I support Nader's right to run for office because I support the right of voters to choose to vote for him or to not vote for him. That's called democracy.

Kucinich runs every election yet vitriolic hate speech is not hurled at him. How interesting.

I chose not to vote for Nader because I feared my vote would help Bush. Instead I helped Pennsylvania deliver its electoral college votes for Gore. But Bush still won. Nader wasn't even on the PA ballot in 2004 and its electoral college votes went to Kerry, but Bush still won.

So to listen to the hate speech against Nader, it sounds like it's ok that the nation still has deep flaws in the conduct of our elections--that it's ok that voters are denied the right to vote on the basis of race; that it's ok for the wealthiest democracy in the history of the world to deploy inadequate polling machinery throughout the country; that it's ok for political corruption to tilt electoral outcomes; that it's ok for candidates to campaign on spin, hate speech, and other distortions of fact.

American democracy has serious problems and it's ashame that one of those problems is widespread confusion among Americans about the definition and practice of democracy itself.