Talk:Ralph Nader/Archive 1

message: Newer archive: Talk:Ralph Nader/Archive 2
Should we change or move the phrase about arab americans liking nader? it seems out of place with no source.
----
A LOT of this article is lifted from britannica.  
Dinopup
I deleted the link from "consumer" in the phrase "consumer rights activist". The link was pointing to a not-yet-existant entry for "consumerism". Why? Well, first, although Ralph Nader may not be a big fan of "consumerism", this is not an important fact in the first sentence you learn about him. More importantly, I think a link would be better made to a page on "consumer rights activism", a phrase which may not be intuitively obvious to everyone. I have not made such a link, because I don't think such an article exists yet, and I don't want to write it at this time. -Ryguasu
----
DanKeshet: that sentence you separated into two did look less than ideal. Semicolons don't always imply a run-on, though. In particular, if two sentences are related - e.g. if the second provides evidence to support the claim made by the first -, then a semi-colon can be a reasonable way of connecting them. -Ryguasu
----
I change the word "America" ,as sugested in the United Sates page,to a more proper name of United States  Cuye
--------
Does anybody want to do anything with that dangling link corporatizing the dictionary or should we just delete it? 15 October 2003
----
This page is suffering from a massive case of External Link-itis.  RickK 05:35, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I am so mad at Ralph Nader! If by chance I add anything to this article, revert it immediately because it will be steeped in POV. Kingturtle 19:50, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr 

message: Does anyone feel that the statement "Gore would have won the election if the Nader voters had all shown up (unlikely without Nader) and voted for Gore (less unlikely)" is slightly misleading? It basically says that Gore would have needed all (or nearly all) of Nader's votes to win, which certainly would be an unlikely scenario, when, in fact, Gore would have needed only 1% of Nader's 97,488 votes in Florida to win, using the current counts. That's a big difference, and far from being "unlikely" I would tend to think of it as extremely likely that he would have gotten that 1% of Nader's support. And keep in mind I am not talking about 1% of THE vote, but 1% of Nader's 1.63% of the vote. (Of course, this would assume that in a Naderless race Bush would get 0% of votes that would have otherwise gone to Nader, which I would think rather likely.) Any comments?
:Actually, some Nader voters were expressing their disgust with the Democratic Party and would indeed have voted for Bush in Nader's absence.  Nevertheless, you don't need to assume that Bush would get 0%, only that the amount Gore would have gained from a Nader withdrawal (Gore's share of the Nader vote minus Bush's share) would have exceeded Bush's margin over Gore.  I've included a quotation from Nader's own website that gives the key number (Gore share minus Bush share) as 13%, which would be enough to swing Florida but not New Hampshire.  Of course, the exact share would probably vary somewhat from state to state, but only about 1% would be needed to swing Florida.  With the national average at 13%, I can't imagine that Florida was below 1%. JamesMLane 10:28, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  2000 Election 

message: The extlinks are currently unbalanced. The two pro- sites are official, whereas there are five (necessarily unofficial) anti- sites. Would it not be fairer to add one or two unofficial pro- sites, if they exist? Pcb21| Pete 08:51, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: External links

message: The issue of whether Nader gets on the ballot in each state certainly merits discussion here, but to give so much detail about Florida seems inappropriate.  There's no particular reason to believe that Florida will be particularly important in 2004, as compared with other states considered to be "in play".  (Of course, it's more important than states like New York and Texas, where Nader can't possibly swing the election.)  Is there any reason to discuss how the court interpreted Florida's ballot access law?  Won't the article get cluttered if we try to do that for every state where Nader's ballot status is litigated? JamesMLane 03:47, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Ballot access

message: I don't personally know anything about his religious views, but I have been told that he does adhere to some religious precepts, such as not utilizing credit cards.
Response: Why is common sense (not buying on credit) suddenly a religious precept? 193.6.158.61 12:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please sign your comments. If you do not have an account, I encourage you to create one. Many Christians, Jews, and even muslims have written for Humanist magazines. And humanists are not the only ones to be against "authority." Punks, Christian Punk groups, liberals, conservatives, anyone can hold that position. Anyways, it's already in the article that he's a Maronite Christian. IronCrow 05:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Nader's Religious Stance

message: You are surely right, that it was conventional wisdom that Nader's presence in the 2004 presidential race would be expected to reduce the number of Kerry votes more than it would be expected to reduce the number of Bush votes. And it is not at all unreasonable to imagine that some Democrats, and some Republicans, believed they should take action based on that conventional wisdom.
But I think it will take careful writing, to avoid oversimplifying this "common sense" idea to the point of inaccuracy. For example, based on the verified information now available, it would not be accurate for the article to give the impression that Nader's campaign was generally soliciting or generally accepting organized Republican donations. You offered to list (or at least to identify in this discussion---maybe you're right that the details do not belong in the article itself) each of the states where Nader's campaign is supposed to have accepted organized Republican assistance in 2004, with some documentation of the exact type of assistance that was accepted. If there is documented evidence that Nader accepted organized Republican help other than in the case of the non-coordinated Michigan petition drive, please share any such information. If you can find evidence that Nader's campaign accepted organized Repubican contributions of campaign money, that would also be very important and I would appreciate learning about it. 
If it were so clearly true that the Republican Party in 2004 was eager to promote Nader (as part of a strategy to hurt Kerry), one might have expected the Republicans to take some steps to help Ralph Nader get into the 2004 presidential debates. As you probably know, the supposed "commission" on presidential debates is essentially a joint creature of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. As it actually happened, however, the Republican Party appeared every bit as opposed as the Democratic Party, to opening up the debates to Nader (in 2000 and in 2004).
You write that you do not want to be unfair to Nader, and I agree that fairness is a worthy aim. I would urge that it is unfair to repeat, uncritically, unsupported allegations from political groups that were created with the specific mission of attacking Nader and/or taking votes from Nader (mostly by disseminating information alleging that Nader was associated with right-wingers). It would not be fair for the article about Nader to perpetuate the false impression that Nader was being substantially financially supported by the Right, without checking into the falsehood/spin/veracity of the partisan-orchestrated statements upon which the article relied in creating that impression. Because the Nader campaign states that the allegations are false and/or misleading, some verification should be in order before those allegations are simply repeated as if true. 
About the Washington Post article: I thought you might be interested in the October Post article. (I want to point out that the article discussed similar polls that had been reported much earlier than October, but I'm not disagreeing with you, that the polling results reported in that Post article are consistent with the idea that the early Democratic Party attacks on Nader were effective.) I didn't (and still don't) claim to know what conclusion (if any) to draw from the polling. 
Nader did denounce the SBVT ads. I'm going only from memory now, but I think Nader referred to those ads as deceptive covert slime sponsored by Bush proxies (through a 527). (Nader was also critical of 527 Kerry-sponsored ads.) I'm still not sure what your inference is, about Nader's denunciation of the SBVT attack ads. I think it would take more information and analysis before it would be warranted to conclude, from the fact (if it is a fact) that donor-X donated to fund-Y (a 527 fund) and also donated to the campaign committee for candidate N, that it is obvious exactly what X's intentions were. (Political money moves in ways that are not always obvious.) Another basic step is to check the actual FEC records, which are publically available on the web from www.fec.gov. I also think some context is required, so that readers have a frame of reference for understanding the scale of any donations, typical practices, etc.  
If it turns out that the organized Democratic Party attacks on Nader were largely false and/or misleading, the falsehood of those attacks (if they were false) should become highly relevant to the article on Nader's 2004 campaign, especially in the context of discussing major party perceptions of, attitudes toward, and actions regarding Nader. 
A very important element of Nader's presidential campaigns (at least, as far as I know) has been self-imposed principled limits on the sources of campaign funding, so I think an article about Nader properly mentions his approach to campaign finance, which sets him apart from the big party candidates. What I think the article should not do, however, is to repeat unverified "scandal"-misinformation about Nader's campaign finance practices. (Verified flat-out hypocrisy should of course be fair game.) Or, if such allegations are included, then the article should offer appropriate context so that readers are not left with a mistaken impression. For example, if my own campaign broadcasts an attack ad stating that one of my opponents is taking money from Big Tobacco and is therefore profiting from killing our kids (say, based on a $500 contribution from PM-PAC), an encyclopedia entry shouldn't simply repeat the gist of my unverified attack ad to show that my opponent was supported by the cigarette industry; and, if the article does repeat that information (properly attributing it to my attack ad, and properly characterizing it as such), it would only be fair to point out, if true, that my own campaign had received $10,000 from the same PAC, or that every politician in the state had received money from the same PAC, or whatever other trthfulu information would help the reader better understand what was really going on. (I'm pretty sure Nader has refused to accept any PAC money, which means that his presidential campaigns have received money from individual donors only. If true, this is an interesting fact, isn't it?) 
I noticed that there is another, separate, Wikipedia entry for the 2004 Presidential campaign of Ralph Nader. It seems mostly to have collected some possibly incomplete ballot access information as of some time in October. I don't know whether or not that would be a more appropriate location (with a proper cross-referencing link) for some of the more detailed information. 
Anyway, I guess this discussion is now very long, probably too long. Thank you for discussing this with me. 
P.S. REGARDING THE REFORM PARTY & NADER in 2004: 
After thinking that I had signed off for the night, I just now looked at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article that is linked from the Wikipedia article, quoting Reform Party Chair Shawn O'Hara (to the effect that Mr. O'Hara voted for Bush in 2000 and is working to keep John Kerry from becoming president). This quote seems to have been included to show that elements from the "Right" (namely, the Reform Party) supported Mr. Nader, presumably in order to get Mr. Bush elected. What the Wikipedia article does not say is that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article actually quotes Mr. O'Hara as saying that Republican President George W. Bush "has lied to the American public" about the "illegal war in Iraq." The selective quote in the Wikipedia article from Mr. O'Hara was used to build the case that Mr. Nader was being supported by the Right, but this case could not have been made if the article had also included the following adjacent passage from the Post-Gazette article, quoting Mr. O'Hara (but again this was omitted from the Wikipedia article): <<>> "I'm not a George Bush fan anymore. My man's Ralph Nader," O'Hara said. <<>>
The same selective and out-of-context quote that is included in this section of the Wikipedia article was also used by the anti-Nader groups, to create the impression that the Reform Party was insincere in its support for Ralph Nader. The anti-Nader groups, like the Wikipedia article, never mentioned that Mr. O'Hara said that he was disillusioned with both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry and was now supporting Ralph Nader. The anti-Nader groups did not quote Mr. O'Hara's expression of support for Ralph Nader's opposition to the war in Iraq. Instead, the quotes used by the anti-Nader groups (and, unfortunately, repeated by the Wikipedia article) were designed to make it appear as though Mr. O'Hara (and perhaps the rest of the Reform Party) is actually supporting Mr. Bush. What did the Post-Gazette article actually quote Mr. O'Hara as saying? 
- - - -"I'm not a George Bush fan anymore. My man's Ralph Nader," O'Hara said.- - - -
Another instance of somewhat misleading information about the Reform Party's nomination of Nader is the Wikipedia article's statement that conservative Pat Buchanan was nominated by the Reform Party in 2000. Although that bare statement is not untrue, the implication in the context of the article is that Nader in 2004 was being supported by the same right-wingers who had taken over the Reform Party in 2000 (in a struggle the Buchananites won against Jesse Ventura, John Hagelin, and even Perot himself to some extent). However, what happened to the Reform Party after Buchanan's dismal showing in 2000 is that the Buchanan supporters bailed out of the Reform Party after draining its pot of money and most of them went elsewhere, including many who went over to the so-called "America First Party," which endorsed the ultra-conservative Constitution Party presidential candidate in 2004. The 2000 Buchanan supporters did not nominate Ralph Nader in 2004. The Reform Party convention in 2004 can be criticized for having been very small, but it is false to say that the Reform Party in 2004 was a right-wing organization. As I explained earlier, the Reform Party had to some extent become a shell that offered potential ballot access in about seven states. If, as appears true, most of Mr. Nader's support within the Reform Party came from people who actually agreed with Mr. Nader's views on issues of war and peace, campaign finance reform, reining in corporate abuse, etc., then it is misleading to cite the Reform Party nomination as an example showing that Ralph Nader was being propped up by the Right. That's not what actually happened. 
My sense is that the discussion of the Reform Party nomination within this section of the Wikipedia article was perhaps an instance of uncritical recital of information originating from the spin generated by anti-Nader groups. It is this kind of mistake I'm hoping we can avoid, by carefully checking the facts and not simply repeating the attack talking points generated by UPforVictory and other such axe-grinding groups.
I hope this P.S. helps clarify. Thanks again.
:When I have time I'll make the two separate sections, and also remove some of the pro-Nader POV.  For example, it's not neutral to say that O'Hara "clarified" he'd become disillusioned with Bush, a phrasing that accepts his politically convenient assertion as truth.  Beyond the POV issue, I thought this article already had somewhat too much discussion of general issues of third-party politics.  It's a bio of Nader, who, after all, never joined the Green Party and who chose not to work within the Green Party structure in 2004.  The additional detail about whether the Greens should continue their relentless sabotage of any hope for progressive politics in America -- uh, pardon me, I mean the additional detail about possible courses of action for the Greens -- would be more appropriate to the article about the Green Party. JamesMLane 17:05, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Continued: Making the article NPOV

message: Come on, I'm hostile to Nader and even I think this categorization is absurd.  In fact, the category is inherently POV.  It should be deleted.  Anyone who wants to chime in on the question is invited to visit Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Political extremists and comment or vote. JamesMLane 20:32, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: "Political extremists"

message: Boy, what is it with this article and anon vandals replacing the picture with a really really funny (to a 12-year-old) photo-mash? It must be on the bookmark list at some middle school ... - DavidWBrooks 20:27, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  photo vandalism 

message: Sorry, everyone, I accidentally reverted the photo back to the original. I think I changed it back to the latest (bigger) one, but if I didn't, can someone please do it for me? I didn't realize what "rev" meant. 
Apologies!--ViolinGirl 19:28, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sorry re:photo revert 

message: I think the bit about being pied should remain in the article, but, as an event that occurred in 2003, it is out of place in the middle of a section about his 2000 campaign. -12.217.121.245 07:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pie in the face. 

message: I had added that little bit to the article about Jan D. Pierce, but now I wonder if it is too trivial for the intro and if it should be deleted or moved below to the section on 2004.  I did add it to the Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2004 article with more specifics, and also another stand-in I hadn't been aware of, Karen Sanchirico.  Does anyone know why these people appeared instead of Peter Camejo, and who they are? Schizombie 10:28, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jan D. Pierce, Karen Sanchirico, and other Vice Presidential stand-ins 

message: Regarding recent edits by Griot and Ben Manski: If Bush's margin over Gore in Florida was 537 votes, the Green, Reform, Libertarian, Natural Law/Reform, Constitution, Socialist Workers Party, and Socialist Parties all got more votes than that margin http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/2000presge.htm#FL . Schizombie 02:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My edits have to do with the Alantic Monthly's assessment of Nader. Nothing more. Griot 02:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Third parties in Florida 

message: I was wondering if this could be added under the appearances section or perhaps an external link. I thought the link was a funny testement to the pop culture icon Nader has been made.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/nader.php  Cjflash 02:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Link 

message: You are surely right, that it was conventional wisdom that Nader's presence in the 2004 presidential race would be expected to reduce the number of Kerry votes more than it would be expected to reduce the number of Bush votes. And it is not at all unreasonable to imagine that some Democrats, and some Republicans, believed they should take action based on that conventional wisdom.
But I think it will take careful writing, to avoid oversimplifying this "common sense" idea to the point of inaccuracy. For example, based on the verified information now available, it would not be accurate for the article to give the impression that Nader's campaign was generally soliciting or generally accepting organized Republican donations. You offered to list (or at least to identify in this discussion---maybe you're right that the details do not belong in the article itself) each of the states where Nader's campaign is supposed to have accepted organized Republican assistance in 2004, with some documentation of the exact type of assistance that was accepted. If there is documented evidence that Nader accepted organized Republican help other than in the case of the non-coordinated Michigan petition drive, please share any such information. If you can find evidence that Nader's campaign accepted organized Repubican contributions of campaign money, that would also be very important and I would appreciate learning about it. 
If it were so clearly true that the Republican Party in 2004 was eager to promote Nader (as part of a strategy to hurt Kerry), one might have expected the Republicans to take some steps to help Ralph Nader get into the 2004 presidential debates. As you probably know, the supposed "commission" on presidential debates is essentially a joint creature of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. As it actually happened, however, the Republican Party appeared every bit as opposed as the Democratic Party, to opening up the debates to Nader (in 2000 and in 2004).
You write that you do not want to be unfair to Nader, and I agree that fairness is a worthy aim. I would urge that it is unfair to repeat, uncritically, unsupported allegations from political groups that were created with the specific mission of attacking Nader and/or taking votes from Nader (mostly by disseminating information alleging that Nader was associated with right-wingers). It would not be fair for the article about Nader to perpetuate the false impression that Nader was being substantially financially supported by the Right, without checking into the falsehood/spin/veracity of the partisan-orchestrated statements upon which the article relied in creating that impression. Because the Nader campaign states that the allegations are false and/or misleading, some verification should be in order before those allegations are simply repeated as if true. 
About the Washington Post article: I thought you might be interested in the October Post article. (I want to point out that the article discussed similar polls that had been reported much earlier than October, but I'm not disagreeing with you, that the polling results reported in that Post article are consistent with the idea that the early Democratic Party attacks on Nader were effective.) I didn't (and still don't) claim to know what conclusion (if any) to draw from the polling. 
Nader did denounce the SBVT ads. I'm going only from memory now, but I think Nader referred to those ads as deceptive covert slime sponsored by Bush proxies (through a 527). (Nader was also critical of 527 Kerry-sponsored ads.) I'm still not sure what your inference is, about Nader's denunciation of the SBVT attack ads. I think it would take more information and analysis before it would be warranted to conclude, from the fact (if it is a fact) that donor-X donated to fund-Y (a 527 fund) and also donated to the campaign committee for candidate N, that it is obvious exactly what X's intentions were. (Political money moves in ways that are not always obvious.) Another basic step is to check the actual FEC records, which are publically available on the web from www.fec.gov. I also think some context is required, so that readers have a frame of reference for understanding the scale of any donations, typical practices, etc.  
If it turns out that the organized Democratic Party attacks on Nader were largely false and/or misleading, the falsehood of those attacks (if they were false) should become highly relevant to the article on Nader's 2004 campaign, especially in the context of discussing major party perceptions of, attitudes toward, and actions regarding Nader. 
A very important element of Nader's presidential campaigns (at least, as far as I know) has been self-imposed principled limits on the sources of campaign funding, so I think an article about Nader properly mentions his approach to campaign finance, which sets him apart from the big party candidates. What I think the article should not do, however, is to repeat unverified "scandal"-misinformation about Nader's campaign finance practices. (Verified flat-out hypocrisy should of course be fair game.) Or, if such allegations are included, then the article should offer appropriate context so that readers are not left with a mistaken impression. For example, if my own campaign broadcasts an attack ad stating that one of my opponents is taking money from Big Tobacco and is therefore profiting from killing our kids (say, based on a $500 contribution from PM-PAC), an encyclopedia entry shouldn't simply repeat the gist of my unverified attack ad to show that my opponent was supported by the cigarette industry; and, if the article does repeat that information (properly attributing it to my attack ad, and properly characterizing it as such), it would only be fair to point out, if true, that my own campaign had received $10,000 from the same PAC, or that every politician in the state had received money from the same PAC, or whatever other trthfulu information would help the reader better understand what was really going on. (I'm pretty sure Nader has refused to accept any PAC money, which means that his presidential campaigns have received money from individual donors only. If true, this is an interesting fact, isn't it?) 
I noticed that there is another, separate, Wikipedia entry for the 2004 Presidential campaign of Ralph Nader. It seems mostly to have collected some possibly incomplete ballot access information as of some time in October. I don't know whether or not that would be a more appropriate location (with a proper cross-referencing link) for some of the more detailed information. 
Anyway, I guess this discussion is now very long, probably too long. Thank you for discussing this with me. 
P.S. REGARDING THE REFORM PARTY & NADER in 2004: 
After thinking that I had signed off for the night, I just now looked at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article that is linked from the Wikipedia article, quoting Reform Party Chair Shawn O'Hara (to the effect that Mr. O'Hara voted for Bush in 2000 and is working to keep John Kerry from becoming president). This quote seems to have been included to show that elements from the "Right" (namely, the Reform Party) supported Mr. Nader, presumably in order to get Mr. Bush elected. What the Wikipedia article does not say is that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article actually quotes Mr. O'Hara as saying that Republican President George W. Bush "has lied to the American public" about the "illegal war in Iraq." The selective quote in the Wikipedia article from Mr. O'Hara was used to build the case that Mr. Nader was being supported by the Right, but this case could not have been made if the article had also included the following adjacent passage from the Post-Gazette article, quoting Mr. O'Hara (but again this was omitted from the Wikipedia article): <<>> "I'm not a George Bush fan anymore. My man's Ralph Nader," O'Hara said. <<>>
The same selective and out-of-context quote that is included in this section of the Wikipedia article was also used by the anti-Nader groups, to create the impression that the Reform Party was insincere in its support for Ralph Nader. The anti-Nader groups, like the Wikipedia article, never mentioned that Mr. O'Hara said that he was disillusioned with both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry and was now supporting Ralph Nader. The anti-Nader groups did not quote Mr. O'Hara's expression of support for Ralph Nader's opposition to the war in Iraq. Instead, the quotes used by the anti-Nader groups (and, unfortunately, repeated by the Wikipedia article) were designed to make it appear as though Mr. O'Hara (and perhaps the rest of the Reform Party) is actually supporting Mr. Bush. What did the Post-Gazette article actually quote Mr. O'Hara as saying? 
- - - -"I'm not a George Bush fan anymore. My man's Ralph Nader," O'Hara said.- - - -
Another instance of somewhat misleading information about the Reform Party's nomination of Nader is the Wikipedia article's statement that conservative Pat Buchanan was nominated by the Reform Party in 2000. Although that bare statement is not untrue, the implication in the context of the article is that Nader in 2004 was being supported by the same right-wingers who had taken over the Reform Party in 2000 (in a struggle the Buchananites won against Jesse Ventura, John Hagelin, and even Perot himself to some extent). However, what happened to the Reform Party after Buchanan's dismal showing in 2000 is that the Buchanan supporters bailed out of the Reform Party after draining its pot of money and most of them went elsewhere, including many who went over to the so-called "America First Party," which endorsed the ultra-conservative Constitution Party presidential candidate in 2004. The 2000 Buchanan supporters did not nominate Ralph Nader in 2004. The Reform Party convention in 2004 can be criticized for having been very small, but it is false to say that the Reform Party in 2004 was a right-wing organization. As I explained earlier, the Reform Party had to some extent become a shell that offered potential ballot access in about seven states. If, as appears true, most of Mr. Nader's support within the Reform Party came from people who actually agreed with Mr. Nader's views on issues of war and peace, campaign finance reform, reining in corporate abuse, etc., then it is misleading to cite the Reform Party nomination as an example showing that Ralph Nader was being propped up by the Right. That's not what actually happened. 
My sense is that the discussion of the Reform Party nomination within this section of the Wikipedia article was perhaps an instance of uncritical recital of information originating from the spin generated by anti-Nader groups. It is this kind of mistake I'm hoping we can avoid, by carefully checking the facts and not simply repeating the attack talking points generated by UPforVictory and other such axe-grinding groups.
I hope this P.S. helps clarify. Thanks again.
:When I have time I'll make the two separate sections, and also remove some of the pro-Nader POV.  For example, it's not neutral to say that O'Hara "clarified" he'd become disillusioned with Bush, a phrasing that accepts his politically convenient assertion as truth.  Beyond the POV issue, I thought this article already had somewhat too much discussion of general issues of third-party politics.  It's a bio of Nader, who, after all, never joined the Green Party and who chose not to work within the Green Party structure in 2004.  The additional detail about whether the Greens should continue their relentless sabotage of any hope for progressive politics in America -- uh, pardon me, I mean the additional detail about possible courses of action for the Greens -- would be more appropriate to the article about the Green Party. JamesMLane 17:05, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Continued: Making the article NPOV

message: Come on, I'm hostile to Nader and even I think this categorization is absurd.  In fact, the category is inherently POV.  It should be deleted.  Anyone who wants to chime in on the question is invited to visit Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Political extremists and comment or vote. JamesMLane 20:32, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: "Political extremists"

message: Boy, what is it with this article and anon vandals replacing the picture with a really really funny (to a 12-year-old) photo-mash? It must be on the bookmark list at some middle school ... - DavidWBrooks 20:27, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  photo vandalism 

message: What is the source of the story that Nader was asked by George McGovern to be his running mate in 1972?
Good question. I just tried Googling this and I can't find any substantial source for McGovern asking Nader to be his running mate? Anybody have a source? Griot 23:24, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds fair.  Could you determine who had added it? Schizombie 00:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was added long ago. I asked for a citation way back in October 2005. It was in the article back then. I'm not that much of a detective. :) Griot 00:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It appears it was 12.217.121.245 possibly citing "The Making of the President, 1972." Schizombie 00:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

text:  Nader makes this claim in Crashing the Party: Taking on the Corporate Government in an Age of Surrender, pages 37-38. Schizombie 04:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think I've tracked down the contemporary origin of the story that George McGovern asked Nader to be his running mate in 1972. What I found tends to undermine the notion that McGovern extended an actual offer to Nader, although McGovern did mention Nader's name in public. The accurate story would seem to be be that Nader's name was mentioned by McGovern in a hypothetical list of "fresh faces," who were not Democratic Party political insiders, but who might have characteristics that would make them potentially worthy of selection as a running mate. The source I found was a news story written by William Greider in the Washington Post, from August 4, 1972, covering a McGovern press conference announcing that several Democratic Party Senators had declined to become his replacement for Sen. Eagleton. This is consistent with Nader's statement in *Crashing the Party* (pp. 37-38) that after Eagleton withdrew as the vice-presidential nominee, George McGovern called Nader and "asked if I would be willing to be considered for the vice presidential nomination." According to Nader's account, the "would you be willing to be considered?" overture from McGovern was considerably short of a direct offer.
SOURCE: "3 Reject Offers by M'Govern"
By William Greider Washington Post Staff Writer
The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973); Aug 4, 1972; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The Washington Post (1877 - 1990)
pg. A1: Greider's report of McGovern's list of names that included Ralph Nader (and Jacob Javits and John Garnder) begins with the phrase, "Without trying to suggest that they are under active consideration, McGovern mentioned, for example . . . "
The "three" referenced in the title of the article who rejected an offer from McGovern were Senators Humphrey, Ribicoff, and Kennedy.
In a documentary about Nader called An Unreasonable Man, Nader says that McGovern called him along with several others, asking if they would be willing to be considered for the vice presidential slot after McGovern's first VP dropped out.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.203.217.5 (talk) 17:13, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Veep for McGovern? 

message: Sorry, everyone, I accidentally reverted the photo back to the original. I think I changed it back to the latest (bigger) one, but if I didn't, can someone please do it for me? I didn't realize what "rev" meant. 
Apologies!--ViolinGirl 19:28, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sorry re:photo revert 

message: I think the bit about being pied should remain in the article, but, as an event that occurred in 2003, it is out of place in the middle of a section about his 2000 campaign. -12.217.121.245 07:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pie in the face. 

message: I had added that little bit to the article about Jan D. Pierce, but now I wonder if it is too trivial for the intro and if it should be deleted or moved below to the section on 2004.  I did add it to the Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2004 article with more specifics, and also another stand-in I hadn't been aware of, Karen Sanchirico.  Does anyone know why these people appeared instead of Peter Camejo, and who they are? Schizombie 10:28, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jan D. Pierce, Karen Sanchirico, and other Vice Presidential stand-ins 

message: Regarding recent edits by Griot and Ben Manski: If Bush's margin over Gore in Florida was 537 votes, the Green, Reform, Libertarian, Natural Law/Reform, Constitution, Socialist Workers Party, and Socialist Parties all got more votes than that margin http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/2000presge.htm#FL . Schizombie 02:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's correct Schizombie, you've got your facts straight. 76.166.123.129 01:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Third parties in Florida 

message: I was wondering if this could be added under the appearances section or perhaps an external link. I thought the link was a funny testement to the pop culture icon Nader has been made.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/nader.php  Cjflash 02:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Link? 

message: This article had a large section that asserted that Gore lost the election to Bush because of Nader's votes. I removed the section. It was opinionated. It sounded like the usual rhetoric vomited up by the Democrats. Check it out. The Republicans stole that election through illegal means. Dubya was appointed by the Supreme Court. No matter how many or how few votes Nader got, Bush would have been in. This is all POV and has no place in a Wikipedia article. Here are just 2 out of many links that demonstrate this.
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=27&row=2
http://elandslide.org/display.cfm?id=181
thewolfstar 05:52, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't add the tags, but there is a general lack of citations in the article which may be what invited the NOR tag.  The way the info about the 2000 election is presented does seem a little biased, in that it doesn't mention other things such as that the number of Democrats in Florida who voted for Bush also exceeded the difference in their vote totals (but a citation would be needed for that too). Шизомби 19:50, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: POV

message: Can you come back with a reasonable debate to this? I'm just going to keep editing your pov out until you can show othewise. thewolfstar 07:44, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ? 

message: I don't agree with labeling these tags as "vandalism", but I do agree that they're not justified, so I'm removing them.
A neutrality dispute tag on an article is proper only if there is a good-faith argument that the article doesn't conform to the policy stated in Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.  Thewolfstar, your objection is that sections of this article "sounded like the usual rhetoric vomited up by the Democrats."  That's why it's proper to include that material, because the policy instructs us to "assert facts, including facts about opinions — but don't assert opinions themselves."  It would be improperly asserting opinions for us to say, "The arrogant and self-aggrandizing idiot Nader foolishly ran a third-party campaign that gave Bush the election, thus permanently destroying what would otherwise have been Nader's honorable legacy and condemning him to the obloquy of decent people for generations to come."  That's fairly close to my personal opinion, as it happens, but it is just my opinion, which, as a standard for assessing the content of Wikipedia articles, is worth zero.  Our article shouldn't and doesn't say that.
It's a different matter, though, to report facts about opinions.  If there's a notable opinion on a subject, we report it.  If one of the two major parties in the U.S. usually asserts (or, if you prefer, vomits up) a particular opinion about an election, then that opinion is notable.  The article doesn't adopt the opinion, but correctly informs the reader that some people hold the opinion.  It also informs the reader that other people (Nader supporters) hold a contrary opinion.  In fact, I haven't looked at this article in a while, and I don't remember it as being so heavily laced with the Naderite POV.  The section could usefully be tweaked to present both sides fairly, though I don't think the current pro-Nader bias is so great that a neutrality dispute tag would be justified.
The links you've provided don't show any bias or error of fact in the statements made by Wikipedia.  It's undeniably true that many Democrats blame Nader.  Your opinion is that they're mistaken, but there's no quantum of fact that you could cite in support of your opinion that would change the fact reported in the article, namely that many people disagree with you.  Furthermore, the article's extensive coverage of the countervailing Naderite POV notes the salient factual points from the articles you link.
As for "original research", you seem not to have commented on that at all.  You'll note that the template you applied directs the reader to refer to this talk page for details, but there are none here.  Please spell out any specific respects in which you think that the article violates the Wikipedia:No original research policy.  You can raise your concerns here without putting the template on the article.  I suggest you consider that this article has been extensively edited for years now by experienced Wikipedians holding a wide variety of political views.  If people who are experienced in applying the NOR policy haven't flagged this article for violating it, you might want to tread a little more cautiously in making the claim. JamesMLane t c 13:55, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't add the tags, but there is a general lack of citations in the article which may be what invited the NOR tag.  The way the info about the 2000 election is presented does seem a little biased, in that it doesn't mention other things such as that the number of Democrats in Florida who voted for Bush also exceeded the difference in their vote totals (but a citation would be needed for that too). Шизомби 19:50, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: POV and NOR tags on articles

message: Is Nader running in 2008?  Somewhere in this article should mention whether or not Nader is running.  --  Wikipedical 02:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Because of his age, it may be a little unwise to speculate about him in the 2008 election. Wouldn't want to be throwing names around of deceased people, now would we? -24.92.41.95 02:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Could somebody fix the last sentence in the "2008" section, which is clearly incomplete: "He says that his decision to run will be influenced, especially if the Democratic Party chooses Hillary Clinton." Thanks! — Malik Shabazz | Talk 22:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  2008 

message: The section on Nader and the Activist Movement suggests that Public Citizen, founded in 1971, prompted the formation of OSHA and the EPA, both of which were created in 1970.  If this is true then it should be clarified and if not then it should be removed.  It should, perhaps, be noted that the Public Citizen article does not list anything that is contained in this paragraph. -- Robbie 14:03, 27 Aug 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Public Citizen  

message: An anon editor added this to the External links *http://www.3cs-dpsvk.co.nr www.3cs-dpsvk.co.nr]Consumer Care Council, Delhi Public School Vasant Kunj.  It doesn't seem to have anything to do with Naderr diectly, but I'm retaining it here in case anyone knowledgable wants to comment. 
DJ Silverfish 20:33, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consumer protection organizations in other countries 

message: Note: This article has a very small number of in-line citations for an article of its size and currently would not pass criteria 2b.
Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 23:33, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Re-Review and In-line citations 

message: Substituted at 21:58, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment