He’s Back: Ralph Nader Enters Presidential Race

The last time he ran for President, in 2004, he got under 500,00o votes, meaning out of the entire country, about the population of 1 US congressional district voted for him. So why does anyone care about today’s announcement by Ralph Nader that he is running for President? In 2000, he ran well enough in certain counties in Florida that he effectively took away what would have been a victory from Al Gore and gave it to George Bush.

Now, arguing that the nation needs a “Jeffersonian Revolution,” he is running for President, again. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama may not openly agree on much (at least between now and March 4th), but they do agree on this - Nader entering the race is bad for the democratic nominee.

Obama told a group of supporters at a rally today, “He 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.”

Kudos to Hillary Clinton for the best sound bite of the day. She called the announcement, “very unfortunate,” and added, “I remember when he ran before. It didn’t turn out very well for anybody — especially our country. She also, aptly said, “Well, you know his being on the Green Party prevented Al Gore from being the greenest president we’ve ever had. And I think that’s really unfortunate.””

Nader could pull enough votes from states like Florida and California to tilt them towards John McCain. Such victories would go a long way to helping McCain win in November. But don’t tell any of that to Nader. He instead is focused on what he brings as a candidate.

Nader already has his presidential website setup in which he contrasts himself against “corporate greed, corporate power, and corporate control.”

Only if he lives in his own bubble could Nader actually believe that he could win the White House in November. In fact, if you read the transcript from “Meet the Press”, it’s clear that even he knows he can’t win. So why does he run? Some have suggested ego and hubris are at play. After all, on Google News today there are 763 stories under the search term “Nader.” That’s about 758 more than there were last week or last month for him.

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