Dear Ralph: We think of you as Public Citizen Number One — a courageous advocate for consumer rights who has consistently challenged predatory corporate power. But your great strength — and success — as a crusader has come from working outside of electoral politics. Ralph, why run in 2008, when the stakes are clear, with John McCain calling for continuing the war for 100 years and sustaining the Bush economic policies that have ruined our country? To expose the issue of ballot access as a civil rights issue? It should be exposed. But why not use your pulpit and street cred as Citizen Number One, not as a candidate?. When the overwhelming mass of progressive voters have only one focus — beating back another disastrous four or eight years of conservative rule—your perceived role as a spoiler is likely to attract far more attention than the valuable issues you raise. As we wrote in 2004, by running, “your efforts to raise neglected issues will hit a deafening headwind.” Then there is the generational issue. I suspect that millions, especially young people who have been energized and politicized by Barack Obama’s campaign, who might otherwise listen to (and benefit from) the issues you’ve championed . will tune out and turn off Candidate Nader. For someone who inspired a generation of Nader’s Raiders and mobilised a new generation of voters to flock to your “super rallies” in 2000, think of how much more you could do to inform and engage a new generation if you did not run for President this year. Look around: no one, including former strong supporters, called on you to run this year. Doesn’t that deafening silence say something? In 2004, the last time you ran, in a year with the largest turnout of voters in recent history, you received only 0.3 per cent of the nationwide vote. And this year, as a result of beyond-the-beltway progressives driving their issues to the forefront of the Democratic agenda, both candidates pledge to bring the troops home, to push for national health insurance, to reinvest in America, roll back tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations and use that money in the drive for new energy, affordable college, investment in education. The stakes in 2008 are clear. You, above all, understand that until we bust open this duopoly — and its barriers to candidate access and citizen participation — your candidacy may appear to millions as having more to do with ego than changing this country. This country needs Ralph Nader to be Public Citizen Number One — not a presidential candidate after eight years of disastrous war and ruinous economic policy. Lead a Democracy Reconstruction project! As we wrote in 2004, in our Open Letter. “For the good of the country, the many causes you’ve championed and for your own good name, don’t run for President this year.” Excerpted from ‘Ralph: don’t run!’ in ‘The Nation’, February 25
