C'mon, Nader reads the blogs. He can see there's a lot of potentially disaffected Democrats out there who could become his base if Obama gets the nod.

Unfortunately (for Nader), nobody's told him that the ratio of screen names to warm bodies in this particular group runs around 100:1 and his net will be around 5 actual votes. Go Ralph!

The "Obama messiah" blog is not an official one, may not even be run by his supporter, but the speeches and the reactions to the candidate are quite real. They do reveal a certain dose of, shall we say, lack of humility. What's with the speaking in third person, anyway? When Bob Dole did it, everyone remarked how creepy that sounded.

The recurring theme in the comments above seems to be that Nader "should not be taken seriously". Firstly, who appointed you to be the seriousness police? Secondly, this goes to my earlier point. The sheer volume of negative comments does suggest his candidacy worries you. And it should. As I wrote earlier, Nader is the candidate you hope Obama to be. For that reason, he is much more likely to hurt Obama than McCain. Especially if, should Nader run, Obama looks closer to McCain on key issues than to Nader.

It does help to read things before passing comments on them.

"I am going to try to be so persuasive, so that those of you who are still wavering...will suddenly come to the conclusion -- a light beam will shine through -- will light you up -- and you will experience an epiphany -- I have to vote for Barack!"

This is a *recurring theme* in his speeches. You have *never* heard that before? If you are not aware of this, I dare say you know your candidate less well than you think. I heard it in variations in several of his speeches.

Try referring to yourself in third person for a while, see how it feels. I tried it once as an experiment, it made me feel quite uncomfortable--who the hell did I think I was? Anybody who can do stuff like that regularly has a serious ego issue. But Nader, now there's an egomaniac, right?

As to Nader, I do take him seriously. If Obama knows what's good for him, he'll take him seriously too.

What I find interesting is this: a big part of what people find disagreeable about HRC is her AUMF vote, triangulation, the works. Obama's own triangulation, in form of support for the war for the last several years gets a pass. But now Nader comes along, someone who is dead serious about ending the war and the reaction is? Now suddenly Iraq war does not matter, all you care about is winning. With an attitude like that, you could give me lessons on cynicism.

Make no mistake about it, the fun part of Nader's candidacy, should he decide to run, will be that he'll in effect call Obama's bluff, on Iraq war and many other issues. We'll get to see what cards Obama is really holding back there. But, something tells me you'd rather not look.

All this talk about "negatives" is red herring. Obama's negatives are plentiful enough too, but the usual reaction to anyone pointing them out is, well, quite hostile. So, please, no snide remarks from the Obama crowd about taking it personally. You have pretty much written the book on that. Pot, kettle, you know the rest.

Yes, believe it or not (and, judging from your response, it's "not"), even though you might have never heard it, this is what Obama actually said, on multiple occasions in a slightly varied form. It came from the blog I cited earlier, and I can vouch I heard him say words to that effect. And, yes, as much as you'd like to split hairs here, speaking about yourself from someone else's point of view is still speaking of yourself in third person. Not to mention that couching a decision to vote for yourself in terms of a "road to Damascus" (beam of light! epiphany! dude, get a hold of yourself...) conversion is, well, quite out there. I know, just another sign of a healthy ego.

Yeah, I know. Those are not actually his words. He's just reading a speech someone handed to him. For all we know, maybe it's even recycled from David Axelrod's earlier campaign. But he certainly seems to be enjoying reading it.

Finally, I am reasonably certain Nader knows he is not going to win. That is not the point of his run, nor is it to divert votes. The point is to push the Democratic Party to the left. He very explicitly expressed his position last year. I, for one, believe the party needs some serious pushing. If you think the Party today is exactly where it needs to be ideologically, fine. You'll like Obama just fine. He's not one to do much pushing. As for me, I applaud Nader for trying.