TRUE, IF BY "HUGE BOON" YOU MEAN "BARELY MEASURABLE IMPACT"

I know the Politico consciously skews its coverage to draw those all-important Drudge links, but this is preposterous:

Nader enters in boon to GOP

Ralph Nader announced on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he'll run as a third-party, anti-corporate candidate for president this fall, which would be likely to drain votes from the Democratic nominee and provide a huge boon to Republicans....

"Huge boon"? Give me a break. Yes, Nader had a tremendous impact in 2000. He got quite a few votes. But do you know how much his vote total dropped from 2000 to 2004?

It dropped eighty-four percent.

In 2000, he won 2,883,105 votes -- 2.7% of all votes cast. In 2004? His total was only 465,650 votes -- 0.38% of all votes cast. He barely finished third, for heaven's sake. (Libertarian Michael Badnarik won 397,265, or 0.32% of the total.)

Which is why I hope this doesn't pan out:

Democrats say they will work behind the scenes -- and use court challenges, if necessary -- to try to thwart his access to ballots.

Don't. Please don't. For the love of God, please deprive him of his only legitimate grievances. Just let him have his fun.

And if he gets on enough ballots, welcome him to a debate -- but with a catch: say that everyone who gets on, say, 45 state ballots should be invited to the debate. That would probably mean the candidates of the Libertarian Party and maybe the right-wing Constitution Party should also be invited. Then let McCain be the one to say no to that. It's what Gore should've done in 2000.