Nothing sadder than a washed-up activist

He's ba-a-a-ack!

The man widely considered to be the spoiler in the 2000 election is making another third-party run for President.

Ralph Nader says he's not expecting to play that role again, as he doubts the electorate will pull levers for a "pro-war John McCain."

Meanwhile, at McCain headquarters, it might be a good idea to wear a hard hat. I can't swear to it, but champagne corks may already be flying there.

Nader is one of those third-party guys that some people will take seriously enough to actually vote for him. His votes will have to come from somewhere, and like in 2000 and 2004, that somewhere will be the Democrats.

Already, this may lend some confusion to what may be another tight November race.

In 2000. Florida was the key state. By the time all the recounts and whatever else was done, George W. Bush ended up with a 537-vote majorityover Al Gore. Nader? He didn't do too badly. He gathered more than 97,000 Florida votes, pretty good for a third-party guy.

But the whole race was so close, Florida would be the decider. So Ralph Nader gave us eight years of George Bush. No wonder Ralph's name is mud in many circles.

What's especially ironic was that Nader, back in the day, was considered one of the leading lights of the fledgling environmental movement. But the man who lost the 2000 election, Gore, has done a lot more to put the environment front and center over the past decade than Nader has, even in his fantasies.

Now, Nader -- who will be 74 in a few days -- believes he's still got his stuff.

"American politics is saturated in taboos and self-censorship to a level where the greatest issues in the campaign are off the table," he says.

Which may be true. What's even more true is that since 2000 Nader was largely irrelevant -- that is, assuming he was still relevant during the election.

By the very nature of their work, activists have very short effective careers. These are the one-shot folks in our society. The best activists rise up for a short period, over a single issue, do their thing, and quietly fade back into the masses. It's when they start tackling other issues that have little to do with what put them in the public eye in the first place that they become irrelevant. Or, more bluntly, when they start acting from ego rather than from a conviction.

Write this down: Few things are sadder to see than a washed-up activist in search of yet another cause. When they're at that point, you know they're feeding the ol' ego.

Back in the 1980s I'd missed the opportunity to catch Cesar Chavez -- remember him? -- giving a speech at my college. I had a scheduling conflict, so I gave the assignment to one of our other reporters. Turns out I didn't miss much. Chavez, who had done so much for farm workers 15 years earlier, couldn't summon the same magic. Or even look like he could do it. My reporter came away unimpressed. All Cesar Chavez had was his name. He had become irrelevant.

One even wonders about someone like Martin Luther King, a man who had done a lifetime of good work in just a few years. Had he lived, would he have been able to stay relevant very long? Would he just be a name, a resume, and little else in today's world?

Jesse Jackson, who had picked up King's mantle, had his ativist moments, but stayed in the business a little too long -- long enough to become irrelevant.

Ralph Nader shares that same fate. The Democrats don't like him much -- if I remember, the party suggested he sit out the 2004 election. His vote totals were much slimmer, 466,000 votes as compared to 2.8 million four years before. The voters, by then, had caught on.

Ralph Nader's ego prevents him from likewise catching on.