Ralph Nader is going after the Democratic Party for the bouquet of dirty tricks they deployed to prevent him from getting on state ballots in 2004:
The lawsuit also alleges that the Democratic National Committee conspired to force Nader off the ballot in several states.
"The Democratic Party is going after anyone who presents a credible challenge to their monopoly over their perceived voters," Nader said in a statement. "This lawsuit was filed to help advance a free and open electoral process for all candidates and voters. Candidate rights and voter rights nourish each other for more voices, choices, and a more open and competitive democracy."
Among other things, the lawsuit alleges that the DNC tried to bankrupt Nader's campaign by suing to keep him off the ballot in 18 states. It also suggests the DNC sent Kerry supporters to crash a Nader petition drive in Portland, Ore., in June 2004, preventing him from collecting enough signatures to get on the ballot.
The best part of this story for me is that it would seem to suggest that Nader plans to run again in 2008. Do it, Ralph! I can hardly wait to hear the peevish whining!
There are far more details of the Democrats' 2004 tactics here. If you want to have some fun, describe them to your Democrat-voting, Nader-hating acquaintances and see what kinds of rationalizations they come up with. My own experience broke roughly even between rationalizers and those who (to their credit) were unsettled by it, even if only briefly.
Hopefully the actual filing will be available at some point; I'm sure it would make interesting reading. If I do find it I'll let you know (and if you know where to find it, please let me know).
UPDATE: Democracy Now! did an interview with Carl Mayer, a member of the legal team that filed the lawsuit (video here). He only had time to sketch the tip of the iceberg, but even that is enough to show just how low the DNC and its cohorts were willing to go to block people like me from having the choice of voting for Nader:
We have emails from Democratic Party operatives stating, we want our people to go to this convention and then refuse to sign the petition at the convention so Nader will not get enough signatures at the convention to get on the ballot. ...
The complaint -- and this is all documented. It’s a seventy-three-page complaint, over 250 paragraphs, chapter and verse, about how, for example, the SEIU came up with the strategy of getting its members to go and write signatures in the wrong place on a petition, on Nader’s petitions, which would then invalidate the entire petition.
If there's any meaningful difference between these tactics and the Republicans' tactics, I certainly can't find it.
Run, Ralph, run! Give me someone to vote for. I don't think I can bring myself to vote for a demy-crat, can you?
Posted by: gfod | Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 07:23 PM
At the national level, no, I don't think so; no matter what decency they themselves might possess, they belong to the shambling pile of putrescence that is the Democratic Party.
Not that it really matters who I vote for at the national level, though, since I live in California, and the chances of the state going for a Republican are roughly equal to the chances of yaks developing faster-than-light travel.
Posted by: John Caruso | Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 09:40 PM