The Marathon Man

Ralph Nader is a man of political substance trapped in an era of easy lies. He pierces the fog of propaganda with hard facts and reason, but the smoke rolls over him and he disappears from public view. A lesser man might go crazy or give up. Nader instead runs for president again, as he is doing this year, campaigning in fifty states and addressing crowds wherever he finds them, smaller crowds this time but still eager to feed on his idealism. Ralph is not delusional. He knows the story. He is stubborn about the facts and honest with himself.

"I believe in I.F. Stone's dictum that, in all social justice movements, you've got to be ready to lose. And lose and lose and lose. It's not very pleasant, but you have to accept this if you believe in what you're doing," Nader explains.

He was conducting a "newsmaker" press conference at the National Press Club in Washington on October 24, before moving on to Massachusetts, where he delivered twenty-one speeches on twenty-one topics in twenty-one municipalities in one day, in hopes of earning a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. Five or six reporters showed up at the Press Club event (including several old admirers). The only cameraman was a documentary filmmaker. Nader stood at the podium and described the corporate dominance of politics, the stranglehold exercised on dissent by the two-party system, the packaging of presidential candidates like soap or cars and the failure of left-liberal progressives (including The Nation) to demand conditions on their support for the Democratic candidate.

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