It looks like Ralph Nader has hired Mike Gravel as his media consultant:
Rob Zombie meets George Romero? Didn’t Rob Zombie already remake George Romero?
Oh, and has Mike Gravel endorsed anyone? Please, please, please tell me it’s not Obama.
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After my last post on third parties, I couldn’t help but go back and look at Mike Gravel’s (in)famous YouTube cover of the Beatles’ Helter Skelter. If you missed it back in April, take a moment to sit back and enjoy a short ride on the crazy train.
That has to be the strangest campaign commercial ever made. But hey — our government has produced even stranger stuff. Maybe President Obama could choose Gravel as his Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy….
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In case you missed it, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of Georgia won the Green Party nomination yesterday.
Okay, let me just say this up front. I think she’s nuts. And if enough people actually rally to her (or to Ralph “unsafe at any polling booth” Nader for that matter) to cost Obama the election, I will have lost all faith in the left’s ability to display even a modicum of common sense.
This is the problem with third parties. Before they have a chance to emerge as a serious alternative, one of two things happens:
The former, of course, is the more common occurrence in American history. Think about the Democrats’ absorption of populism in 1896, the Republicans’ takeover of progressivism in 1904, or the Republicans’ embrace of racist disaffected Wallace supporters in 1968-72.
More recently, however, third parties appear to prefer irrelevance. Take the Reform Party: it went from Ross Perot in 1992 (granted, not the most balanced guy on the block, but nonetheless a serious contender for at least a little while) to Pat Buchanan in 2000.
Now we have the Greens. Nader’s run in 2000 may not be remembered fondly by many on the left, but he certainly was a serious candidate — enough so that he probably helped get Bush elected. Eight years later, they’ve nominated someone more likely to get voted off the island than elected President.
This time around, the big question regarding third parties is whether the Libertarians have begun a serious run at respectability or have found in Bob Barr their own version of nuttopia. Certainly choosing Barr over former Democratic Presidential candidate and fifth Beatle Mike Gravel was a good sign, but it’s not yet clear if Barr’s candidacy is a sideshow or the beginning of the break-up of the Republican coalition and the emergence of libertarianism as a third force in American politics. (Then again, there’s nothing saying it couldn’t be both — Barr could be irrelevant but along with the Ron Paulistas, help break up the Republicans.)
Oh, and one more thing about McKinney: who is she going to get to handle her security detail? I can’t wait to see her speech before the next Police Benevolent Association convention.
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