In a letter to the editor of The New York Times, Oliver B. Hall of the Center for Competitive Democracy, which works to eliminate barriers to political participation and protect open and competitive elections, criticizes left-wing journalist and scholar Todd Gitlin over an op-ed he wrote for the Times last week on Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign.
Hall writes that except for Sanders, “the only radicals Mr. Gitlin cites with approval are Democrats. He broadly dismisses third-party politics as not ‘popular on the left’ since Ralph Nader ran for president as the Green Party candidate in 2000.” Hall argues that “if ‘radical politics’ signifies anything, apart from the ‘countercultural baggage’ to which Mr. Gitlin alludes, surely it includes a willingness to challenge existing power structures, including the two major political parties.”
Hall says that in his presidential campaigns, Nader offered “a platform that Democrats wouldn’t touch. It included, for example, cracking down on corporate crime, supporting single-payer health care and opposing the war in Iraq.”