{news} Nader on '06 election - "Democracy Now" show...."Mandate -less win for Democrats"

[Green Party-CT]

or analysis on Tuesday's election and the Democratic victory in the 
House, 
consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader joins 
us in 
Washington.

    * Ralph Nader, ran for president in 2000 as a candidate on the 
Green 
Party ticket. In 2004 he ran for President as an Independent. He is the 
author of many books including "The Good Fight: Declare Your 
Independence 
and Close the Democracy Gap."

www.democracynow.org 
NADER TRANSCRIPT:


AMY GOODMAN: Last night, Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, head of the 
Democratic 
Congressional Campaign Committee, vowed reforms would be in order.

      REP. RAHM EMANUEL: The American people never lose their zeal for 
reform, and neither can we. The old era of irresponsibility is over, 
and the 
new era of real reform has just begun.

AMY GOODMAN: For analysis on Tuesday's election and the Democratic 
victory 
in the House, we're joined by consumer advocate and two-time 
presidential 
candidate, Ralph Nader, in Washington, D.C. Welcome to Democracy Now!

RALPH NADER: Thank you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. What is your assessment of 
Election Day and the results?

RALPH NADER: Well, the assessment is that to the extent the Democrats 
gained 
the majority in the House, it was on the backs of some very right-wing 
Democrats who won the election against right-wing Republican 
incumbents. And 
so, there was no mandate for any progressive agenda. For example, in 
1974, 
when the Democrats swarmed over the Republicans, it was on the backs of 
many 
very progressive Democratic challengers who were elected. And the same 
is 
true in the '60s, when some very progressive senators like Gaylord 
Nelson 
from Wisconsin was elected. But not this time. They're going to have to 
deal 
with a lot of Blue Dog Democrats, and that's going to give Pelosi great 
pause as she tries to maneuver a few things through the Congress.

The other thing that is good, though, is that there's some very good 
veteran 
chairmen who are coming in: George Miller, Henry Waxman, Ed Markey and, 
of 
course, John Conyers. But to counter that, both John Conyers and Nancy 
Pelosi have taken the impeachment issue right off the table, before the 
election, and that means there's going to be no Bush accountability for 
his 
war crimes and his inflation of unlawful presidential authority.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, Ralph Nader, when asked -- when Nancy Pelosi was 
asked 
what would be the difference if the Democrats took over, she said 
subpoena 
power.

RALPH NADER: Well, alright, that gets to a real gridlock situation. The 
Democrats will throw a lot of subpoenas at the White House. The White 
House 
will, of course, drag it on and on and on. And the public will get fed 
up 
with it. The White House has great reserves in dragging it on and on 
and on. 
Because Bush can't rely on Republicans as a majority of the Congress, 
he's 
going to inflate his presidential power even more extremely and 
unlawfully, 
in the opinion of many legal scholars, to do through the inherent power 
of 
the presidency, as Dick Cheney and Bush have talked about, what he 
can't do 
through the Congress, which he no longer controls.

But notice that, in all the debates I've heard between the Senate 
candidates 
and the House candidates over the last few weeks, there was almost no 
mention of corporate power, the 800-pound gorilla, no mention of 
corporate 
crime, no drive for corporate reform. And yet, if you look at the 
forward 
issues in the country, who's saying no to healthcare, universal 
healthcare? 
Corporate power. Who's saying no to a real crackdown on corporate crime 
against consumers, especially inner-city consumers? Corporate power. 
Who's 
saying no to cleaning up the corrupt tens of billions of dollars in 
military 
contracting fraud, like Halliburton? Corporate power. Who's saying no 
to 
reform of hundreds of billions of dollars of diversion of your tax 
dollars, 
America, to corporate subsidies, handouts and giveaways? Corporate 
power. 
And yet, reporters and candidates hardly mentioned it. Kevin Zeese, the 
Green Party candidate, did in Maryland for the Senate. Howie Hawkins 
did in 
New York, the Green Party candidate for the Senate.

AMY GOODMAN: And certainly, Bernie Sanders makes that a major issue. It 
is 
the main point of his politics. And he's been elected. He's going to be 
the 
first socialist senator in the US Senate.

RALPH NADER: Well, there won't be much socialism to him, but he'll be a 
fresh voice, a very welcome voice along with Sherrod Brown. So that, 
you 
know, you can stop certain bad things in the Senate with two or three 
senators near the end of the session, so -- the way Metzenbaum and 
Abourezk 
did in the '70s -- so that's a welcome break. But there are some --

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, let me ask you about Connecticut, because 
that's 
where you've spent a good amount of the last months, and here, yes, the 
independent candidate Joseph Lieberman beat out the antiwar Democratic 
candidate who had unseated him in the Democratic primary, Ned Lamont.

RALPH NADER: Well, that was a bizarre type of situation, because the 
Republican candidate was not able to get more than 10% of the vote. So 
Lieberman got 70% of the Republican voters in Connecticut, and that's 
what 
won for him. He would have been history, if the Republicans respected 
their 
own voters in Connecticut and nominated someone who could get 20%, 25%, 
30% 
of the vote. He's going to be pretty insufferable. I mean, you know, 
Joe's 
inherent self-righteousness now is ballooning by the hour, and he's 
going to 
view himself as a kingmaker if the swing in the Senate is one seat. But 
he 
was the darling of the big business lobby, Chamber of Commerce, here in 
Washington, who anointed him. And that's the power and greed lobby. And 
he 
was their favorite Democratic senator, only one of two.

AMY GOODMAN: Is it absolutely known that he will caucus with Democrats, 
number one? And number two, is there any discussion about him -- 
perhaps the 
Bush administration, who's deeply indebted to him, offering him, say, 
Secretary of Defense, if they don't stick with Rumsfeld, to get him out 
of 
the Senate to put in a Republican? And would he take it?

RALPH NADER: There's no doubt in my mind he's going to caucus with the 
Democrats. He knows where his bread is buttered, where his friends are, 
where his contributors are, one. And he can play that both sides of the 
aisle, as he has for years as a Democrat. And he can get a committee 
chair 
if the Democrats win. I don't think he'll take an executive position. 
This 
is a failing administration. He would never want to be a Secretary of 
Defense in a Bush administration.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the other congressional races in Connecticut? 
Very 
significant. You're talking about corporate power. Nancy Johnson is one 
of 
those Republican incumbents who went down, very well-known for 
representing 
the pharmaceutical industry, the insurance industry.

RALPH NADER: Yes. That was a surprise. She worked the precincts very 
carefully over the years, always went back home. But I think her 
opponent 
two years ago, [Maloney], congressman, when they were redistricted, 
damaged 
her credibility by pouring ads showing she was the agent of the drug 
industry and the big HMOs. I think he set her up for defeat by Chris 
Murphy 
yesterday.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the war, this being a vote against war? And 
what 
does that mean for Democrats right now? What happens?

RALPH NADER: Well, it means vagueness. Nancy Pelosi was very vague. She 
said 
there's got to be a redirection, there's got to be a change. But the 
Democrats don't have the guts to really have a withdrawal plan. 
Internationalizing the situation there; having internationally 
supervised 
elections; having people of stature bring the three sectarian groups 
together, as they have in the past -- the Kurds and Shiites and Sunnis 
in 
the '50s arranged a modest autonomy within a unified Iraq -- and 
bringing 
in, in an Islamic nation, peacekeepers, these things require real 
high-level 
diplomacy, and the Democrats, you know, are not in the executive 
branch. 
Bush is going to stay the course. He's already announced that he's 
going to 
be in Iraq until the last day of his office. So this will be a test of 
Hillary Clinton and others, and I don't think they're going to be able 
to 
meet it.

AMY GOODMAN: What about what's happening in the Middle East, in Israel, 
Palestine, Lebanon? The latest attack on Beit Hanun has killed 
something 
like eighteen people, thirteen of one family. You certainly spoke out 
over 
the Israeli bombing of Lebanon. Will this ever become a major issue in 
the 
US Congress?

RALPH NADER: Certainly the Democrats are not going to make it a major 
issue. 
Nancy Pelosi and others have been with the pro-Israeli lobby for years. 
Certainly Bush and Cheney aren't. They don't understand that the 
greatest 
move toward national security in our country and in the so-called 
effort 
against terrorism would be to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. 
The 
majority of both people would like a two-state solution. There are 
extremists in Israel that would like to continue to dominate the West 
Bank 
and harass Gaza and block an exit of the people there for traveling and 
for 
export of goods. So it's just -- it's now a steady state, destruction 
every 
day of innocent people, as you say, thirteen in one family. The Israeli 
military know how to pacify Gaza. They know they could take over that 
town, 
where these primitive rockets that are wildly inadequate are fired. But 
it 
serves the interest of certain political interests in Israel to 
continue 
this kind of conflict.

This is an eminently resolvable conflict. There's a lot of former 
Israeli 
military and intelligence people who know how to do it, people in the 
Knesset who know what needs to be done. But as long as the US basically 
says 
to whoever is in charge, "You can do whatever you want over there, and 
we'll 
still pump $3 - $4 billion and cluster bomb weapons, etc.," there's not 
going to be a resolution. As long as there's no resolution, there's 
going to 
be an inflammation increasing all over the Islamic world, and our 
national 
security will be compromised.

This campaign, this election, Amy, was basically a mandate-less 
election for 
the Democrats. There was really no mandate other than against Bush and 
do 
something about Iraq. Domestically, virtually no mandate about 
rearranging 
of power, shifting it from corporations to workers, consumers, 
taxpayers, to 
communities.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, you mentioned Sherrod Brown, certainly will 
be one 
of the most progressive members of a new US Senate. Yet, in those 
waning 
days, as he was running for this Senate seat that he has just won from 
Ohio, 
he voted for the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Can you talk about 
the 
significance of this act?

RALPH NADER: That was a bad sign. That was, I think, not just a 
strategic 
mistake by Sherrod Brown. He's going to regret this. It was a character 
deficiency, just like, you know, Hillary Clinton's character 
deficiency. She 
refused to debate three third party Senate candidates, including Howie 
Hawkins in the Green Party, and the League of Women Voters was so 
upset, 
they withdrew co-sponsorship of the debate. We've got to focus on the 
ability of the Democrats to become very, very politically cynical in 
order 
to win. I don't think Sherrod Brown had to do that to win. That is a 
monstrous laceration of our constitutional rights, that Military 
Commissions. I hope it will be declared unconstitutional in its noxious 
provisions by the Supreme Court.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, Hillary Clinton. There is some discussion 
that if, 
in fact, Democrats do take the Senate -- there are two very tightly 
contested races now, of course, Virginia and Montana, although at this 
point 
Democrats have very narrow leads in them -- the possibility that she 
would 
become the Majority Leader of the Senate.

RALPH NADER: Well, I don't think so. It's very hard to be Majority 
Leader of 
the Senate and run for president, which she's going to start to do 
right 
away. I think what we're seeing here is a drive for a coronation in the 
Democratic nomination. As Mark Warner drops out, maybe John Kerry has 
been 
damaged, I mean, she's going to have a huge war chest and just march to 
the 
nomination. And to do that, she's got to be absent a great deal from 
the 
Senate. And when you're Majority Leader in the Senate, you've got to be 
the 
valet for a lot of senators and you can't go out to Colorado or 
California 
or New York or West Virginia, as a presidential candidate has to.

AMY GOODMAN: The issue of money and politics, something you take on in 
a 
very big way. According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive 
Politics, 
at least 2.8 billion dollars were spent in this election, making these 
the 
most expensive midterm elections in history. I want to talk about this 
big 
money in the big parties, the two big parties, and also third party 
politics 
today, and what you saw around the country.

RALPH NADER: Well, first of all, the mess with the voting machinery and 
the 
registration situation, this country is a mockery of obstructing people 
to 
vote, going back to the post-Civil War era. Now they have new ways to 
do it 
through these machines, through not distributing the machines, through 
challenging people's voting credentials. There's no other Western 
democracy 
that requires registration. In Canada, if you are counted as part of 
the 
regular census, you vote, period.

And so, what we need in this country, first of all, is a complete 
reform of 
electoral laws, including one federal standard for candidates running 
for 
federal office, for Congress and for the President, not 50 different 
state 
standards and more county standards. There needs to be criminal 
prosecutions. Notice you can obstruct people's right to vote, you can 
do 
what happened in Ohio and Florida, and because both parties want to be 
able 
to do it, if they're in power, at the state level, there's no 
prosecution 
tradition here, as there is, say, for procurement fraud. So nobody goes 
to 
jail. So, every two or four years, it's going to happen, more and more 
and 
more. And the number of ways that people can be obstructed from voting 
-- 
votes can be miscounted; that people can be falsely designated as 
ex-felons; 
the extent to which voting rolls can be shrunken, like in Cleveland, 
Ohio, 
by a Republican state government, Blackwell, Secretary of State -- all 
this 
is going to happen again and again, unless you have crackdowns, unless 
you 
have task forces that will prosecute these violations, and unless you 
have a 
national debate about universal voting, Amy.

We've got to ask ourselves -- jury duty is the only civic duty in our 
Constitution. We have a whole Bill of Rights, but we have very few 
duties. 
And if we have to obey thousands of laws passed by lawmakers, it seems 
to me 
that having voting be a civic duty, as it is in Australia and Brazil 
and 
some other countries, is the way to clear away all these manipulations 
and 
obstructions, because if you have a legal duty to vote --

AMY GOODMAN: You mean, mandatory.

RALPH NADER: Yes. If you have the duty to vote, then obstructing it 
becomes 
a very serious crime, whereas now it's just, you know, the political 
game 
the two parties play against one another. And the discussion of 
mandatory 
voting would include a binding "none of the above." So you can go to 
the 
polls or absentee vote for the ballot line, you can vote write-in, you 
can 
vote for your own person, write in your own name, or you can vote for a 
binding "none of the above." I think that takes care of any civil 
liberties 
problems. But it should be decided by a special national referendum.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, we have to wrap up, but I just want to ask: 
Hillary Clinton spent something like $30 million on an almost 
uncontested 
race at the point where, you know -- of yesterday, certainly getting 
more 
nationally known. Are you going to be running for president in 2008?

RALPH NADER: It's too early to say. I do want to give you one quick 
sidebar, 
Amy. In Morgan County, USA, in Morgan County, West Virginia, with a 60% 
Republican registration advantage, the incumbent for county 
commissioner was 
defeated overwhelmingly, by 20 points, by a challenger. She beat him by 
20 
points. And that was done by person-to-person campaigning, which I 
think is 
going to be the way progressives in this country are going to win 
elections. 
This is a stunning victory over a Republican machine that ought to be 
studied, in Morgan County, West Virginia.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, I want to thank you very much for joining us, 
two-time presidential candidate, joining us from Washington, D.C.

_________________________________________________________________




-- 


       
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Tim McKee cell (860) 778-1304 or (860) 643-2282
   National Committee Member of the Green Party(Connecticut)
    Cliff Thornton for Governor- Campaign Manager


  Paid for by Thornton For Governor, Max Wentworth, Treasurer-   www.VoteThornton.com
   



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/private/ctgp-news/attachments/20061108/2cf22e4e/attachment.html>