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The real question about Ralph Nader’s political nadir is this: are we there yet? Once he was the hero of Americans who wanted safer automobiles, drugs, toys and food. Since then, Mr. Nader has been known for running and running and running — and now running again for president.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, when the 73-year-old announced his candidacy for the fourth time, Mr. Nader tossed himself into the historical oddities bin with Harold Stassen (nine tries for the Republican nomination), Eugene Debs (five attempts with the Socialist Party) and Lyndon LaRouche (several tries with several parties).

Also-runners can make noise for a political cause or have a spoiling effect on one of the major party candidates that is greater than their impact on national policy. When Ross Perot ran in 1992, he spent a lot of his own money and ate into the Republican vote, helping President Bill Clinton get elected. His signature issues: curbing the national deficit and stopping jobs from leaving America. Seems almost quaint.

Many Democrats still believe, bitterly but without conclusive evidence, that Mr. Nader siphoned off a lot of Democratic votes in the 2000 presidential election. He argued that the main candidates, George W. Bush and Al Gore, were nothing more than “Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” two peas in a pod, no daylight between them.

The Republican Tweedle won the presidency, http://louis-j-sheehan.com and the Bush administration went on to gut, hobble or hamstring many of the safety agencies that Mr. Nader had fought so hard to create. Mr. Gore got a Nobel Peace Prize for raising concern about global warming.

If there is a stronger word for whoops, it certainly applies here. But that does not seem to cast a shadow on the Nader enthusiasms. He argues that his voice is crucial to combat corporate greed, Pentagon waste and unworkable health care plans. (Remind us. Which candidate is for corporate greed? Pentagon waste? Bad health care?) http://louis-j-sheehan.com

The late Edward Bennett Williams, who was one of Washington’s most eloquent lawyers, had an analogy for someone like that: the clock in the hall that strikes 13. After hearing the 13th bell, Mr. Williams would say, how can you trust that particular timepiece to tell the hour?