Happy Birthday Luke Perry

Alleged presidential candidate Ralph Nader is taking time from his busy schedule to complain about DC's stadium financing plan. This isn't the first time he's done this (I commented on his last foray here), but this time it neatly reinforces what I was talking about yesterday.

Nader's minions have issued this press release, from which I shall excerpt the bits I like, as is customary.

Baseball in DC–YES! Public Financing–No!
Nader: “Lucrative deal for fat-cat owners is corporate welfare run amok”

Yeah, of course he's in favor of baseball. He's not a commie or nothin'. More on this later.

“Baseball and Washington, DC are a great match, the capitol area is wealthy, has a large population with lots of potential fans and television marketing. There is no need for DC to provide the most expensive public financing for any team in the country. Mayor Williams has given away the store and will do long-term damage to the district’s economy if his proposal is approved by the City Council,” said Nader.

Sound familiar? This is the same tack those NoTaxes people used. It's so obvious that DC is a great place for baseball that MLB should be thrilled to put a team here, free stadium or no free stadium. You know, just out of the goodness of their hearts. Their cold, black hearts.

This press release and the "fact sheet" from yesterday both go to great pains to ensure everybody that they're totally for baseball; it's just the public money they don't like. Now, every Nader voter I've ever known hasn't given a rat's ass about baseball. It's a generalization, but I'd be willing to bet if you polled people involved in the Nader "campaign," at least three-fourths of them couldn't tell you who Randy Johnson plays for. Ditto for the NoTaxes crowd. The fact that they're bothering to make yay-baseball noises indicates that the return of baseball is extremely popular in the District.

Because of this popularity, Jack Evans (upon whom the Brad Pitt character in the hit movie Troy is based, incidentally), has taken the position that opposing to the free stadium equals opposing baseball in DC. If he and his ilk can convince District voters that the choice is not between a $500 million stadium and a $200 million stadium but rather between a $500 million stadium and nothing, they'll win.