He's BAAAAAACK....

We've all had them, those friends who cause nothing but trouble, the ones we try to tactfully excise from our lives, but they don't take a hint.

Ralph Nader is kind of like that, and he's just announced in Press the Meat that he's running for president again in his continuing effort to keep the White House in the hands of Republicans.

That's not his stated goal, of course, but that IS the net result. Every one of Nader's points about the current state of both the Democratic Party and the government is valid. But where the hell is Ralph Nader when he's not out there every four years trying to keep Republicans in power? There are those who track what he does when he's not deciding he wants some presidential attention, and it's not a pretty sight. We all know how he took campaign funds from the GOP in 2004. And every four years, like those e-mail hoaxes about Olympic Torch viruses, he shows up, running for president.

How long is this guy going to be able to live off his consumer advocacy in the early 1960's?

We can argue back and forth about whether Al Gore should have been able to trounce George W. Bush in 2000 even without Florida and/or Ralph Nader's 93,000 votes till the cows come home. But advocacy is a commitment that requires vigilance every year, every month, every day -- not just every four years when Tim Russert calls.

Ralph Nader may have the right message, but he's the wrong messenger. They way to effect change is not to vote for some egomaniac who doesn't do jack shit until the presidential elections come around and then all he does is ensure the perpetuation of Republican power. The way to effect change is to run progressive candidates at the local, state, and Congressional level, running credible progressives to mount primary challenges to entrenched hacks like Al Wynn. It involves not being afraid to take on people like Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers who have allowed themselves to be co-opted by the corrupt Washington corporatist system.

I am by no means convinced that the Democratic Party can be saved. Barack Obama may be transformational for a number of reasons, but I think that as president, he's likely to be cautious, consistent with his role as "the first black president." That would not be a major problem if he has a Congress that'll have his back -- but I'm not convinced he does.

Radical change to a system that's become as corrupt as ours has doesn't happen overnight. That doesn't mean, however, that we should be content to support corporate apologists like Hillary Clinton on the grounds that they are "maybe a bit less in the pockets of multinational corporations" than the Republicans. And this year hopefully we won't have to. But while a third-party vote CAN be a statement, a vote for Ralph Nader at this point, given his track record of using the national electoral process to feed his ego and generate donations to a bunch of PIRGs that don't seem to accomplish much, IS throwing away your vote. You don't put a brand new kitchen with granite countertops in a house where the floor is bowing because the joists underneath have been eaten away by termites; you fix the structural damage first. This means development of a progressive infrastructure starting at the state and local level.

I realize that we may not have the luxury of time to develop this kind of infrastructure, given the relentless march towards authoritarian theocracy on the part of the Republican Party and the increasing corporatization of the Democrats. But what choice do we have? Electing supposed "moderates" like Heath Shuler and Jim Webb just because they have a (D) after their names isn't the answer. But any one Congresscritter or Senator has limited influence and can only do limited damage. A president is another ballgame entirely.

Hillary Clinton is a candidate I would probably vote for in November if only because the thought of John McCain and whatever Christofascist Zombie he names as his #2 shaping the Supreme Court for the next two generations is just too horrifying. I'll vote for Barack Obama with somewhat more enthusiasm, though I don't see him as the kind of courageous, groundbreaking progressive I'd prefer. But even though neither of these candidates give me a whole lot of hope for a sea change in the way our government operates, neither would Ralph Nader. Because at his core, Ralph Nader is out for the interests of Ralph Nader...and no one else.

And that is NOT the definition of a progressive leader.