Ralph should repent.

• Position: Letters to the Editor

Ruth Conniff gets positively misty-eyed about Nader's last campaign in her review of his book Crashing the Party ("Ralph, Unrepentant," April issue). She talks of his campaign's "excitement" and "irresistible momentum." Yet 97 percent of the voters somehow managed to resist his siren song.

The man has proven decisively in the last two elections that he is utterly and completely unelectable. Conniff recalls how Nader wasn't allowed into the debates. He probably would have ended up hurting his cause, given how lousy he is on television.

I have resigned myself to the fact that most people who voted for Nader will never feel remorse for Gore's loss. But I'll be damned if I can understand their nostalgia for such an inept campaign. Conniff brings up the prospect of Nader running in 2004. What will be his rallying cry: "5 Percent or Bust"? Or, perhaps, more appropriately, "Four More Years."

Dan Ryan Washington, D.C. The whiny, sniveling letters written by Democrats blaming Ralph Nader for Bush's...