"Oops, I did it again" - Britney Spears

Ralph Nader decided to run for President again. It is not going well.

When Nader ran for President in 2000, he said it was to make the Green party a viable third party.

Nader's devotion to the Green party lasted about 10 seconds after the 2000 election. Nader forgot about the group until he was ready for his quadrennial run for President. This time, Nader wanted the Green party to team up with other parties to nominate him. 

The Green party told Nader to take a hike. They were tired of being used by Nader and got a real activist to be their nominee. Now it is going to be difficult for Nader to get on the ballot in a number of states. 

It is sad to watch Nader become a joke. If he had died 20 years ago, the nation would have mourned Nader as one of its greatest leaders. Now he is just one of those people who will do anything to get on television. He is starting to remind me of the guy who married Liza Minnelli and wanted to do a reality show about it. 

Nader's addiction to publicity will cause history to overlook his early accomplishments. In a way, I think he is the 21 st century version of William Jennings Bryan. 

Like Nader, Bryan ran for President three times. Like Nader, he had a number of significant accomplishments at a young age. Bryan was nominated for President in 1896 at age 36, after giving his famous "Cross of Gold" speech. His barnstorming style of campaigning transformed the way that political campaigns were run. 

Bryan resigned as Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State when Wilson decided to enter World War One. Historians have said that if Bryan had died then, he would have gone down in history as one of our greatest Americans. However, he lived 10 more years debating whether Darwin should be taught in schools. 

Those who remember Bryan think of his battle with attorney Clarence Darrow in the "Scopes monkey trials" of 1925 in Dayton , Tennessee . The trial was a media circus similar to the O.J. Simpson trial of this era. Bryan died in Dayton after the trial and he is forever tied to that issue. 

Bryan 's modern image comes off poorly due to a fictionalized version of the trial. Many people think he acted like the character based on him in the popular 1950's movie and play, "Inherit the Wind." The fictional character was small minded and dishonest. Bryan was neither. 

One of my irritations with Nader is that he takes himself too seriously. He knows he is only going to get about 3% of the vote but wants equal time with major candidates that 97% of the public favor. Minor candidates do not attract much attention and Ralph needs to stop whining about it. 

Kentucky had a problem years ago when minor candidates like Ray "I am a Democrat" Adkins wanted to debate serious candidates for Governor on public television. The solution was to let Ray and other minor candidates like Doris Binion, famed for her pet pig, have their own debate on a separate night. 

There is something to be learned there. In fact, Nader should study Adkins' campaign style as Ray had more political success than Nader. 

Adkins ran for several public office s during the 1970's and 1980's. He wrote the title of the office he sought in magic marker on an orange windbreaker. When he ran for different office s, he scratched through the previous title and put in the new one. 

He was a nice man and did not take himself too seriously. Adkins ran a strong race for Secretary of State in 1979 and carried major cities like Louisville . Nader has never carried a major city. 

Ray died while running for Congress but no one noticed until after election day. He stood for office even though he was no longer alive. He died as he lived: on the ballot. 

Adkins was on the ballot alive and dead. Nader won't be. If I were Ralph Nader, I would say, "Oops, I made a mistake!" and forget about running for anything. 

Don McNay is President of McNay Settlement Group and has voted for Ray "I am a Democrat" Adkins several times. You can write to him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it '; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text4608 ); document.write( '<\/a>' ); //-->\n This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or read other things he has written at www.donmcnay.com