http://www.thestate.com/mld/state/news/opinion/9187748.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jspIf Ralph Nader had any shame left — already a big if, and waxing — he would quit his presidential run in embarrassment. Increasingly, it owes its thin breath of life not to any popular groundswell, but to cynical resuscitation by Republicans — and often by the most conservative Republicans at that.
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And are the idealistic young, perhaps, or aggrieved consumers or shortchanged workers rising in any numbers to his cause? They are not.
Instead, where the issue is in the balance, the state parties of the GOP are out beating the bushes for signatures on Nader’s behalf.
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All of this Nader more or less acknowledges but then shrugs off with a lot of excuses that just boil down to the end justifies the means. This from a fellow who was once a fair paladin on behalf of the nation’s weakest and least enfranchised but who now seems like the political equivalent of those sorry homeless folks you see walking along the streets muttering to themselves.
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In 2000, Nader could argue, implausibly even then but respectably, that he was running in the grand tradition of the progressive third-party candidates of the early 20th century — to put into serious play a neglected but necessary agenda, in the progressives’ case, workman’s comp, the 40-hour week and so on.
Then, Nader could be passed off as quixotic. This time, he just seems delusional.