"Vanity and Indiscretion" Are Hallmarks
of Ralph Nader’s Newest Presidential Bid

By Michael Bradley

In the early 1970’s, when Ralph Nader was approaching the zenith of his fame and popularity, I was the senior editor of a well-respected newspaper and was accorded a personal interview with the master of reform politics.

I went into the interview with the newsman’s common admixture of emotions and intellectual concerns; i.e., I admired what Mr. Nader had accomplished against vast odds, and yet was skeptical of the sense of absolutism that seemed to be a part of his makeup and approach. And of course I was concerned that my own viewpoints remain sublimated and not interfere with my interview.

As it turned out, I didn’t have a lot to fear.

Mr. Nader was and I’m sure still is an imposing figure, over six feet four inches tall, with deep-set, dark and searching eyes, coupled with a quiet, almost Lincolnesque demeanor that at first adds an aura of weight and solemnity to his presence. But while with Lincoln it was apparently his natural being, it soon became apparent that with Mr. Nader it is a carefully acquired and adopted persona.

In no time at all he made it clear that his view of the world and its mechanics was sacrosanct. To question him vigorously on any stated point of view brought a cold stare followed by a response that managed to mix detachment with patronization. Yet there was no denying that he was already an icon of public safety and political reform, a man who had stood taller than his physical height during the post-Kennedy era when Lyndon Johnson rode roughshod over all dissent, usually by fogging all issues through cold subterfuge, and of course Johnson was followed immediately on the national stage by the smoke and mirrors subterfuge that for a time hid the criminal enterprises of Richard Nixon. Ralph Nader never wavered; his viewpoint was determined.

Through all of that political ugliness Mr. Nader persevered in his public interest causes, and if there was a disturbing thread in his approach it was an uncomfortable awareness of his increasing sense of righteousness. But his approach was, after all, supposedly not personal; it was for the public good!  Or so at least was the perception. In the years since, many have questioned the image.

So at the time of my interview, Mr. Nader’s overview pronouncements were duly recorded and reported to my readership, and where he had been recalcitrant played lower in the story, since in the news business what isn’t answered has always seemed less important than what is stated on the record.

Yet in retrospect it is obvious that both sides of Mr. Nader deserved equal coverage, and perhaps the obtuse aspect of his personality needed the most revelation. This seems especially valid given subsequent history, because Mr. Nader was even then illustrating a sense that he was the keeper of the public keys; that is, that he alone held the definition of what is in the public interest; that he knows above all others what would be good for the public. That view alone should have triggered greater scrutiny by everyone. 

But going back to the 1970's, it was hard to fault a man who stood against the power structure. Yet personally I came away from my interview with him with mixed emotions: I had respect for the work of the man, but I didn’t like the man I met.

Now, decades later, I am reminded of those feelings as once again Ralph Nader enters the realm of presidential politics.

When he entered the presidential contest in 2000, as the Green Party candidate, it was clear that his candidacy had the aura of a spoiler to it, yet it was hard to criticize his right, and the rights of his party’s voters and of those influenced to join them, to promote and support their candidate of choice. Further, while certainly the Nader/Green Party vote shortened Al Gore’s margins, dramatically in key states such as Florida, it seems patently unfair to blame the ascendancy of George W. Bush solely on those numbers.

G. W. Bush is in the White House because of an unprecedented action by a 5-4 vote of the Supreme Court, which upheld a tortured if not illegal election process in the State of Florida, administered not so coincidentally by Governor Jeb Bush.

But this time it will be possible to criticize Mr. Nader.

This time there is no reasonable rationale. Ralph Nader is entering the presidential race for subjective reasons of his own, which may range anywhere from a pending sense of personal mortality – he is now 70 – to a belief that his bully pulpit can be reestablished once again, and that his message is so important that the end does justify the means.

"Washington is still corporate-occupied territory, and the two parties are ferociously competing to see who’s going to go to the White House and take orders from their corporate paymasters," Mr. Nader declared recently on NBC’s ‘Meet The Press,’ concluding that while the two parties "may be different in their own minds, they may be different in their attention, they may be different in their rhetoric, but in the actual performance these corporate interests and their political allies are taking America down."

He also declared, on Meet The Press, that "after careful thought and my desire to retire our supremely selected president, I’ve decided to run as an independent candidate for president."

But it is very, very hard to reconcile the obvious truth that Mr. Nader is an intelligent and educated man with a sense that he actually believes he could be the one to retire George W. Bush from the presidency to which he was selected by the Supreme Court. Perhaps, if it could be shown that Mr. Nader is imbued with a Messianic zeal, his entrance into the 2004 Presidential race might be forgivable if not acceptable. But he continues to appear to be completely rational, therefore what he is doing in this dramatically important election year is more than deplorable; it is an illustration of self-serving politics at the basest level.

Way back, four decades or so, Mr. Nader wrote, "the consumer must be protected at times from his own indiscretion and vanity." Now, in 2004, it would be useful for the nation’s democratic consumers, it’s voters, if Ralph Nader took heed of his own words and protected them by ceasing the vain indiscretion of his candidacy.