The Democrats have a strategy for dealing with Ralph Nader. Use lawyers to muzzle him, to keep him off ballots, and to chew up his money with baseless and repeated legal roadblocks until the election is over.
Ralph Nader's efforts to get his name on ballots in important swing states as an independent candidate for president are becoming mired in legal challenges and charges of fraud by Democrats who have mounted an extensive campaign to keep him from becoming a factor in this year's election.Now, it seems to me that even Jimmy Carter would scream if someone in, say, Mexico, did this to a minor party. Shouldn't the USA have cleaner elections than Mexico? What exactly are we telling the dictators of the world? That it's OK to use one's money and political power to keep upstarts off the ballot? I despise Ralph Nader, but I despise these electoral hoodlums more.
Several recent polls show that Nader could draw at least 2 or 3 percent of the vote in more than a dozen states where the race now appears close enough for him to alter the outcome, most likely to the detriment of Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, and in favor of President George W. Bush.
With reports that Republicans are bankrolling and gathering signatures for Nader in at least 10 states, local Democratic parties across the country, encouraged by an umbrella group called United Progressives for Victory, have initiated a series of efforts to stop him state by state. So far, with 77 days until the election, Nader seems almost assured of getting on the ballot in 11 states. He has filed petitions in more than 20 others and is awaiting rulings on their validity. He has yet to file in 18 states.
But he is entangled in an assortment of lawsuits, including ones in states that may be the most contested in November. He is in court in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona, and faces potential suits in Oregon, Iowa, New Hampshire, West Virginia and Nevada.
He is also in court in states like Texas (for Bush) and Illinois (for Kerry) that are not expected to be battlegrounds. But the legal challenges there are diverting his time and resources.