Ralph's running

Well, Ralph Nader is running for President again. Oy vey.

Those of us who were at least old enough to walk in 2000 (that would be, I hope, all of us) will recall that this man at least possibly screwed things up for us by taking votes that might otherwise have gone to Al Gore. I suspect that this year, most Democrats will remember this well enough not to touch the guy with a ten-foot pole, so I doubt that the effect will be terribly strong - don't get me wrong; if we lose this election it's on us, not Ralph Nader.

However, it is unfortunate that, since Nader is seventy-four years young, John McCain will no longer be the oldest candidate running for President.

I'm going to console myself with this video, in honor of Mac's "Bomb Iran" riff:

Maybe if Ralph Nader could write this good a song about his foreign policy plan, I'd consider voting for him.

A Third Party Election

Alongside today's news that Edwards and Rudy are dropping out comes word that Ralph Nader, accomplice to Bush's 2000 election theft, is exploring another run.  It's pretty clear he waited until Edwards bowed out, as they both fit, to some extent, the same mold.  Except Edwards knew when to bow out with some dignity left, while Nader seems ready to screw things up again.

What's interesting, though, is that this could make 2008 a third party election.  If Mike Bloomberg ends up running and if Ron Paul, realizing he has several million dollars of online donations left after losing the Republican race, decides to run as well, things could get interesting.

While the Democratic race is still fairly wide-open, it's becoming increasingly clear that John McCain will end up with the GOP nomination.  McCain and Paul present drastically different views of conservatism, just as either Clinton or Obama and Nader do on the liberal side.  Bloomberg, having been a member of both parties, can provide something interesting to attract voters from both sides  - drawing from the left for his social stances and from the right for his business experience and managerial skills.

While this is drastically oversimplifying things, let's say most of Paul's supporters stick with him in a third party run and that some (although definitely not all) of Edward's supporters go to Nader.  Who does Bloomberg get?  He'll likely pick up some of Romney's supporters on the GOP side and a few Hillary or Obama supporters regardless of who wins the nomination.  Nader and Paul will cut down the votes of the eventual Democratic and Republican nominees.  And if McCain is the Republican candidate, there's a good chance many of the evangelical conservatives who supported Huckabee will be less likely to vote.

What does this all boil down to?  It's still not likely by any stretch, but for the first time in decades there's a very small, but finite chance that an independent could make it to the White House.

Sunday Screening

APROPOS OF NOTHING, here is Ralph Nader in the world's most awkward Sesame Street appearance:

(from Classic Television Showbiz via WFMU)

Do kids still watch Sesame Street today? I feel like we might have been the tail end of that generation, what with all the crap you hear now about SpongeBob and Dora the Explorer and so on and so forth. Ever since Teletubbies, really -- which as we all know promoted the homosexual agenda -- Sesame Street seems to have left the spotlight. It seems slightly outdated now, like The Electric Company--

--just a little bit too genuine and enthusiastic for today's jaded, media-saturated children.

(Or am I even giving it too long of a lifespan? I know I watched Sesame Street religiously, but I had a very anachronistic childhood -- lots of musicals -- which actually might explain a lot about me... anyway.)

If it has lost its cultural impact, that's a shame, because Sesame Street is just so perfect. It's a synthesis of everything we know our society is with everything we want it to be, and all put together in a way that five-year-olds can understand. If the historians of the future are any good, they will look to Sesame Street as one of the critical primary documents of our era. Besides, how awesome is this:

I really think the world would be better off if we did all our learning in a Sesame Street format. Wouldn't you love to end every Harvard lecture with a singalong? ("These are the laws of supply and demand, supply and demand, supply and demand...") With that in mind, I give you this wonderful SCTV skit that John Hawley brought to my attention a while ago: PHILOSOPHY STREET!

"Well, we've got mechanistic materialism... and dialectical materialism!" Have a good night everybody, and enjoy the upcoming week.