Btw, we've been having a great chuckle over the quote! If it were true that Ralph Nader "made George Bush the president" I must say, God certainly bestowed immense power to Ralph Nader! All hail Ralph Nader! *LOL* And, if that's true, Mr. Fallows, why isn't he Number 1?! It couldn't have been that Al Gore lost the popular vote in his own state. And it couldn't have been that the Repulbican party exploited the Clinton "sex scandals" during the election year, or that there were many and various unconstitutional activities surrounding the vote count in Florida, as well as other states, or, as viable sources reveal, that Al Gore did, in fact, win the popular vote in Florida! Or that John McCain was forced out of the presidential nomination. And, no, no WAY would a DEMOCRAT have waged war in Iraq, despite that fact that 'The Socialist Worker' and Howard Zinn report that Barack Obama has stated that he plans to attack Iran because of their "nuclear program," which is like calling a neighborhood bake sale a gormet French restaurant! And, no John Kerry did not state that he intended to send 40,000 ground troups into Iraq, rather that provide an exit stratagy. No, it is all the very-powerful Ralph Nader. The emperor IS wearing clothes. It wasn't me, Ralph Nader "made" me do it! Let's make bumper stickers :) 76.166.123.129 01:39, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
This isn't about our judgements of the merits of Nader's campaign. It's not about God. It's about the Atlantic Monthly's reason for making Nader number 96 in their influential Aemricans list. I have restored the quote. It has the merit of an editorial judgement from one of America's leading magazine. The anonymous contributor's argument above ranges from Fallows to God to Gore to McCain to Howard Zinn to Barack Obama to John Kerry. Let's stick to the topic, shall we? The Atlantic has stated its opinion -- a carefully merited one. Why all the fuss? Griot 02:07, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, hello again, Griot. Well, my above post was in response to the Nervous Mermaid, not to your editing tirade. But, here we are... again. I thought we had achieved a wonderful compromise, but, alas, no, Griot is right, in spite of all evidence, and the opinions of others, yes. Only Griot can see "what this is about." So tell me, Griot, does an "editorial judgement ," which, by defintion constitutes a POV, belong in a NPOV biography, simply because, apparently, it appeals to your own? "Why all the fuss?" indeed! You may want to address your own question. "Editorial judgement, " by definition, constitutes POV, and an encyclopedia biography strives to remain NPOV . It appears this fact is not getting thorugh to you. Okay, here it is, again: a POV, even if you think it is the most ACCURATE AMAZING POV in THE KNOWN UNIVERSE, does not belong in a NPOV section. It needs to be removed or relocated to criticism. Can you understand? Why all the fuss? Can we remove a POV from a NPOV section? Please, accept that the quote clearly expresses OPINION, which appears to be yours, but "what this is about," Griot, is NOT opinion, yours, or anyone else's. It is about an encyclopedia, i.e., NPOV, biography. Pastordavid, I implore you, please reinstate the edit. 76.166.123.129 02:40, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
"The Atlantic has stated its opinion -- a carefully merited one." Goodness! Opinion, editorial... in a bio? I can't agree. A "carefully merited one"... really? Interesting opinion, but, not fact. Is Wikipedia an encyclopedia, or an editorial? The Nervous Mermaid 03:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it is a carefully meritted, well reasoned opinion. But it is opinion, and opinion is, by definition, POV. Please leave it out of the lead of this article.
As a reminder: Everyone please comment on the content, not on the contributors. -- Pastordavid 03:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
"An Unreasonable Man" played at Sundance and really offered a lot of insight from one political analyst from Harvard, an admitted Democrat, as to why the notion that Nader "spoiled" the 2000 election can't be true. The filmmakers are Democrats, also, so it's very interesting, they show many sides to the argument. They said they came to the same conclusion, through the process of making the film. You might want to check it out. But, as you say, it's not really relevant. Opinion is opinion. The editorial doesn't belong. Telogen 04:22, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I think the Atlantic's assessment is pretty much the common assessment of Nader. It should stay. Ask most people what they know of Nader and they'll mention cars and the 2000 presidential electin. 71.139.27.85 06:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
"pretty much the common assessment of Nader... Ask most people what they know of Nader and they'll mention cars and the 2000 presidential electin" is irrelevant, and *highly* debatable. Wikipedia aims to educate beyond "the common," without pushing editorial views. You may want to read Wikipedia policy regarding NPOV. The passage constitutes POV and does not belong in the body of the article. I think Pastordavid has proposed a fair and reasonable compromise, to move the quote to the footnotes. Persisting in this way only serves to alienate yourself and others. It is disrespectful, and you have been kindly asked to stop. Please stop. 76.166.123.129 09:29, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with 76.166.123.129. 71.139.27.85's argument is fallacious, and impertinent. The quote doesn't concern "the 2000 presidential electin" but a a specific POV with regards to Mr. Nader's involvement in the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, which is not conducive to NPOV policies. "Ask most people what they know of Nader and they'll mention cars and the 2000 presidential electin" is obtuse and untrue, in Europe as well as in other areas of the world. Please stop reverting. If you refuse to stop, which is truly unfortunate, I motion that we bring in an administrator to help solve the matter. The Nervous Mermaid 10:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Reverted to Pastordavid edits. Telogen 10:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Fellicius and impertinent"? Enough of this melodrama. You guys seem to agree that the Atlantic Monthly is a worthy publication and therefore its list of Influential Americans is fine, but you object to the magazine's reasoning for putting Nader on the list. You can't have one and not the other. You object to the magazine's reasoning, so you want to bury the magazine's reason for putting Nader on the list in a footnote. If you notice, the References section of this article contains only citations to publications -- it doesn't have footnotes. The Atlantic quote clearly doesn't belong in the References section. Please don't attempt to bury it there. Griot 14:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

From WP:NPOV: "assert facts, including facts about opinions — but do not assert the opinions themselves." I think, other than the compromise I offered above, another could be to put the AM quote elsewhere in the article. To put it in the lead is offering as uncontested fact. To put it elsewhere -- a different place in the article or in the reference --- is to place it in the context of the debate about people's opinions about Nader's legacy.
That said, we seem to be getting nowhere fast on this. I am going to list this article on requests for comment, hoping that will move us one way or the other. -- Pastordavid 17:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I'd like to lend some credence to the idea that "the common wisdom" has some relevance, even in the rarefied atmosphere of a (supposedly) NPOV encyclopedia article. The common person's opinion, even if less than factually well-founded, is often the determinant in swaying the direction of elections, jury decisions, the success or failure of commercial products, the course of historical events, etc. Without the prevailing (but unofficial) anti-semitism prevailing in France at the time, would Dreyfus have been convicted and sent to Devil's Island? If the German people didn't have the opinion that they had been short-changed (read emasculated) by the Treaty of Versailles, would Hitler's brand of hypernationalism ever have found any traction? If the American people hadn't been induced to have an overblown opinion of the the threat posed by the Soviet military and Soviet ideology, would Senator Joseph McCarthy's witch-hunt for "fifth-columnists" in the US Army (and government) ever have gotten off the ground?
How does this apply to the current tiff about Nader? Well, I think it is a widely-held opinion in the US (and, to a lesser extent, outside that country) that Nader's obstinacy and resistance to forging a common front with other progressive polities (to oppose neo-fascism) siphoned votes away from Gore and, in effect, handed Bush his victory. Whether this is strictly true or not does not detract from another "truth": millions of people believe this about Nader, and it is not a belief that falls in the moon-is-made-of-green-cheese category. It is not utter nonsense. Further, this attitude, spurious as it may be, explains a good deal about American politics and about Nader himself. To discard or ignore this significant undercurrent of the story is to sign-up to a sanitized view of contemporary events. Unfortunately, NPOV is sometimes equivalent to putting on a set of blinders.
In practical terms, I think PastorDavid's solomonic solution is good and largely appropriate. However, as we will also recall, the solomonic solution calls for killing the baby. Griot is largely on the right track, I think, but he overplays his hand. The Atlantic's reasons for putting Nader on its list are based more on "the common wisdom" than on any probing analysis. The dozen or so words the magazine used to justify its action were glib, not definitive. The reasons have value to the extent that they recognize "the common wisdom" (even if this wisdom is not quite as common as some would like to believe); the Atlantic's reasons simply acknowlege the widely-held (but omnidirectionally disputed) view that one can draw a clear line from Nader to the Patriot Act and Guantanamo. I think the entire controversy should be laid-out in the Nader article. Leave in the fact that Nader made the Atlantic's list. Leave out the Atlantic's glib explanation of its reasons. No footnote. Then, devote five or ten thousand well-chosen words to a thorough exploration of the controversy about Nader's effect on the 2000 election.
Don't take a path that sweeps the still-living controversy under the NPOV rug. Don't kill the baby out of some misguided sense of "fairness". PeterHuntington 17:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
You would have to leave out the quote if it was indeed "glib." Perhaps a dozen or two-dozen word encapsulation of anyone's life is bound to be "glib." I don't know. I don't find the quote as "glib" as I find it succinct. BTW, comparing Nader's actions to the anti-Semitic gov't of France's in regard to Dryfeus is, I think, far-fetched. The simple fact is that the Atlantic's summation of Nader is what most believe about him. And again, as for moving this to a "footnote," I remind you that there are no footnotes in this article. There are only references to articles and Web sites. So moving it to a "footnote" would be pointless. Griot 20:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I would support moving the quote - and even the AM ranking - out of the lead, and moving the entire thing into a section on the 2000 election. -- Pastordavid 20:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
This is not a valid solution. The ranking by the Atlantic and the quote apply to Nader's entire career, not what he did in the 2000 election. I appreciate the attempt at a compromise, but it would stick out like a sore thumb in that part of the article. Griot 20:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
"Please review the Wikip policy regarding POV. The point of view policy is about individual contributors to wikipedia expressing their points of view. It doesn't oppose a point of view referenced by a reliable source. Griot 14:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)"
Let's stick to Wikipedia policy, which states, "Stick to the facts... the least cumbersome way of handling NPOV concerns would be to improve the article or the category description, so that it is no longer POV." --Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial 76.166.123.129 02:23, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't see what the problem with the Atlantic quote is. Of course it's a gross over-simplification. Nader didn't single-handedly make American cars safer, nor did he make Bush president — but those are the two things that he will always be remembered for. Regardless of whether you like the assessment, or agree with it, it's a pithy summary of his perception by the American public. — Malik Shabazz | Talk 05:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Comment

Sorry to all for taking so long to get this listed as a RfC (real life interrupted). The dispute on this page centers around a quote from the Atlantic Monthly. Griot argues for including it in the lead, along with the AM ranking of Nader as the 96th most influential American (example). When I arrived on this page, it was because of an IP editor repeatedly removing the quote (example) later explained to be because the quote represents the editorial POV of AM, not the reporting of fact. I proposed a compromise of moving the quote into the citation attached to the AM statistic (example). Since then, Peter Huntinton has proposed another option (in the talk above). Other comments and rationale can be seen in the comments in the section immediately above. (If I have misrepresented anyone's opinion or perspective, please accept my apologies and feel free to correct me). -- Pastordavid 20:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Responses from uninvolved Editors

I don't think Nader made cars safer. See de Toledano's work on the subject. Nader certainly made trial lawyers richer, but that's not the same thing. The quote belongs in the article as an example of the public perception of Nader, and the introduction should feature his spoiler role in 2000 as the major event of his life in history, but I can see leaving the quote out of the introduction. The PastorDavid compromise seems reasonable, other than that Nader's presidential campaigns should be in the first sentence or two, rather than demoted to the second paragraph. -- TedFrank 21:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi TedFrank, where can I obtain a copy de Toledano work? Could you please provide the author's full name and book title? 76.166.123.129 03:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Ralph de Toledano, "Hit and Run." It's cited in the article already. Nader used meritless litigation to harass the author, and deter future journalists from investigating him. -- TedFrank 20:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, right, I spotted the author and title yesterday. Appreciate the synop, but I think I'd prefer to read it before making any conclusions. Sounds like it could be an interesting account of one man's experience. Searching for the book, it's fairly obscure, out of print. I noticed some used copies floating around on Alibris. 76.166.123.129 22:54, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The quote is great! It's sourced and it has both negative and positive sides to it. Critics and fans of Nader can each find something good in it. futurebird 22:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Additional comment from previously involved editors

My comment, from above: Let's stick to Wikipedia policy, which states, "Stick to the facts... the least cumbersome way of handling NPOV concerns would be to improve the article or the category description, so that it is no longer POV." --Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial

Whether an "opinion" is "commonly held" or not is irrelevant. Wikipedia is not an opinion depository. Wikipedia, as with any encyclopedia, provides information for the purposes of education. Positive or negative, POV is POV. The only place for any POV is in a critique or editorial.

Motion to retain the PastorDavid compromise until the dispute is resolved. 76.166.123.129 03:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Motion? I'd just like to reiterate my position. The editors of the Altantic Monthly see Nader has a highly influential America (96th of all time). To explain why, they wrote 17 words in their article. If we agree that the historians whom the Atlantic employed to compose the list are worthy individuals, it follows that we include their quote as well as the mention of Nader's ranking (especially given the fact that the quote is succinct, which is necessary in the opening paragraph of an article). Griot 23:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
I support Pastordavid's view that the quote and The Atlantic's ranking should be moved out of the lead. Clearly, the inclusion of Nader on the magazine's list does not represent one of the highlights of Nader's illustrious career. At best, the magazine's action is just an argument for considering Nader an important person, one worthy of an encyclopedia article. Since this is something that was never seriously in question, it is inappropriate (and superfluous) in the lead of the article. To my mind, Griot's arguments are unpersuasive. Need we spend more time on something so trivial? PeterHuntington 23:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Here here! Well articulated, PeterHuntington. Please, read my note on content.
Griot, we cannot "agree that the historians whom the Atlantic employed to compose the list are worthy individuals," because The Atlantic Monthy employed no such persons. AM lists are created by AM employees and editors, in this case, James Fallows, who has publically declared his bias against Ralph Nader. Sad, actually, that AM lost its former editor, Michael Kelly, whose integrity and objectivity were renowned. Regardless, the status of The Atlantic Monthy and its lists are irrelevant. Your position is irrelevant. Wikipedia policy states: "Stick to the facts... the least cumbersome way of handling NPOV concerns would be to improve the article or the category description, so that it is no longer POV." In support of and adherence to Wikipedia policy, I revert to Pastordavid's edit. 76.166.123.129 03:48, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
The list was not constructed by James Fallows. The Atlantic hired a panel of eight historians to construct the list. Your and Peter Huntington's fondness for adverbs and adverbial clauses notwithstanding, the Atlantic is not "irrelevant." I think all can agree on that. Griot 15:55, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I will try to use short words from now on, so you can get it. Now get this: give it up, back off, you lose, next case. PeterHuntington 16:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
The quote doesn't belong in a biography. Personally, I don't think it belongs in the article at all. It's biased rhetoric, not encyclopedia content. Let's move on, like PeterHuntington says. More attention to vital matters... Telogen 06:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, Griot and 76.166.123.129 are both partially correct. The list is was complied by The Atlantic, along with ten "eminent" historians," who are not identified, ergo, could be entirely biased. BTW, it says nothing about these "historions" being "hired," and over 1/3 of the names that made their list "just happened" to be past AM contributors. "Insight," i.e., editorial comments and "quotes," or justiciations, were created by AM. See http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200612/influentials-main for further details. Here's my conclusion, short and sweet: very significant data is being removed, while POV editiorials are being reverted. This does nothing to support Wikipedia. Give it up, is right. The Nervous Mermaid 01:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

This is a farce: The Nervous Mermaid is wholly interested in Ralph Nader and has not commented on any other article in Wikipedia except for Seasons & a Muse, Inc, an article that has had only two contributors, one of whom, not coincidentally, is 76.166.123.129, who is often a commentator on the Ralph Nader article. Meanwhile, there's Telogen, who only comments on Ralph Nader and one other article, Jeanne Marie Spicuzza, an article which also happens to be visited extremely often by user 76.166.123.129. Would you guys cut this out? Griot 02:12, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The only evidence of conspiracy is that which you're creating. It appears there are several editors, myself included, who disagree with your position, so you're resorting to personal attacks. You're removing editors' contributions that are sourced and accurate. You're admittedly trolling these editors' histories, then attacking them, which is, by Wikipedia standards, bad faith. The fact is, I've contributed to various articles, some of which have existed for years. Conspiracy? Illuminati? No. Please stop the personal attacks. Accept that your argument is unpersuasive and move on. We can work together, respectfully. It will only serve to make Wikipedia as accurate and educational as it can be. Shouldn't that be the goal? 76.166.123.129 06:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay, wait, now I'm not really myself, but four or so people put together??? To be perfectly frank, I'm just starting out, and am so bombarded with all the "fixes" required to articles I'm contributing to, i.e., this one in particular-- I wonder why!-- I don't have time for anything else. Btw, not very nice, hunting around and messing with our articles and edits. Jeez, paranoia soon destroya. Way to make us feel welcome! For the record, I'm not a mermaid, I'm a guy. Concur with Peter and 76.166.123.129... Can we PLEASE move on? Telogen 08:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I was asked to comment by Telogen. First, the NPOV policy applies to editors and their own points of view, not to notable sources. If that was the case, the Time 100 would be listed in other people's articles, but not the reasons for the listing. I agree, I don't think it makes much sense to not include why Atlantic Monthly put Nader on the list; however, I don't think a footnote is that poor of a solution. I also don't think it is optimal. It would be preferable to include the quote after the ranking, in one sentence, no more, no less. But it is not a bad compromise to put it in a footnote; most readers, I believe, will see it if they really care. This simply isn't a large issue, in my opinion, this one magazine's rankings. Both sides might want to see how the Time 100 people have their ranking incorporated into their articles. But one thing should be clear: NPOV applies to us, not to notable sources of high-regard. Putting in AM's ranking is not POV-pushing, just like putting in the Time 100 rankings is not POV-pushing. That policy isn't for them, it's for us. --David Shankbone 20:01, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I made this comment higher on the page last night, but I copied it here so it wouldn't be over-looked.
"I don't see what the problem with the Atlantic quote is. Of course it's a gross over-simplification. Nader didn't single-handedly make American cars safer, nor did he make Bush president — but those are the two things that he will always be remembered for. Regardless of whether you like the assessment, or agree with it, it's a pithy summary of his perception by the American public." — Malik Shabazz | Talk 14:37, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Here's an additional thought that might be a compromise (or it might not satisfy anybody): "One magazine summarized Nader's legacy by saying 'He made the cars we drive safer; thirty years later, he made George W. Bush the president.'" In other words, don't mention the historians or the ranking. The summary is, IMO, solely the Atlantic's. Just a suggestion. — Malik Shabazz | Talk 14:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Agree with Malik Shabazz that the quote is fine as a summary (a "pithy summary," pithiness being exactly what is needed in an article intro). The problem with "one magazine summarizes" is that the Atlantic isn't just "one magazine" but maybe (along with Harper's and the New Yorker) the most prominent magazine in the United States. Including the magazine's name gives the quote authority. Hashaw 18:43, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with MS, it's AM editorial, and it really sticks out in the lead/bio, because it's not really a summary-- let's be honest-- it's a criticism. I don't agree with keeping it in the lead. But if it is very important to some editors, while clearly other editors object, how about, "While one magazine summarized Nader's legacy by saying 'He made the cars we drive safer; thirty years later, he made George W. Bush the president, other sources have quickly refuted both claims. Clearly, Ralph Nader remains an influential and controversial figure of the twenty-first century." Something like that. Thoughts? Telogen 18:59, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I think we've heard from a lot of involved and uninvolved eds. I'm going to give the above compromise a try. If any editors remain opposed, please, get involved here. It's time to end this edit war and address other aspects of the article. The goal is to make WP a great source that more and more people will want to use. Telogen 05:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Thank you DavidShankBone for taking time to respond thoughtfully. Okay, given that many editors have very strong opinions re: AM article, I think it best to come up with a compromise we can ALL agree on and END THE EDIT WAR. My position is, the AM editorial, however respected, etc., reflects POV that doesn't belong in a lead or bio for an encyclopedia article. It's a Nader article, not an AM article, and I'd personally like to see it go. BUT we are talking about COMPROMISE. My contention is, if certain editors INSIST on including this POV, then I propose that these editors consent to an immediate follow-up of rebuttal POV, NOT in the footnote, but in the article. And I still contend, in either case, the AM mention doesn't belong in bio/lead. However, if certain editors insist on this, too, I argue that we either include the editorial in the footnote (Pastordavid proposal), or include rebuttal POV in the article, too- NOT in the footnote. Ultimately, I think, if it stays, it belongs in the 2000 section.It reads out of place in the lead. Can we hear from the Con and Pro-AM sides? Reminder, this is NOT a forum to argue political opinions, but to agree on some kind of compromise. As a community. Thanks, everyone. Your thoughts are welcome. Telogen 07:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I think it's necessary to include the Atlantic's name. The magazine is one of the most respected in America, which makes its Nader judgement worth putting in the article. I have put a "discount his role in 2000" into the opening paragraph. Nader's role in the 2000 presidential election is of course debatable. Probably the judgement on Nader will be different five or ten years from now when the Bush II presidency is over. But while Bush is president, many will continue to speculate on what might have been if Nader had not run and Gore had been elected. In the meantime, the judgement of Nader as put forth in the Atlantic Monthly is very much the thinking of many Americans. The historians that the Atlantic assembled I'm sure weighed their judgement on Nader carefully. MiFeinberg 15:42, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Reading much better, more balanced. Thanks MiFeinberg. Anyone else want to add anything? Please discuss here, sans reverts. Hopefully we can keep this aspect as-is and move onto other areas of the article. I'm really proud, the way we worked this out as a community, with democracy. Thanks everyone who participated! Telogen 21:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Presidential Candidacies

I'm noticing that this article is heavily weighted towards Ralph Nader's candidacy in the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections and debates surrounding, at times reading more like a political debate than an encyclopedic article. Request assistance from willing editors to supply more data, such as lecture content previously suggested and other pertient biographical information. Italic text

Frankly, I think there's a very good argument to be made here to have an entry on Nader's Candidacies, and a much briefer outline of them on this page. The page is heavily weighted towards a frequent but minor part of his 50 years of advocacy.Thespian 01:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I utterly agree! Thespian, would be great if you would assist on this. Thank you... Telogen 05:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Ralph Nader's presidential campaigns - Thespian 07:35, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Looking good Thespian! Very good. And we've got to work on the Ralph Nader article, making it less weighted towards election controversies and more biographical to include his advocacy, activism, and consumer and workers' rights' contributions. After seeing the "An Unreasonable Man", I'm very curious about the development of his "Raiders", his meetings with Carter and other govt administrations, events that led him to run for pres, etc. Excellent work! Telogen 21:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] multi-millionaire

if this man is such an advocate for the poor and is so anti corporate, then the fact that he is worth millions of dollars is relevant. Keltik31 15:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

And the article discusses it at length, in the appropriate place. Nader's net worth isn't note-worthy enough to be mentioned in the opening paragraph, no matter how many times you put it there. — Malik Shabazz | Talk 03:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Your opinion that Nader is hypocritical for not being poor, despite his advocacy for the poor, is irrelevant. I've put in a request for this User to be banned on the admin board for consistent disruptive editing. --DavidShankBone 04:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

banned for telling the truth? Keltik31 17:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Banned for disruptive edits. Telogen 19:33, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

i read the policy about opening paragraphs. now understood. Keltik31 15:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

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