Nader's wrong turn.

• Position: Comment

At The Progressive, we are more sympathetic than most to third party efforts and Independent candidacies. Its a tradition here. After all, this magazine was founded by Robert La Follette, who ran for President as a Progressive in 1924, and we supported the Progressive Party in the 1930s. In 1948, we endorsed Norman Thomas for President. In 1980, we gave a fair hearing to Barry Commoner and his Citizens' Party. And in 2000, we did the same for Ralph Nader and the Greens.

We also understand the historic role that challenges to the two party system have played in raising crucial causes that major parties eventually adopt: from abolition of slavery to the eight-hour day, from unemployment insurance to Social Security. We embrace the fundamentally democratic goals of the Greens and others to improve upon our outmoded method of electing officials and to bring about instant runoff voting of a system of proportional representation. And we recognize the need to take on the two party system today and to break free from the corporate paymasters that underwrite both parties. ("Nearly half of Kerry's biggest financial supporters contributed more money to Bush than to Kerry himself through January 30," notes the Center for Responsive Politics.)

But this season, we look upon Nader's run for President with profound misgivings.

The rationales for Nader's candidacy last time around simply do not stand up today.

He was running, he said then, to help construct a durable third party, the Greens. But he kissed the Greens goodbye in a December 22 letter that was remarkable for its scolding tone. Nader criticized "the maturity of the Greens as a political party" because it wasn't sure of the wisdom of running any Presidential candidate in the face of the Bush onslaught. He blamed the Greens for having "an uncertain compass regarding what should be a bedrock, genetic determination to run Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates all out--which is what, after all, national political parties--as opposed to movements--do."

Last time, Nader had not only the Green Party but a semblance of a mass movement behind him: He was the candidate of Seattle, he was the embodiment of the anti-corporate spirit that infused the efforts to block NAFTA and the World Trade Organization and motivated those in the living wage and anti-sweatshop campaigns.

This time, however, that mass movement has not, in any meaningful way, expressed support for his effort. If anything, progressive...