Does Ed support Ralph Nader

Dear Ralph,

I write as one who has, for decades, admired your commitment to fighting for the welfare and well being of all Americans. I was barely out of diapers when you took on the automobile industry, an effort that led to congressional hearings and the passage of several important automobile safety laws. As I prepared to enter high school, you founded Public Citizen, an organization with a long and impressive record of advocacy for everything from health care to food safety to sustainable energy.

While I work-studied my way through college, you became a vocal and articulate spokesperson against the growing influence of corporate power within state and federal government. Through the 1990s, you tirelessly challenged NAFTA, a treaty that accelerated the convergence of corporate and government power and led to the certifiable loss of 412,177 U.S. jobs.

Yours is truly an impressive legacy. Yet this legacy is being tarnished, your name dragged through the mud, your credibility and judgment called into question. If for no other reason than to preserve one of the most impressive records of public service in American history, please reconsider your decision to run for president.

On an island in a lake near my family’s ancestral farm in Ireland sits a castle remarkable for its lack of defense. The usual deterrents to an enemy attack - high walls, battlements, arrow loops - are noticeably absent. MacDermot’s Castle, as it is called, is what’s known locally as a "folly," built in the 1800s by Lord Lorton, for no apparent purpose other than the Lord’s personal entertainment.

With all due respect, it is clear to me - and to nearly everyone I talk with, including most of your admirers and past supporters - that your current presidential bid is nothing more than a folly. Perhaps you have grown tired of fighting the good fights, the ones you could win, the ones that really mattered in people’s lives. And who could blame you? Five decades in the ring, always the challenger, would tire even the most legendary boxer.

But like MacDermot’s Castle, your presidential bid serves no useful purpose. You do yourself harm. You have no chance to win. Your message is lost in the single-minded clamor of a rising chorus to defeat George W. Bush. Your only possible "accomplishment" would be to help re-elect him to a second term.

Deep down inside, I can’t imagine you really want this to happen. Over the past four years, President Bush has proven himself to be the consummate enemy of everything you believe in, everything you’ve fought for. I have met very few Bush opponents from the last election who ever imagined he could be this awful. In the words of Barbara Ehrenreich, writing recently in the New York Times on July 18, "Who could have guessed that within a year and a half, the genial Bush would morph into a figure invoked worldwide to scare unruly children?"

With his anti-environment, anti-consumer, anti-affordable health care and pro-everything corporate record, Bush has become, if you will, the Anti-Nader.

For the restoration of sound budgeting practices, respect among the community of nations, and a national agenda that doesn’t seek to destroy much of what you have fought for, George Bush must be defeated. Like it or not, the only man who can do this is John Kerry. Like it or not, your entry into the race only weakens Kerry’s chances.

As I finish writing this letter, I am shocked to learn that you have accepted 43,000 petition signatures collected by the Michigan Republican Party in order to qualify you to appear on that state’s ballot. Doesn’t it speak volumes that the Anti-Nader wants you to run so badly he’s willing to direct his minions to invest this kind of time and effort to help you out? Those 43,000 signatures didn’t come cheap - and they didn’t come from your supporters or from those who believe in your issues.

It’s not too late to give those of us who admire you the chance to do so once again. Please, decide not to run for president. America needs the Ralph Nader it knew for nearly five decades.

If you’ve still got it in you, continue to fight the good fights - for health care, for the environment, for corporate responsibility.

This latest run for president isn’t a fight, it’s a folly, and a dangerous one at that.

Sincerely,

Ed Fallon, State Representative