SATURDAY IN THE BOOTH WITH NADER

Since I did one positive post on Nader, I need to balance it out with 8 or 9 negative ones.

Let's look at Nader's "issues" page, on electoral reform:

Our democracy is in a descending crisis. Voter turnout is among the lowest in the western world. Redistricting ensures very few incumbents are at risk in one-party districts. Barriers to full participation of candidates proliferate making it very obstructive, for most third party and Independent candidates to run. Obstacles, and deliberate manipulations to undermine the right to vote, for which penalties are rarely imposed, are preventing voters from voting. New paperless voting machines are raising questions about whether we can trust that our votes are being counted as they are cast. Finally, money dominates expensive campaigns, mainly waged on television in sound bite format. The cost of campaigns creates a stranglehold making politics a game for only the rich or richly funded. Major electoral reforms are needed to ensure that every vote counts, all voters are represented through electoral reforms like instant run-off voting, none-of-the-above options, and proportional representation, non-major party candidates have a chance to run for office and participate in debates, and that elections are publicly financed.

That's nice, but where are the possibilities of weekend voting, or a federal election holiday? What about all the working-class voters who are disenfranchised from the electoral process because of horrible hours spent working to go from rent check to rent check, and then coming home to unbearably long lines at the precinct?

...Controversial theory: Those voters include signifcant percentages of minority voters, who tend Democratic (Gore received over 90% of the black vote in 2000). In other words, Nader cares about enfranchising voters, but only if they are predisposed to voting for, well, him. Meanwhile, the Democrats stood strongly behind McCain-Feingold, as flawed as it was, because they were standing up for a principle even though it might hurt them electorally by putting them at a significant hard-money disadvantage...