Ralph, just go away

Here we go again, Ralph Nader is running for President. I have written in the past about this uncommon figure of American politics and social activism, for whom I have the utmost respect. I have also said that I’ve changed my mind, in part, about his role in the infamous 2000 elections: while without him Gore would have won by a good margin, the Democrat in fact won anyway and was denied the Presidency only by a conservative Supreme Court who handed the election to George W. on terrifyingly shaky legal grounds. Moreover, when Nader said, before that election, that there was no discernible difference between the two candidates, he surely was being hyperbolic, but few people could have predicted at that point what an unqualified disaster Bush would turn out to be for the country and the rest of the world.

Nader did run again in ’04, though he did not have a significant causal role in the defeat of Kerry: the Dems simply chose the most inept candidate they had available, and this time George W. won almost square and fair (almost because there are still issues about significant voting “irregularities” in the pivotal state of Ohio, but that’s another story).

Nader, of course, is right in the substance of the comments he made last Sunday, when he announced his candidacy. Of Hillary Clinton he said that she is “the Democrat most loved by big business,” and chastised Obama for not speaking out about “the economic crimes against minorities in city ghettos.”

The two Democratic candidates’ responses weren’t that convincing. Clinton said that Nader -- who ran for the Green Party -- “prevented Al Gore from being the greenest president we could have had.” As I said, this is a very partial truth, the major fault for that unfortunate outcome must be laid at the feet of a passive Democratic party and of activist judges on the Supreme Court. Obama’s comments were not that different from Clinton’s (just as much in their platforms is not that diffeent), saying that “[Nader] thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush, and, eight years later, I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about.” Again, partially true, but I doubt one can find many Democrats who would have guessed back in 2000 just how wrong Ralph was on that count.

Nonetheless, Ralph, it’s time to go away. You are 74, for one thing, which means that even McCain is statistically more likely to make it alive to the end of the first term. Moreover, this is the fifth time you've given it a try; I admire the persistence and your love of a good fight for a good cause, but knowing where to draw the line is a sign of wisdom, which apparently you lack.

The main reasons you shouldn’t run, Ralph, include that this time the Democrats do have good solid candidates -- if nowhere near the kind of person both you and I would like to see running the country. More importantly, the United States and the planet simply cannot afford yet another war-mongering, anti-environmental President, who would keep increasing the gap between rich and poor and make life for everyone on earth a bit more miserable than it already is, and a hell of a lot more miserable than it could be.

Yes, of course you have the right to run, as New York mayor Michael Bloomberg keeps reminding us. It is a free country, especially if you have Bloomberg’s money. But you also have the moral duty to look at reality in its face: you don’t stand a chance to win, and unfortunate as that fact may be, it comes with a corollary: you’d be doing a big favor to our worst enemies, all those who fight so hard to stop the force of liberal progress. So, Ralph, just don’t.