I enjoyed Willis' intelligent summation of Gore's difficult race for president, but if she thinks she will advance her agenda by voting for Ralph Nader, she's mistaken and illogical.
Bush's campaign has been one of divide and conquer from the first, but even he never dreamed Nader would become his ally.
To paraphrase an old adage, Vote in haste, repent at leisure. The Naderites will have four years to rue their mistake. If they want any hope of achieving their issues, they should vote for the only party that cares about what affects the majority of people, the Democratic Party.
The Naderite posture is like the kid who takes his ball home and ruins the game when it doesn't go his way. Wake up Naderites, before you make us all lose the ballgame!
-- S. Wayne
Ellen Willis' argument for voting for Ralph Nader -- it's worth giving up abortion rights to stick it to the Democratic Party -- is exactly why I'm disgusted with his "radical" followers and why I'm voting not for Nader but for Gore. It is not OK with me to sacrifice women's right to choose for some "greater good" determined by Nader and his followers, and I am shocked that Willis would urge women to make it. But this is the level to which the Nader campaign has sunk in the last month, and it's disturbing and infuriating.
-- Mary Ann Rasmussen
I am appalled that anyone could suggest, as Ellen Willis does, that a state-by-state fight on abortion would be preferable to maintaining legal abortion under Roe vs. Wade. What of those women who choose abortion in the meantime? What of those women in rural and conservative states where abortion rights are unlikely ever to be upheld, state-by-state fight or no?
When it comes to women's lives and choices in the real world today, Willis' desired end (the possibility of an invigorated feminist movement) does not justify either a vote for Nader or the obvious result of such a vote, the election of George W. Bush. Willis' argument is simply an attempt to "clarify" Nader's insensitive and politically expedient statements about the insignificance of Roe vs. Wade. The Naderites' claim that we must lose everything to gain anything downplays or ignores the real-life, long-term implications of those losses.
-- Matthew Cecil
I will also vote for Nader as a protest against Lieberman. I have always been very supportive of the constitutional separation of church and state and respect a person's right to be free of religion. I voice my concern that Lieberman has put faith ahead of reason and common sense.
-- Sandor Zolyomi
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