Tonight around 20 minutes after Midnight, C-Span 1 is rerunning the Howard Dean/Ralph Nader debate. (An online video is also available on the C-Span Website.) The theme, more or less, was Dean's contention that Nader ought to get out of the presidential race, lest he suck up enough votes to get Bush 'n' Cheney another term. Against this, Nader defended his candidacy as good for the country and even for the Democrats.
On this particular controversy, I have no opinion. I would (surprise, surprise) like to see Bush defeated but I'm not sure that Nader won't do more to make that come about by staying nominally in the race, bashing the incumbents in terms that would be beneath the dignity of Kerry and Edwards. I'm also not sure that Dean isn't right and that Nader should get out, well before November if not immediately. I thought both men made some good points and both said some evasive, disingenuous things. Nader keep tapdancing around — and I don't think he even denied — the assertion that he will only get on some ballots due to Republican organizing…but Dean also didn't seem able to refute the claim that Nader is saying important things that no one else is saying. I found the whole back-and-forth interesting even though it didn't cause me to make up my mind for either view.
Another aspect that I found interesting was that from where I was sitting, neither man won, nor did either land any real decisive punches. Before I watched it, I read on several websites that Dean had mopped the floor with Nader…or that Nader had left Dean broken and bleeding. I am always amazed at the capacity of some folks to see their side "winning," no matter what. When we get around to the Bush-Kerry and Edwards-Cheney debates, it is unlikely that anyone will do such a poor job that their partisans won't be out there, claiming their boy clobbered and humiliated his opponent. They're already demonstrating the same blind cheering interest when their guy is 2 points ahead in a poll with a 3-point Margin of Error.