Perennial presidential candidate Ralph Nader is accusing Barack Obama of trying to "talk white," and appealing to "white guilt" in his quest for the White House. The immediate response has been to call Nader's comments "racially divisive." That's obvious enough. But I disagree with the quickly forming conventional wisdom that these comments are "racist" against Obama. But the comments are really racially charged against both black and white Americans. After all, Nader is literally saying that to be all things he opposes, "pro-corporate," is to be "white." At the same time, he assumes that Obama must address certain issues like poverty because he is African-American.

As Ed Morrissey writes:

I'm not here to defend Obama, but this attack is simply despicable.  It demands, as the Left often does, that minorities subjugate their own opinion for groupthink, and that they offer no deviation from the Leftist orthodoxy, lest one give up their own ethnic identity and be called a traitor merely for having their own opinions.

Protein Wisdom's Karl adds:

In short, Nader's attacks were every bit as incendiary as -- and more defective than -- the rear end of a 1975 Ford Pinto.

There isn't a lot of blogger reaction to Ralph Nader's decision to once-again run for the White House this year. There is little affection left for the citizen's advocate whom many Democrats believe cost Al Gore the election in 2000. To that end, former Nader protege James Fallows captures the sentiment of so many:

That he stayed in the race in 2000 was tragedy. (See: Invasion of Iraq, 2003, and subsequent occupation.) That he came back in 2004 was unfortunate; his entry in 2008 is farce. Farce because it suggests detachment from political reality (the differences between the Republican and Democratic nominees are so faint that we can say, What the hell!) and, worse, narcissism. The fact that it won't make any difference in the outcome actually is sad.

My CQ Politics colleague Craig Crawofrd writes that Nader may still have an impact:

We could be witnessing why Obama should have tried a little harder to court Edwards. And why the Democratic frontrunner should not have dissed Nader, as Al Gore did eight years ago.The spoiler is back.

But conservative Blake Dvorak also dismisses Nader, even if many conservatives wish he could hurt the Democrat's candidate this time around:

Let's get through this up top: Ralph Nader has run for president twice -- once as a factor and once as a non-factor. The question is whether Nader's fortunes are cyclical or whether they're on a steep slope of rapidly diminishing returns. He'll have his supporters, but his candidacy isn't the third-party run that will dramatically change this race.