By Greg Bates

Senator John Kerry wants the presidency so badly that he is closing down democracy to get it. Policy positions merit serious scrutiny, but when the party of the working person, the party that claims to have a vision to heal the divide between what Sen. John Edwards calls the "two Americas," turns its back on voters' right to choose whom they elect, no American should let that stand.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe has admitted approving efforts to block Ralph Nader from appearing on the ballot in 19 battleground states. From using state employees in Illinois to question petition signatures, to hiring corporate law firms to mount frivolous challenges to Nader's ballot efforts, the Democratic Party and John Kerry, who does nothing to stop these tactics, have made it very clear: no more democracy.

Liberals have a legitimate concern about Ralph Nader's appearance on swing-state ballots: Voters could choose him in large enough numbers to throw the election to President George Bush. Influential Democrats worried about this prospect could be saying to likely Nader voters: We support your right to choose a candidate and understand the desire to pressure Kerry by having Nader on the ballot in swing states, but we really want to convince you to vote for Kerry.

But they're not saying that. Instead, the Democratic Party has drawn a line in the sand; voter choice and the genuine dialogue needed to sway likely Nader voters is just too dangerous—we have to keep Nader off the ballot.

Meanwhile, Kerry has made it very plain he is moving his party to the right. This July, Kerry told the Wall Street Journal that, if elected president, he will likely keep troops in Iraq through 2008. Whoever wins, we will have four more years of war.

Shortly after the heinous train bombings in Madrid on March 11, 2004, the socialists were swept into office, replacing the conservatives who had defied the 80 percent of the population that didn't want Spanish troops in Iraq. But contrary to the impression given by widespread media reports, the newly elected Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, did not pledge to remove his 1300 troops unconditionally. Rather, he was more nuanced, saying, "If the United Nations does not take over the situation and there is not a rethinking of this chaotic occupation we are living through, in which there are more dead in the occupation than in the war phase, the Spanish troops are going to return to Spain."

That is a call for the use of force in accordance with international law. If we stay in Iraq it must be under U.N., not U.S., auspices. It's just the kind of cooperation one might think John Kerry is advocating from his campaign statements: Avoid unilateralism, work through international institutions.

But Kerry rebuked Zapatero unequivocally, saying, "I call on Prime Minister Zapatero to reconsider his decision and to send a message that terrorists cannot win by their acts of terror." In other words, simply saying that you require a U.N. mandate to participate in occupying a country is sending the wrong message to terrorists. Kerry's talk of working with the U.N. isn't about shared decision-making. It's about doing a better job than George Bush has done of getting them to follow us.

On social issues, too, Kerry is a poor champion.

Kerry has a strong record supporting pro-choice positions, but now says he would appoint anti-abortion judges, uttering the nonsensical caveat, "as long as the appointment doesn't jeopardize Roe v. Wade." Yet if an anti-abortion judge were hearing the recent case in San Francisco about partial-birth abortion, the right could well have scored a major victory for restricting a woman's right to choose.

Kerry used to be opposed to capital punishment. Now he favors it for terrorists. This makes him an advocate for killing those least able to defend themselves. Even an indigent African American facing the racism of the criminal justice system has at least a lottery's chance of getting a high-powered attorney to get him out. But he did it with access to due process, which those accused of terrorism don't have, because they face the greatest restrictions on due process in the wake of the Patriot Act that Kerry voted for. Since the freeing of over 100 death-row inmates from prison by DNA evidence, any fair person can see that those whose access to justice is most heavily restricted ought to be afforded the heaviest protections against capital punishment.

Kerry also opposes same-sex marriage, arguing disingenuously for civil unions. These would be honored at the state level, and would not therefore confer the over 1000 federal rights that are only available to married couples.

On economic policy, Kerry panders to working Americans but plans to institute the same Clintonomics-style fiscal austerity program that saw the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay shoot up from 113 to 1 to 449 to 1. According to Bob Woodward's The Agenda, Clinton admitted weeks after winning the election, "We're Eisenhower Republicans here… We stand for lower deficits, free trade, and the bond market. Isn't that great?" Woodward also quotes Clinton conceding that with his new policy focus, "We help the bond market and we hurt the people who voted us in."