The Daily O’Collegian

Ralph Nader must believe that the fifth time is the charm.

The third-party advocate announced Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he would once again enter the presidential race.

Note to John McCain: sorry, Senator, you can no longer claim the title of the oldest candidate in the presidential race. At 74 (as of Wednesday), Nader’s got about year and a half on you.

Nader has run in the past four elections: in 1992 as a write-in for several Democratic and Republican primaries; in 1996 and 2000 as the Green Party nominee; and in 2004 as an Independent, but also Reform Party-endorsed.

On Wednesday in a news conference he announced his choice of former San Francisco official Matt Gonzalez as his running mate.

In the announcement, Nader took NBC anchor Tim Russert’s simple yes-or-no question on whether he would run and basically turned it into a three-minute-long first speech of his campaign before stating, in the last seven seconds of the answer that yes, he is running for president.

“When you see the paralysis of the government, when you see Washington D.C. be corporate-occupied territory…turning the government against its own people, one feels an obligation, Tim, to try to open the doorways, to try to get better ballot access, to respect dissent in America in terms of third parties and independent candidates…” Nader rambled before affirming the rumor.

However, he made an interesting point in his speech — that only 24 percent of the American people are satisfied with the state of the country according to a Gallup poll.

In fact, a recent poll on http://www.Gallup.com, conducted Feb. 11 through  Feb. 14, showed that only 20 percent of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. at this time, while 78 percent were dissatisfied and the other 2 percent were undecided.

This was down from the previous month’s data, in which 24 percent were satisfied, 73 percent were dissatisfied and the other 3 percent were undecided.

He also said that “60 percent think both major parties are failing.” I’m not sure where he got the statistics for this one, but it may not be quite as accurate.

A Gallup poll from January found a 49 percent unfavorable view of the Republican Party, and a 42 percent favorable rating. Views on the Democratic Party fared better: 55 percent with a favorable view and 36 percent unfavorable. The remaining percentages registered “no opinion.”

A poll on the same site conducted in January found that 38 percent of Americans consider themselves as Independents, while 34 percent consider themselves Democrats and 28 percent Republicans.

If this is the case, though, one would think Nader has a pretty decent chance at winning, right? Wrong.

He won 2.7 percent of the vote in 2000 but only 0.3 percent in 2004 after appearing on ballots in only 34 states.

Also, Democratic proponents have accused him of “election spoiling” in the 2000 election, when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore in the Florida election by a paltry 537 votes.

Nader received 97,421 in the state. Critics say that had it not been for Nader, Gore would have won the state.

Nader himself stated in his book “Crashing the Party,”  that “in the year 2000, exit polls reported that 25 percent of my voters would have voted for Bush, 38 percent would have voted for Gore and the rest would not have voted at all,” which only seems to affirm this criticism.

Call him what you want: delusional hero, champion for public interest and ballot access,   political nutcase — let’s face it: this guy is not going to win. (And it’s not just because of that creepy twitch in his right eye).

Unless, of course, Hillary and Obama take their dissension to the next level and off each other and John McCain suffers a massive heart failure.

Hey, it could happen. At this point in the game, neither event seems entirely impossible.

You gotta love Nader’s never-say-die attitude, though.

The bottom line is that his underdog status shouldn’t discourage anyone from voting for him, especially those fed up with the antics of the bipartisan, black-or-white government.

Not to say that I necessarily endorse him, but like a majority of other voters I definitely don’t consider myself a Democrat or a Republican.

If you’re interested in learning more about his background and campaign referendum, do news searches on him online, check out his and other candidates’ stances on issues at http://www.ontheissues.org, or visit his campaign Web site at http://www.votenader.org.