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Marianne Means is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. --------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Marianne Means -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WASHINGTON - One of the saddest sights in politics is a fading public figure who refuses to concede that his or her time has passed. The latest egotist to ignore reality is Ralph Nader, the aging consumer advocate whose crusades stalled and popularity sagged long ago.
He announced Monday that he will seek the presidential nomination of the Green Party. The cheering was muted. It will be his second try. He ran for the White House on that party ticket in 1996 and attracted a whopping 1 percent of the total votes cast.
As a political force, the Green Party isn't much. It champions environmental protection and has a small presence in California and other Western states.
But Nader, 66, hasn't gotten over his earlier decades of fame as the chief advocate of auto safety and other good causes and as the relentless scourge of big business. He has settled into a role as the ghost of causes past.
These days he hangs around the fringes of what remains of the old political left, trying to regenerate some of his former publicity magic. Through a group called Global Trade Watch, he helped plan the demonstrations in Seattle against the World Trade Organization. He demands changes aimed at emasculating the organization so it will be helpless to influence international trade decisions.
This is not the Nader of old, whose causes defied the vested interests on behalf of the little guy for the broad public good. Global protectionism does not fit there. Although Nader once crusaded for all sorts of financial disclosure and openness in government, Global Trade Watch does not reveal the names of its donors. One financial backer is reported to be the protectionist U.S. textile industry.
Nader achieved folk-hero status in 1965 after General Motors hired private detectives to discredit him and his book "Unsafe at Any Speed," which criticized GM for shoddy car construction.
But he began to lose moral authority in 1972 when he abandoned his nonpartisan aura to endorse the politically doomed Sen. George McGovern for president. Nader grew preachy and prickly. He lobbied for a dizzying array of causes, some of which he won, some of which he lost and some of which were tailored to his own individual interests.
About to be ejected by a rent increase from his downtown office quarters, Nader even proposed a taxpayers' subsidy to provide housing for nonprofit, volunteer citizens' public interest groups — like his own. It went nowhere.
Even liberals felt that his 1978 campaign to establish a Cabinet-level Consumer Protection Agency was too much bureaucracy for too little gain. After the measure was defeated in Congress, his relations with Capitol Hill and the media soured. By 1982 a Gallup Poll found that fewer than 40 percent of those surveyed admired Nader, a dramatic fall from a decade earlier, when he ranked among the 10 most admired Americans.
Nader is in the great tradition of political die-hards who stubbornly hope against hope that they can keep the reporters and speaking fees coming despite all the derisive laughter. It's a shame, but it's human nature.
Harold Stassen, of course, takes the grand prize. A former Minnesota governor, he first ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1948 — and then ran and ran and ran every four years until 1992, when he was 84 and finally gave up the gig.
Conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan is working toward that record, making his third presidential run. This time he is moving in on the chaotic Reform Party, with which he has no prior history or even common policy goals. No popular groundswell for this candidacy was detected, except in Buchanan's shaving mirror.
Alan Keyes is in the mold as well, refusing to drop out of this year's Republican primaries despite pitiful showings at the polls. He's a broadcaster like Buchanan — anything to maintain the buzz.
But back to Nader. He was once so good. Why can't he leave it at that?
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