Ralph Nader

Being 3 years older, I feel that I have grown up with Ralph Nader my entire adult life! He is now 74 years old and STILL causing trouble for everyone. He has GREAT credentials having graduated from Princeton and then Harvard Law - by the way, the same schools which graduated Michele Obama - who is no slouch herself! If you’re interested, you may learn all about Ralph at Wikipedia’s online encyclopedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader .

Ralph Nader is, I think, a delema for most people - like why does he think like he does? What are his motives? As the son of a psychologist - and certainly not one myself, I have always been fascinated by the human mind and how others think. In the case of Nader, I’m reminded of the observation that young people tend to think in ‘black and white’ regarding life. As people get older their experiences tend to teach them to moderate their attitudes and life becomes various shades of grey. I’ve always felt that Nader still sees things as black and white, right and wrong, yes and no - with no maybes.

He has always been that way when his first ascension to the limelight involved the announcement of the great hazards to anyone driving the rear engined Corvair produced by General Moters. It certainly did have problems as an automobile for people used to driving front engined cars, but they weren’t insurmountable. Never-the-less he blasted General Motors which resulted in the Corvair to become a collector’s item in greater demand than the VW ‘Beetle’.

I used to subscribe to Consumer’s Report until Mr. Nader took charge and had the magazine report on his idea of the “safety” of products tested rather than their design, reliability and value. For example, he downgraded kitchen stoves which had front mounted controls simply because children could reach and turn on the burners. That, of course would be a good warning, but he neglected to consider the hazard of one having to reach across hot burners to the back of the stove to turn them off in case of emergency.

Mr. Nader reminds me of commander Queeg (Humphrey Bogart) in the classic movie, “The Caine Mutiny”. Nader fails to see the mechanisms of how change is enacted through interaction and negotiation rather than through arbitrary mandate and the exertion of power.

At first, I have to admit, that I figured that the Republicans paid Mr. Nader to enter the race - much as they had the slanderous book, “The Swift boats”, when Sen. Kerry ran for office. But, upon review, I think that Mr. Nader, true to form, sees black and white and somehow thinks he can change things in Washington.

However, can one reasonably assume that Ralph Nader, on the side of good and wonderful would ever be able to negotiate and compromise with the myriad of factions throughout the world to maintain world peace - or even domestic prosperity? Does he really have the temperament?

As of today, we have two Democrats and one Republican to choose from for our next President. Of the Democrats, we have a return to a wiser form of our old Clinton presidency (who was not bad in my opinion.) Or we can have “hope for a change from the same old way of doing business in Washington”!

I’m inspired by Obama - yes, by the rhetoric!. Afer all, what have we to lose? Otherwise the best we can expect is more of the same - perhaps not in the Presidency, but in the Congress!

As an Arizonan, I expect my vote next November to be worthless and the state will support Sen. McCain for the presidency.

His election would be, in my opinion, a disaster for the American people and the future of our nation. I hope and assume that the rest of the American people will chose either Hilary or Barack to be our next president - despite the efforts of the Republican party, Senator McCain or the pathetic efforts of Ralph Nader.