Secretary of State Bill Bradbury just announced that Ralph Nader failed to make Oregon's ballot for the general election. I know the rule about no one-sentence diaries, but I wanted to get the news out. I'll update the diary soon.
Source:Northwest Cable News Channel
[Update] Oregon Public Broadcasting confirms that the effort to get Nader on the ballot by petition has failed, but the numbers are not yet available. Naderites were confident their 18,000 signatures would be enough to meet the 15,300+ requirement, but there were many instances of chicanery, duplicate signatures and other problems. Will post link to the AP story when AP posts its damned story!
The campaign to get Nader on the Oregon ballot has included such noble events as two failed attempts to take the easy route and gather 1,000 people together to nominate Nader by convention. The second of these meetings featured pinky-ring wearing Rethugs in the crowd to sign the petitions and then leave before Nader even spoke, and a campaign coordinated by a member of the county Democratic committee (acting independently, naturally) to get Democrats to attend the convention and then refuse to sign the petition.
It also saw a concerted effort by the Republican National Committee to assist Nader by shipping in 50 young Rethugs, putting them up in hotels and letting them loose on the citizens of Portland. In addition RNC hired a signature-gathering firm it frequently uses to collect signatures in southern Oregon by asking people to sign a petition to "help President Bush get re-elected" without informing them they were helping get Nader on the ballot. And the efforts of a couple of local ugly interest groups with Republican affiliations to assist Nader garnered national attention. In other words, the Nader campaign in Oregon has been a circus.
It somehow seems strange to celebrate the fact that someone failed to make the ballot, but given the insults to the democratic process the people of Oregon have endured, I understand the impulse.
The Nader campaign plans to hold a news conference this afternoon to announce a further strategy to permit us to vote for their man.
This is an important issue because Oregon is one of the few states where Nader, even the '04 version, could draw enough votes from Kerry to make a difference in the election results. However, having been one of the 50,000+ faces in the Kerry rally crowd, it's difficult for me to believe it will be that close.