Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon
By Justin Martin
Publisher: Perseus Publishing, Inc., 2002

book reviewed by Kevin Quinn

Ralph Nader: take no prisoner crusader of consumer rights or stubborn, self-centered spoiler? Looking back at Justin Martin's post-2000 campaign study, Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon, helps us understand Nader's seemingly disastrous decision to run in 2004.

While Martin's study is well-researched and is an easy read, the author occasionally gets caught up in the political rhetoric, letting his own views interfere with the goal of explaining his subject.

On the one hand, we learn the story of a guy who "never gives up" and who made life a little safer on the highways; on the other, we see a man who doesn't know how to stop when he's ahead. As Martin points out quoting Teddy Roosevelt, muckrakers are an important part of society, but they also need to know when to stop raking the muck. Nader, according to Martin, who is not alone in this view, just doesn't know when to stop stirring up the muck.

Martin brings us through Nader's early life in Connecticut, his college and law school days at Princeton and then Harvard before launching into his life long vendetta against for-profit corporations.

In the early days of his career, Nader had the issues behind him. Auto safety and consumer rights, for example, were important issues that Nader championed with much lasting success. In the later years, however, the fights that Nader picked have rarely risen to the level of his early crusades.

Martin sites Nader's taking on Jimmy Carter as an early indication of his never satisfied approach to politics. This fight just seemed so unnecessary, according to Martin, making Nader look more worried about being labeled a compromiser than in getting the result he claimed to care about.

Which brings me to the quotes that Martin chooses to make his points. Some quotes seem unnecessarily targeted to the liberal audience who is likely to have read this book and, as a result, take away from the author's credibility.

For instance, Martin takes some unnecessary potshots at Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush. In describing how Nader dislikes the typical Ivy Leaguer, Martin chooses this quote by Nader: "At Princeton, the athlete was king... Donald Rumsfeld was on the wrestling team and he would swagger around campus."

Another is used to describe how hard-working the Nader workers were. Martin chooses to insert a quote by one of Nader's guys from Yale who attended at the same time as our current President, "When I [referring to the Nader worker] was studying..., Bush was getting drunk at the frat house across the street." These quotes appear to add little more than cheap humor and should not be used in a serious biography.

For this probing biography, Martin spoke with Nader along with more than 300 people, including close associates, old friends, and family, and he provides a useful, detailed account of the 2000 campaign. But most importantly, Martin helps us understand why Ralph Nader has decided to run again for president in 2004 in spite of pleas from Green Party officials and others who supported him in 2000. One has to conclude that Nader would rather be known as someone who never backs down than someone who cares about the people and issues he supposedly champions.

Kevin Quinn is a principal with the law firm of Hinman Straub P.C.

04/14/2004