Surely, we all admit that today, America is a very different place than is was in the year 2000.
We now live in the era of the Patriot Act.
Our former fiscal health as a nation teeters on the edge of disaster with every year producing a new, record breaking budget and trade deficit.
Our reputation as the world leader in foreign affairs is in tatters.
One of the big issues facing the nation this year: Should we amend the Constitution to disenfranchise and entire segment of our population - denying their equal rights under the law?
And even the very corporatism that Mr. Nader speaks of has entered its golden age, with energy lobbyists righting environmental legislation, pharmaceutical companies writing heath care bills, and big time Texas contractors getting rich off the blood and treasure of Americans in Iraq.
Gee, what changed in 2000 to bring about these changes?
Oh yeah! That's right, we used to have a Democrat as president!!! But wait, Ralph, I thought there wasn't a difference????? Wha??
All a person has to do is look at the difference between now and then to find the lie in Nader's public posturing. Not only are there differences in the parties, but they are immense. By claiming otherwise, Nader has Jumped the Shark.
That's not to say Democrats are perfect (or that Naderites, Greens, or Libertarians are for that matter).
But lets not make the bogus claim that there is no difference. There are immense differences.
The things that are happening in America today are scary. They are especially scary to a guy like me - married with a mortgage, credit cards, two kids and another on the way.
Someone on an earlier thread suggested that if I voted pragmatically (i.e. against Bush as opposed to for my core beliefs) I was somehow un-democratic.
Whatever.
Eric Alterman said it best - elections aren't therapy. At the end of the day, in this country, it ultimately comes down to a choice between two people for the highest office in the land. That's life.
For those people that crave the warm fuzzy feeling of moral superiority, and insist on throwing their vote away on a candidate without credibility or a chance, all I will say it this: I hope the warm feelings you get from wasting your vote are enough to carry you through four more years of fiscal instability, war, erosion of civil liberties, and corporate greed; because you will have enabled it to happen.