The Vice Presidential Debate

Since last night was the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, I thought I'd add one more vice presidential voice to your listening. Matt Gonzalez, Ralph Nader's vice presidential running mate. Have I mentioned that he's my favorite vice presidential candidate? ...

Both Rosa Clemente of the Green Party and Matt Gonzalez got a chance to speak about the debate on this morning's edition of Democracy Now!

If you missed the debate here it is compliments of hulu:

An interview with Matt Gonzalez

Matt Gonzalez is my favorite VP candidate, and not just because he is Ralph Nader's running mate. I've mentioned my opinion on Wayne Root when he got nominated. Rosa Clemente, I like what she is doing but she doesn't speak to me directly. Then there is the mainstream candidates. Biden, I liked hearing him speak in the Democratic debates because he was different but I definately didn't want him to be president. Then there is Sarah Palin. I heard somebody say recently, "What a disaster." I like Matt Gonzalez because he has an uncanny way of talking about ( with a history to back it up ) of talking about dramatic almost revolutionary change with a laid back tone. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten a chance to hear him speak much. Luckily I came across this hour long interview with him on Fora.tv. ...

Matt did really well in this interview in the face of an interviewer who had some good counter questions for him as a candidate against the so-called people's party. In watching this, I want to know more about that notebook he has. He must have notes for any question people are likely to ask him with statistics, numbers, quotes and more to answer with. The fact that he can find what he is looking in there so fast says that he has a good indexing system.

Ralph Nader at the RNC Rally

Ralph Nader hosted another Open The Debates rally during the week of the Republican National Convention. While I did get a chance to watch it live via the intertubes, the sound was awful. The whole time I was trying to fix their audio problem as an armchair engineer and it made most of the speeches, especially from the more boisterous talkers ( I'm talking to you with love Rosa Clemente ), tough to swallow. Luckily the live audio was much better and the Nader campaign has released a video with some of the highlights of the night ( plus 98° which I don't consider a highlight :) ). ...

Some of my favorite parts of this video, other than Ralph, are Matt Gonzalez for bringing the point of minor party candidates to the forefront and Jesse Ventura. I like Jesse, not just for being a professional wrestler turned politician but, for giving a concrete example of the fact that minor party candidates can matter.

Help Me Win Dinner with Ralph Nader

Friend:

I've entered a contest.

It's sponsored by Nader/Gonzalez.

And first prize is a dinner with Ralph Nader.

There are a bunch of other prizes.

Like -- an autographed copy of Ralph's classic -- Unsafe at Any Speed.

But I want to win the dinner with Ralph.

The contest works this way:

The person who brings in the most e-mail sign-ups to Ralph's web site wins the dinner with Ralph.

Nader/Gonzalez will set up a leaderboard to keep track of how I'm doing.

But, I need you to sign up.

And for you to be included on the list of people who I got to sign up, you have to do it in a certain way.

By signing up, you will get a daily message from Nader/Gonzalez -- they are always politically interesting -- and sometimes funny. And you can unsubscribe at any time.

But for me to win a dinner with Ralph, you have to sign up.

So, please, do it for me.

I want dinner with Ralph!

Help me out.

To sign up and help me win I'll need to send you an email through their website. To make sure your email address is safe, please don't post it in the comments but use the my.opera message system. If you do post it in the comments, I will do my best to sanitize your email out of it once I have sent the request. The contest ends August 7th.

Matt Gonzalez in Seattle

The more I hear Ralph Nader's running mate speak, the more I like him. He is a good counterpoint to Ralph while still supporting the same issues. He does a good job of talking matter of factly rather than making anyone wrong. He has an ease to him that is very respectful in a presidential candidate. ...

This is part 1 thru 4 of was is listed as a 6 part set. I will post parts 5 and 6 if and when the become available.

Edit: Part 5 & 6 are now a part of this playlist.

Matt Gonzalez Campaigning in San Francisco

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/1009059 w=400&h=300]
Matt Gonzalez Campaigns From the Heart of San Francisco from Polidoc on Vimeo.

In case you missed it

I almost missed it while I was at Flex 360 in Atlanta. There has been a lot of talk about Nader officially running for President of the United States of America but you might have missed it. So I've decided to post some video of his announcement on Meet the Press. ...

As always, Nader is very intelligent and more eloquent about his political points than many.

Something else you may have missed is that Ralph Nader announced his Vice Presidential running mate yesterday.

Honestly, I was amazed at how quickly the information was on Wikipedia, that Matt Gonzalez was Ralph Nader's running mate. I don't know much about him so its time to do some research.