Democracy Now vs. Ralph Nader?

Amy Goodman interviewed Ralph Nader today on Democracy Now, since he just announced formation of a presidential exploratory committee. They always play sly and relevant selections in the music breaks (where they pause for radio or tv station identification), like they'll have a story about Bush claiming Iraq has WMDs, and the music will be "You Lie To Me". In the music break during the Nader interview, they played a ska song by "Public Property" called "Power Trip." This can't be a coincidence. I can't find tons of relevant articles immediatly when I google "Ralph Nader Power Trip" (only 920 results) but it's not far off from the word liberals and progressives usually apply to him for not capitulating to the authority of the Democratic party: "ego" (keywords 'ego "Ralph Nader"' = 85,200 results).

I'm just surprised that Goodman and DN would try to zap him like that, and that Nader wouldn't mention it as soon as he heard her announce what song they had played on the break.

Theoretically, if he runs and threatens to attract progressives away from them unless one of them adopts some of his platform (at which point he could agree to endorse them), then his running is a fair and solid and maybe helpful thing. Unfortunately, it's not a strategy you can announce upfront. People won't actually vote for you, or won't tell pollsters that they're going to vote for you, if they think you're planning to drop out like that. So it's not a threat unless you pretend you're serious. By the time it got to the actual day of voting, that wouldn't actually justify voting for him when you knew he wasn't going to get majority or plurality. It's an idea that justifies him running as a threat, but not for actually going through with it to the end. (This is me saying I don't plan to vote for him.)

But it's something to think about. Don't take it for granted from pundits and pajamahuddin who are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party, that Nader should be the enemy of progressives. From what we've seen of the Dems over the last many years, the Republicans and the Democrats are both enemies of progressives.