Republican Ralph

Published on Wednesday, July 21, 2004 by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Editorial

Ralph Nader has never been this popular with Republicans. His campaign promotes universal health care, living wages, an end to poverty and fairer taxes, issues that hardly seem likely to warm a Grand Old Heart.

But this week in Michigan, Nader agreed to accept thousands of signatures collected by Republicans to qualify his spot on the presidential ballot.

Perhaps these Republicans have seen the light and are ready for a progressive era in the United States. Then it could snow tomorrow, too.

Republicans in Michigan and elsewhere favor a Nader ballot line for one simple reason: It makes it easier for George W. Bush to win.

Republicans for Nader are proving another point: Our election system needs tweaking because it's not as democratic as it could be. We need choices.

It's on that score that the Green Party is doing this election right. The Greens will be on Washington's ballot for congressional and statewide offices. They offer voters another choice.

Yet you won't see a Green campaign for president here. The party is concentrating its resources on promoting candidates at the local and state level. David Cobb, the Green candidate for president, focuses on states that won't tip this election to Republicans. He said the party's goal is to give voters a choice -- as well as "the removal of the White House's illegitimate occupant."

Somehow, we don't think Republicans will work as hard to give Greens the same sort of ballot access as they do Nader.

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