Those annoying third party candidates

This past Sunday, Ralph Nader, the left-of-the-Democrats independent candidate announced in Tim Russert's Meet the Press that he's running again for the US Presidency. Then he went on to attack Democratic candidates Obama and Clinton for their 'spineless' candidacies and the need for someone with substance in the left to lead the country. His annoucement has shocked the DNC that fears another 2000 campaign when Nader took away support from Al Gore in the key state of Florida. On the other hand, Republicans are delighted with his announcement and attacks on the Democrats.

Nader's isn't an isolated case. In plenty of elections disgruntled 'I know better' egocentric so-called progressive candidates enter the fray harming the electoral possibilities of mainstream left wing parties. It springs to mind the case of Rosa Diez in Spain. A Socialist Euro MP for many years, she contested the leadership of the party twice (1997 and 2001) and twice lost. So realising that she couldn't be a senior figure within PSOE, she started her own party. UPyD was launched this past summer in Spain and is participating in the March 9 general election. Diez claims her new party is PSOE without Zapatero's support for peripheral nationalisms in Spain (i.e.: Catalan and Basque mainly). However, her entire campaign so far (and we are two weeks ago from polling day) has been focused on attacking Zapatero and the Socialists and playing into PP's electoral strategy. And she's getting around 4-5% of the vote which could give her party one seat in Congress and take it away from PSOE in an very tight race.

Nader, like Diez, should know better. If they really cared about the electorate they would step aside on these elections where they know real decissions are at stake. Especially when they don't present any new policy and just focus on slagging off those progressive parties that can actually win. Such is the case of the 2008 Spanish and American elections and their bids are nothing but big circus of egocentrism and nothing to do with the good of their countries.

Famous third party candidacies (not necessarily all bad ones though):

- Ken Livingstone (London mayoral election 2000). Ken Livingstone presented himself as an independent candidate opposing the official Labour candidate Frank Dobson. Livingstone won the race with Dobson coming third behind Tory Steve Norris.

- George Galloway (UK General election 2005). Left the Labour Party in opposition to the war in Iraq and created his own party, RESPECT. He won the seat for Bethnal Green and Bow defeating incumbent Oona King from Labour.

- Ciutadans (Catalan regional elections 2006). Claiming to represent the interests of Spanish-identified Catalan voters, Ciutadans within months of its foundation won three seats in the Catalan Assembly.

- Ralph Nader (US general election 2000 and 2004). Nader, running as a Green candidate in 2000, claim there was no difference between Al Gore and Bush Jr's bids. His popularity then took away key votes from Gore in the state of Florida that eventually made Bush president.

- Joe Lieberman (US Mid-term elections 2007). Having been de-selected by his own party (and the liberal blogosphere) for his support for the war in Iraq, Lieberman ran as an independent beating Ned Lamont, the official Democratic candidate, to retain his seat in the Senate.