Whatever happened to Randolph Scott, riding the trails alone?
-The Statler Brothers

Cowboys like Randolph Scott are part of American’s desire to have heroes.

My childhood hero was Ralph Nader. Nader was the guy I wanted to be. He seemed to be on the side of the average Americans.

Ralph is now an ego driven has-been who perennially runs for President. He lives to see himself on television. We have to write off Ralph as a hero. Many can’t forgive him for helping George Bush be given the Presidency.

Since Nader has become a pathetic clown, it is easy to forget that he was once a great leader for American consumers.

He led a tremendous push towards product safety and to keep people from getting ripped off.

 Ralph won a lot of battles.  He showed a lot of guts.  He took on big companies and did not back down.

The consumer movement does not have a leader like Ralph now.  Their legislative record shows it.

There are many well meaning consumer advocates who still care. They are rarely on the winning side.  Most legislation is aimed at cutting the guts out of what little consumer protection is  still left.

You can’t lay the blame totally on big business and their lobbyists.  Too many “consumer organizations,” including some Nader started, do nothing but create jobs for the people working there.   These large bureaucracies   keep people who need help from the resources they need.   If these bureaucracies do anything to help average citizens, they are keeping it well hidden.

They certainly aren’t lobbying legislatures.  If you look at a typical legislative agenda, there are plenty of bills making it harder to sue someone, easier for lenders to charge high interest rates, harder to pay for a lawyer and easier to gouge poor people.   The universal cry is that every industry needs less regulation.

I don’t see where consumers are getting the best of it. 

The only time you see consumer protection laws proposed is to cure a problem that already happened.  People are now rushing to pass mine safety legislation.  That doesn’t do a lot for the miners who were killed.   Safety regulations were already in place. Someone just needed to enforce them.

Prescription drugs were put on the market that killed people. Some were friends of mine.  If the Food and Drug Administration had done its job, my friends would still be alive.

We will be better prepared for the next hurricane after watching the Katrina effort get so screwed up.  That doesn’t help the people who are homeless, injured or dead.

There needs to be someone who anticipates problems, rather than cleaning up disasters.

Consumer advocates do that well.

Social movements have a component called the “great person” theory.    Like Gandhi in India or Martin Luther King with the American civil rights movements,  successful  movements have a single person who is the  symbol of what they stand for.

As much as I hate to admit it, Nader was the ideal leader of the consumer movement.   He was passionate, concerned and never padded his pocket.   Although he started feeding his news conference addiction at a young age, in the beginning, he focused more on issues and less on Ralph.

Great people are not easy to come by.  No one took Martin Luther King’s unique place in the civil rights movement and it is not going to be easy  to replace Nader.

Nader  came along  when the media was less fragmented. There were only three television networks and Ralph knew how to find every one of them.  He had new ideas and new issues.

You don’t see as many new issues for the consumer movement. Most of the effort is protecting what they have already won.   

We are close to a time when the anti consumer push goes too far.  People are dying, people are getting ripped off and the worst elements of business are running amok.   There will be a day when the consumer movement is ready for a comeback.

At that time, we won’t wonder whatever happened to Randolph Scott. We will be looking for another leader like Ralph Nader used to be.

Don McNay is President of McNay Settlement Group where we are tried of watching people by  ripped off.  You can write to him at 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.  His award winning column is syndicated on the CNHI News Service.