Wanted -- A Republican Nader

While Republican pundits and apparatchiks* make gleeful sport of the opposition for venturing another presidential campaign with an independent progressive poised to nip off with the margin of victory, many Democrats are not entirely unhappy to have an alternative at hand should their nominee tack too far to the right in the name of electability.

Ralph Nader stands ready as a reminder to John Kerry that a passionate embrace of corporatism may not be what every Democrat expects of the party's champion. It can be hoped that the sight of Nader's admonitory finger will be a sufficient brake on Kerry's apparent eagerness to trade favors for contributions.

Democrats unfazed by Nader's quixotics argue that there is little risk from his candidacy. No Democrat will vote for the consumer advocate, they believe, if so doing might result in four more years of Bush and Cheney. They have a point: though he may be as inspiring as one of those 508 varieties of American dirt on the endangered list (and what, by the way, is he proposing to do about that?), and though there may be an issue or two in which he is not quite in step with his party, Kerry is in no danger, as apparently Al Gore was, of being mistaken for the cozener currently garrisoned in the Oval Office. If we have nothing else to thank George Bush for, at least we can be grateful that his presidency has had the effect of putting to rest forever the contention that all politicians are created equal.

On the other hand, Nader's self-serving argument that third party candidates draw mainly from the incumbent party's vote doesn't hold water. The happy circumstance of Ross Perot's siphoning ballots away from Bush I in 1992 will not be repeated this year, the more so without a charismatic like Bill Clinton on the Democratic line. And, while he is correct in saying that many conservatives are dissatisfied with Bush and might look favorably on a suitable replacement, Nader is being disingenuous to suggest that he is it.

Republicans need a Ralph Nader of their own.

It's not as though conservatives don't have plenty of reasons to be unhappy with Bush. From the Medicare drug "giveaway" through "reform" of agricultural policy to amnesty for illegal aliens and "No Child's Left Behind" -- to say nothing of the Mother of All Deficits, there is plenty to rue for Republicans young or old. What better way to keep the president from straying too far from GOP scripture than to provide the party's fundamentalist base with a palatable alternative. The intention of such a candidacy will not be to defeat the president, of course, any more than Nader really wishes to help elect him; rather the purpose will be to inject the fear of, well, God into him, or at least the fear that the party faithful will transfer their allegiance to a different shepherd should the president's sermons become too larded with heretical celebrations of diversity and compassion.

The Republican Party was once the roost of birds who wished to be both Right and right. A Democrat, used to watching his leaders accommodate power, could envy the conservatives their commitment to principle. Even now, despite the outward display of unity, you suspect that only by the imposition of Prussian discipline on reactionary backbenchers and neocon intellectuals does the White House keep a challenger from rising from their midst.

Who might this paladin be? In truth, there are plenty of choices. It is forty years since the Right began systematically training intellectual gunslingers behind the ramparts of Cato and Free Enterprise and sending them in posses to hunt down and string up any candidate of either party who expresses doubt that protecting the power and profits of big corporations is the lord's work. And while you or I might find it vexing to be forced to choose one Republican we prefer above all others, surely those who have accepted Alan Greenspan into their hearts would jump at the chance to anoint a pastor more eloquent than the president at preaching the gospel of limited government and an unfettered marketplace. Four years ago, did you imagine missing Allan Keyes and Gary Bauer? And where is Patrick Buchanan when he might finally serve a purpose?

Taxing though it may be to audition possible alternatives to Bush, it is a job that must be done if the Right is not to lose ground to centrist promises during the campaign. If it didn't seem so obvious, an outsider wishing to be helpful might be moved to offer a suggestion: Rush Limbaugh.

The talk show host is the ideal casting on the right for the role Ralph Nader is so ably filling on the left. Like Nader, Limbaugh would be taken just seriously enough along the party's margins to keep the leading candidate in some kind of check without attracting a single vote from the undecided and moderate middle that will choose the next president. Again like Nader, Limbaugh has no stature or position within the party to lose; he is not a Bill Frist, say, or a Tom DeLay, who, however much they covet the job, know they would risk their already considerable influence over policy if they were to make a grab for the presidency at the wrong moment. Finally, and alas unlike Ralph Nader, when preaching to the choir Rush Limbaugh is a forceful and articulate spokesman for the positions he advocates.

Would he do it? After his drug bust, the talk show host could use a little rehabilitation; "former presidential candidate" makes a more positive resume item than "former drug-abuser" or "ex-con." Besides, if Rush Limbaugh won't die for our sins, by golly who will?

* Although, pace A.Coulter et al, is that better rendered apparatchicks?