A false choice

There was a moment during Friday night’s presidential debate between Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama that perplexed me.

While discussing the recent Russian incursion into Georgian territory, McCain predictably resorted to a heated attack on Russia. When Obama was asked to respond, he unequivocally stated, “I think Senator McCain and I agree for the most part on these issues.”

Unfortunately for Obama, this could have been the theme of the entire night. This debate was, after all, intended to emphasize the differences between the candidates, but on many issues, the two seemed almost indistinguishable.

Indeed, Obama’s unilateral stance on Pakistan and his assertion that the Republican Guard of Iran was a terrorist organization were sentiments worthy of, well, President Bush.

It’s in times like these that we are reminded about the delicate state of the American democracy.

It seems that every election, we are presented with two candidates who construct artificial differences between each other, leaving voters dissatisfied.

Worse yet, the bipolar nature of American politics effectively shuts out legitimate members of our discourse – like Ralph Nader.

Few men have earned as many punch lines or as much ridicule as Nader. Many Democrats are still smarting over his role in the 2000 election, and others just view him as plain crazy. This personal derision makes it easy to mock his support for universal health care or ending the war in Iraq, things that the Democratic Party is supposed to stand for, in theory.

For many people, this notion that the Democratic Party doesn’t really care about liberal principles may be deeply offensive. But consider the Party’s stance and voting record on the invasion of Iraq.

In an effort to sound “serious” about foreign policy, party members have quietly deferred to President Bush on Iraq. In 2007, party members voted to continue funding the invasion, without any mention of a timetable for withdrawal.

One newspaper headline following this pathetic showing by the Democrats reads, “Bush praises Democrats’ compromise on Iraq funding.”

In other words, the president got exactly what he wanted.

Despite these ideologically diluted positions, young liberals continue to affiliate themselves with the Democratic Party while distancing themselves from candidates like Nader. This is partly explained by the stigma associated with supporting third-party candidates.

Republicans and Democrats are invested in the notion that Nader’s views are far too radical for the American public. This allows them to discredit Nader and his supporters, effectively dismissing the policies they support. This surely explains the reluctance of some liberals to publicly support, let alone vote for Nader.

I understand that politics often devolves into the business of winning elections. This may require Democrats to calculate and recalibrate their positions.

However, these past few months, particularly the capitulation of Democrats on the FISA bill and their support for the conduct of the invasion, makes me believe that very little will change in 2009.

So, while some of us liberals may not necessarily vote for Nader, we can understand why some people do.