I'd like to Throw a Pie in Ralph Nader's Face

I'm ready to cry tears of frustration. Now Ralph Nader has announced that he, too, is running as an independent.

I'm sure Mr. Nader must realize that millions of Americans are not going to wake up on election day and realize that, by golly, they are progressive independents. Knowing that, he must either (a) believe that his support will come largely from those who would not have voted at all otherwise, or (b) not give a hoot about the executive branch remaining in the hands of the types of people he is always complaining about.

Or, perhaps, he does think he has a chance to win, but we'd expect this kind of cockeyed optimism from Ralph Kramden, not Ralph Nader. Hummina hummina hummina . . .

Candidates campaign for pubic office with the immediate goal of convincing those who would vote for someone else to vote for them instead. The so-called "religious right" -- Mike Huckabee's fan base -- seems to loathe John McCain, but they aren't going to express that by voting for Clinton or Obama. They'll just stay home on election day.

No, the votes that Nader (and Mike Gravel, if he stays in the race) can expect to get will be primarily at the expense of the Democratic candidate. They may as well gift-wrap the White House and hand it over to the Republicans for another term of shoveling money onto the plates of the wealthy, vetoeing health care bills, and appointing hypocritical "strict constructionists" to the Federal bench. (Witness the recent Supreme Court decision disallowing suits against the manufacturers of medical equipment that the FDA may have made the mistake of approving).

Not to mention Iraq.

In light of this, I have to wonder if they really have America's best interests (and the world's) in mind.

(c) 2008 Shmuel Goldsmith