Nader has a point

Nader has a point
Third-party candidates can help focus debate on real-world issues

Sept. 12, 2000

Ralph Nader has been making the rounds lately, urging issue-oriented debates about topics of real concern to the American public. He wants to be included in the national presidential debates.

Nader is making political hay over the fact that George W. Bush has expressed reluctance to participate in nationally televised debates. He’s right in saying that free and open debate benefits the American people not only by helping voters make informed choices but also by helping to shape the agenda of the presidential race.

There are topics that Gore would rather not discuss because of his ties to the current administration. He can’t criticize choices made during the Clinton presidency without addressing exactly how strongly he differed. He also has a Senate voting record that can be used against him. Bush has similar problems with his father’s presidency and his own governorship. Neither wants to be placed in a defensive position that might alienate voters.

Nader has very little to lose. He’s not going to be elected president in 2000 or ever. His contribution to American politics will be to focus attention on issues that Bush and Gore would prefer to soft-pedal. He and other national third-party candidates like Pat Buchanan can make statements that the leading candidates don’t dare talk about.

We should be talking about many of those issues, which apparently can only be introduced by third-party candidates. They have a status that garden-variety hecklers do not.

At the same time, we also need debates in which the two front-runners meet head-on and in which the moderator asks difficult questions, not about such peripheral issues as hemp but about the health care, foreign policy, the economy and other issues that the presidency was created to address. We shouldn’t need Ralph Nader to help us out in that regard; our two-party system should deal with Americans more honestly.

Americans are growing increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that presidential candidates finance their campaigns not with $10 contributions from individual Americans but with large checks given by corporations whose interests differ from those of the average voter. It does cost money to get the word out to voters, but those paying the bills do have a lot of influence. Sooner or later the Democrats and Republicans will have to acknowledge that problem and admit that Nader and other fringe candidates were right.

Presidents should be chosen in public by individual voters who have had ample opportunity to learn how they stand on the issues. Too much of the campaign already takes place in private, in strategy sessions that must take funding sources into account. Nader is helping to focus the light of public scrutiny on the workings of the major candidates’ campaigns and minds. That has to be a good thing.