Media Notes - Howard Kurtz
Nuking Nader
Tuesday, Feb 24, 2004; 9:25 AM
When someone declares for president, he usually gets at least one brief day of neutral coverage, even if the White House wannabe is a knave, fool, dreamer, clown or otherwise unsuited to the job and unlikely to get any closer to 1600 Penn than watching "West Wing" at home.
Ralph Nader, though, got hammered before he declared, while he was declaring and after he declared.
His friends are bashing him. His enemies are bashing him. Just about everyone is joining in the fun.
The Official Media Consensus is that Nader is doing this for egotistical reasons, has no chance of winning and will probably won't be much of a factor.
Why, then, has this become such a big story?
If Nader is going nowhere, who cares? Why all the angst?
Could it be that journalists suspect he may upset the nice little two-man story line they'd prefer to cover this fall?
Or are they embarrassed for a man many admired as a consumer crusader and who now, they believe, threatens to turn into a latter-day Harold Stassen?
The Democrats, it seems, are really furious with Nader. But if they've got a strong enough nominee, a lone gadfly who's unlikely to have much money (no Green Party backing this time) shouldn't be much of a factor.
Or maybe everyone's just tired of waiting for Edwards to go negative on Kerry.
Nader spent the day shuttling between TV studios: Network morning shows, Judy Woodruff, Chris Matthews, Paula Zahn.
Matthews really pounded Nader in an interview. After all, he doesn't own a car, has never been married and lives in an apartment. What does he know about America? Where does he get off running?
Nader told Zahn he'll only be attacking Bush until he has to defend himself against the Democratic nominee. |
