How Sorry Is This Guy?

By Joel Stein

People used to like Ralph Nader. Which is impressive since he is the progenitor of two of the world's most annoying types of people: local-TV consumer advocates and guys who enjoy reminding you to put your seat belt on. Sure, it was a little weird when he started campaigning for President in 1992, but we looked past that because he had given us so much and because back then running for President was just an adorable hobby designed to entertain Larry King. When Nader ran in 2000, taking key votes from Al Gore, however, he alienated every conceivable base. Now Democrats hate him for getting George Bush elected. Republicans hate him for getting George Bush elected.

But Nader is running again this year, for the fifth consecutive time, and he tells me over the phone he's shocked that the hate is still so strong. Liberal bloggers are saying incredibly mean things about him, or so he's heard. "The venom, looking at the blogs and e-mail responses to the newspaper articles, I'm told--I'm really not online; I have an Underwood typewriter--but I see letters. And it's really sad. It would match e-mail for e-mail the worst Jim Crow remarks in the South against African-American voters." It's one thing to be so out of it you don't use e-mail. It's quite another to believe the technology has been around since the Jim Crow South.

I called Nader because I alone knew how to save his candidacy. I like his bits about taking on the multinational corporations that have usurped the political process. That's going to appeal to everyone except those who realize they work at, shop at and invest in multinational corporations. Nader's huge problem is that you can't demand financial honesty from politicians when you can't be honest yourself. Nader just can't admit that he's at least a little responsible for Gore's loss. And that he may have gotten it at least a little wrong when he said there wasn't much difference between Bush and Gore. Bush, it turns out, isn't boring.

So I told Nader my outline for a campaign plan that would fix his image. My idea: apologize like crazy. I suggested that he adopt the slogan "My bad!" and produce campaign buttons with his head on Urkel's body, saying DID I DO THAT? Nader would come out onstage to Britney Spears' Oops! ... I Did It Again and maybe do one of those supershort apology trips to rehab, blaming his involvement in the 2000 election on Quaaludes or yerba mate or whatever drug someone like Ralph Nader might take. If the subtext of John McCain's and Hillary Clinton's campaigns is "I've gone through hell, so you owe me," then Nader needs to run on "You've gone through hell, so I owe you."

Some of these references were not caught by Nader. But he embraced the general idea. We honed it down to a slightly less catchy "It's all my fault, so I owe you to be a really good President" and dropped the Urkel bit entirely. He says he's going to try the concept first on The Daily Show next week and then, depending on how it plays, platform it out nationally. And we devised a pretty smart argument that while Nader might be responsible for every drop of blood spilled in Iraq, he also helped end global warming. Nader came up with his own bit about how he must also be responsible for sunspots, which made me more than a little nervous about letting the man deliver my material.

But even if he can't do it right, I'm still glad he's running. It's important for people who feel they're not being heard to have the option to vote for insane, incapable candidates. Only new parties can break us out of dangerous paradigms. It was a recently formed third party that got rid of slavery, after all. That's because a two-party system is designed to eliminate extreme ideas--the Dennis Kuciniches, Mike Gravels, Ron Pauls and Tom Tancredos--much like the first few episodes of American Idol. The parties quickly get us down to two choices that we find acceptable but are just different enough to argue over: McDonald's and Burger King; Coke and Pepsi; Shi'a and Sunni.

But a new party is not Nader's goal. He simply wants to give people--especially those who are independent and didn't vote in the primaries--a chance to register dissatisfaction so extreme that they're willing to hurt themselves to express it. He exists for the same strange reason as Jack in the Box.

Part of Nader's problem is that the Democrats are so good at self-righteous anger. Perot cost the first Bush the 1992 election, but no one got too upset when he ran again in 1996. People just ignored him. That's how third parties are supposed to work.