Nader and Naderism...

We are a long way from the fire and brimstone sermonizing of "Unsafe at any Speed".
A long way indeed.
These days Ralph Nader justifies his leftish spoiler candidacy for President on the grounds that he is the only incorruptible soul prepared to take on "Corporate America".
Which is funny because Corporate America is counting on Ralph to win the election for Bush and has put up hard cash on his behalf.
Yup, to get on the ballot and get his campaign moving Ralph has been taking money from long time GOP donors and accepting help from rightical chic groups like "The Oregon Family Council" and "Citizen for a Sound Economy".
Granted Bush and Kerry take campaign contributions from actors and groups with interests in government policy...under the present system of financing broadly draw as "socialized theft" they can do nothing else.
Yet Ralph is playing the same game and parading himself as an icon of political purity.
Moreover, who is he kidding? These big money contributions to Nader are naught but stealth attacks on the democrats prepared by sneaky republicans.
At least John Kerry is up front about the need for big money to fend off the usual character assassination from the GOP.
Nader is campaigning in the field today on the basis of being a useful tool of the radical right.
They know it, he knows it and yet it somehow suits his bloated adolescent ego to be the loud center of attention.
That is the only explanation I have for Nader's doomed candidacy...he can't win but he'll take the GOP's money in order to be heard.
There is a word for this it is called corruption....Ralph is taking pay offs in the belief that none of it will damage his saintly aura.
Well what of it?
The man is a narcissist....in the clinical sense of the term.
Ralph's self worship is such that nothing less than being strapped into a straitjacket and being bundled off to Saint Elizabeth's Hospital would derail his campaign.
I've given up criticizing him.
He is controlled by his ego and the rest of us will have to put up with it as best we can.
The only thing we can do is engage with his potential followers on a person to person level and hope for the best.
Kerry is fighting a two front war at this point, I wish him well with it.