So Ralph Nader has decided to toss his proverbial hat into the ring again. The initial reaction of most Democrats has been pretty negative. They realize that Nader had an effect on the 2000 election in a lot of key states that should have easily been Gore’s. The same could have been said about Pat Buchanan and his effect on Bush to a lesser degree. The big question question now is whether Nader can duplicate the same effort and take votes away from the nominee. It’ll also be interesting to see if Kucinich or Dean decide to go third party.

I caught Nader on Hardball with Chris Matthews last night. Chris really grilled Nader, who came off as an ideologically sound candidate, but one without much passion or dynamism. As long as I can remember, Nader has always been rather subdued, but he came across as barely conscious on the program. As far as candidates go, I much prefer guys like Nader, Sharpton, Kucinich, and Dean to guys like Kerry, Clinton, or Gore. The latter group may never win anything, but at least they’re standing on ideology. The former group are largely opportunists, poaching special interests as far as it will yield electoral delegates.

Bush should take a lesson from Nader and remember to stand on ideology during the duration on campaign. There have been some rumblings that evangelical Christian voters are frustrated with Bush because of his lack of action on gay marriage at the same time that fiscal conservatives are fuming over Bush’s spending. This may be a lot of talk since Bush has since come out in favor of a Constitutional ban on gay marraiges, but he needs to make sure those kinds of stands are frequent and well-received.