Jonathan Chait — him again — rebuts Ralph Nader's dogged insistence that he bears no responsibility whatsoever for George W. Bush's 2000 victory over Al Gore — and by extension, all the bad things that happened to this country because of the Bush presidency, or at least the first term of it.
Obviously, there were other factors in play besides Nader, starting with the fact that Gore wasn't the greatest of candidates and that the Bush folks ran a much better campaign. It also didn't help that so much of the press obviously didn't think much of Gore and the narrative developed that he was a stiff, cold, policy wonk of a man who lied a lot, like when he said he'd invented the Internet, which of course he didn't say.
Prior to that election, I had great respect for Nader. He was that rarity: A non-elected person who made a real difference in Washington. His drive to become an elected person though turned him into — or maybe revealed him to always have been — not all that different. He was mounting what could have been a real, honest-to-God, could-really-change-things Third Party candidacy but really, it turned out to be founded on only one principle: That Ralph Nader should be President because he was Ralph Nader. It wasn't about anyone else or anything else, just as Ross Perot's Third Party candidacy was only about Ross Perot. Neither man passed on any flag to anyone to carry on their work and build on what they'd done.
There's much to be said for getting a Third Party up and running…and not just that it might someday be an actual player. If it were about something more than one guy's ego-driven yearning to be the President of the United States, it might demonstrate that there's a substantial, growing group o' folks out there who share certain viewpoints. But in neither case — Nader or Perot — were you investing in a long-range plan built on political philosophy if you supported and voted for those men. You were just supporting them and nothing larger.
I mention this because Bernie Sanders is probably too old to run for the presidency again. I really, really hope we don't look back some day and see that whatever movement and excitement he fomented ended once he was no longer running.