Others have charted the long transformation of Ralph Nader from crusading activist to third-party presidential candidate to his current condition of seemingly total self-absorption (much earlier in the campaign, you'll recall, he took it upon himself to accuse Barack Obama of not being black enough). But he seems to have sailed through even that, now, to a strangely serene place where his campaigning is largely a Dadaist exercise in mocking the absurdity of politics. Recently, he released a campaign ad in which he spoke in a depressed voice to a talking parrot; a couple of weekends ago he broke the Guinness World Record for the number of speeches in a single day; and tomorrow, he plans a press conference in Washington DC along the following lines:
In deference to the sound bite journalism that dominates presidential political media coverage, independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader will host a press conference at which he will only issue one-word responses to questions for the first 30 minutes.
Of course, Joe Biden already gave the best one-word answer to a question from the media this election season, but there's no harm in Nader trying to rival him. How it's supposed to gain Nader any votes is less clear -- a few seconds of cable TV time, perhaps? And it does make you wonder if he has now accepted that he's no longer a remotely credible figurehead for the (hugely important) campaign to end two-party politics in America.
