No big surprise here - Ralph Nader, despite intense pressure not to, is running for president as an independent candidate. Well, at least I won't have to worry about finding something to be outraged about for the next 10 months or so.

I don't disagree with everything Nader says. But this seems to me to be more about an old man taking on General Motors -- er' I mean the political establishment -- than about a real candidacy. Nader needs to be fighting something -- something big and awful -- and when he isn't, he's looking for the next fight. It's probably rooted in some unresolved issue -- parental abandonment, schoolyard bullies, whatever -- a good therapist might help.

In the interest of full disclosure, my father was counsel to the auto safety subcommitte that called Nader to testify in the 1960s. I always admired him for that -- my father, that is.

I remember a time in the 1980s when the insurance industry was under attack. I remember talk of Nader or one of his organizations going after insurance companies -- but nothing ever came of it. I never could figure out why. Maybe a little research is in order.

If you saw him on Meet the Press this morning, it's clear this is a man with a mission. Not only that, a man who has been treated in a "contemptous" manner because he's fighting the corporate devil that's taken over Washington. I'm trying to figure out how winning the White House would change the entire make up of our Nation's Capitol -- K Street would empty? academic institutions would vanish? news organizatons -- all of which are in league with the corporate devil -- would close up shop? It's not reality. And idealism without reality is lunacy. And dangerous.

I started working in politics full of ideals -- I was sure Mondale had a chance to win in 1984 (as my family continually reminds me). So while I'm a bit older, I'm still idealistic. And I don't need Ralph Nader calling me a puppet of the Democratic Party. My goal remains removing GWBush from the White House. Too bad Ralph finds it necessary to get in the way.

One last point - Ralph is disingenuous when he talks about "civic groups" being shut out of the process. I've covered local politics as a community news editor and environmental issues for a trade newsletter. In no way can anyone say with a straight face that civic groups are shut out -- often, it's the civic groups who cannot see beyond their own individual cause. Under the banner of civic duty.