The Nader: 6 Percent and Rapidly Rising. But, Should His Voice Be Included in Debates?

He's so . . . well . . . ASSY. And, in so many ways. But yet, even challenging, let alone deconstructing, the real veracity of his actual politics is an enterprise to which our flacid Media are notably unequal. As they do in just about every substantive area, they simply choose to murder through omission.

Earlier this month, John Nichols had an interesting piece on The Nader, as well as other fringe candidates. The article provides an illuminating, if only cursorily so, glimpse at the state of multiparty politics in the United States.

Writes Nichols:

A striking 6 percent of Americans who are likely to vote this fall back an alternative candidate: Independent Ralph Nader. Another 3 percent back Libertarian Bob Barr.

Those are some of the highest percentages in years for independent or third-party candidates. And they matter, especially Nader's 6 percent.

And then there's this:

Will any independent or third-party candidate reach the 10 percent threshold this year? Nader appears to be best positioned to do so. Despite scant media attention, he has polled in the 4 to 6 percent range in several polls. Getting up to 10 percent will be hard. But as Obama softens his positions on civil liberties, political reform, trade policy, presidential accountability and ending the war -- issues on which Nader has long focused -- his prospects improve.

And one does not have to be a Nader supporter to hope, for the sake of democracy, that they improve sufficiently to earn him a place in the Google/YouTube debate and other fall matchups. And if Nader gets in, why not Barr and likely Green Party nominee Cynthia McKinney?

The only real quibble that emerges from Nichols' pro-republicanism piece is his assertion that Obama's positions have changed in the recent news cycle. But this is far, far more a reflection of the news cycle itself than of Obama, who has for the most part been pretty damned consistently honest about who and what he is. All pathetic gnashing of teeth in certain quadrants of the blogosphere notwithstanding.