Hightower Lowdown

When an outsider candidate
like Ralph Nader of the
Green Party comes along,
political prognosticators in
the media never know what
to make of him. They’re
used to sifting through poll
data and consulting with
political insiders to come
up with their predictions—
basically feeding conventional
wisdom into a computer
and getting conventional
wisdom back out.
CNN’s political seer, Bill
Schneider, rejected Nader
out of hand: “It doesn’t
look like Nader will be
much of a factor. [His]
message is targeted at
angry voters, and there
aren’t a lot of angry voters
out there.” Earth to Bill—
get out to America once in
a while, where you’ll find a
majority of mad-as-hellers
who’re disgusted with the
two-party duopoly.
Yet Schneider maunders
on: “He’s running on an
anti-trade, anti-corporate
resentment, and that’s not
a big cause right now.” Bill,
can you spell WTO? Did you
sleep through the battle in
Seattle? Are you deaf to
the resentment against
HMOs, the genetic manipulation
of our food, the corporate
buy-out of our politicians,
and other examples
of corporate arrogance and
abuse?