( cross posted at ronpaulforums.com)
An encouraging video with Ralph Nader and Ron Paul, showing the considerable overlap on MULTIPLE, MAJOR issues, was posted some months ago at youtube, and recently written about here at MyFDL.
Now, while I would expect him to avoid being too upfront about it, I have to believe that Ron Paul knows that he’s extremely unlikely to win the Presidency in 2012. So, why is he running? I believe he’s running because he’s a patriotic American who wants to alter the political climate in America, and he realizes that a run for Presidecy gives his ideas a large forum, from which those ideas can germinate and further grow in the American mind. Such a calculus is not totally unlike the efforts of the New Progressive Alliance (NPA) to run a challenger against Obama in the Democratic Primary. Beating Obama isn’t the point. Fighting back against Obama’s corporatism and banksterism is.
Good on Ron Paul. However, I want to make a couple of suggestions that, I believe, would both help maximize Ron Paul’s efforts to build up a libertarian-ish Republican faction, but that would also help make the sort of coalition that Ron Paul calls for, in Congress, larger and more effective. As an added bonus, these suggestions might help prepare the groundwork for a fusion party.
My ideas are basically a) have Ralph Nader run as a Democrat in the Presidential primary and b) have Ron Paul and Ralph Nader make joint campaign appearances, where they invite citizens of both ideological constituencies to attend, and hopefully, establish personal relationships with a view towards future cooperation.
Ralph Nader has been trying to get a slate of Democrats to challenge Obama in the Dem primary. From Ralph Nader: Pressure Obama with primary
===================================
Ralph Nader is convinced that Barack Obama will win reelection in 2012, but that won’t stop him from trying to organize a slate of Democrats in the coming months to challenge the president in party primaries next year.
Nader told POLITICO on Wednesday that he is working on bringing together about half a dozen presidential candidates who could “dramatically expand a robust discussion within the Democratic Party and among progressive voters across the country.” Each would focus on a specific issue where the far left says Obama hasn’t done enough, including the environment, labor and health care.
====================================
Whether or not Nader succeeds, he can certainly succeed in enlisting himself in such an effort (as long as he’s not breaking any rules, of course. I’m assuming it’s not too late for him to register as a Democrat.) And I frankly have trouble thinking of a Dem candidate who could draw more people to a joint Ron Paul / famous Dem campaign appearance, than Nader.
I was annoyed with Kucinich in 2008, because although he had a relationship with the Progressive Democrats of America, he completely failed, AFAIK, to leverage his campaign’s free media exposure to help grow the PDA. Apparently, he was incapable of conceiving of both a likely loss, as well as the need for a larger, more long-lasting effect from his candidacy. His run in 2008 is basically a footnote in history, and altered nothing in the American political landscape.
I’ve previously described the Nader / Paul appearance on the video, above, as a “lovefest”. Having Nader and Paul fans congregate civilly, or better yet, enthusiastically, with the the notion that democracy demands compromise, could both accelerate a withdrawal from stupid “lesser evilist” voting by both libertarians, and progressives. Additionally, it could help prepare the groundwork for a fusion progressive/libertarian/constitutionalist party, the need for which has also been often discussed by Gary Null at the progressiveradionetwork.com