Sometime in 2006 when I was petitioning to get on the ballot up in Saratoga Springs, I came across a women who started shouting (almost shrieking) about Florida and the current mess in Iraq. This was not the usual muted reaction to the request to get 'independent' candidates on the ballot. Most people were either outright supportive or equally uninterested. As Ralph ponders how he'll get on the ballot this time around, a lot of folks will raise the specter of Florida 2000 and consider his move steeped in vanity or ego. Others will dismiss it as quixotic, irrelevant, hypocritical or just kooky. 
I'm all for it. Anything that raises the awareness of how bad the two major parties have driven this country into the ground is good enough for me. My youngest brother is an average sorta guy and confided in me in 2004 that he voted for Nader because he didn't care otherwise and was happy to side with the gadfly regardless of his positions or ideas. Fair enough. Sometimes it seems like those with a vested interest in the status quo or those who reek of statism, corporatism or toughguyism have to have have some noble figurine for President. Maybe Nader would just ramp up the nanny state in terms of 'protection', but that's not the point.
It seems clear that Ron Paul will not run as a third party candidate. Michael Bloomberg is likewise paralyzed with any notion of vision or noblesse oblige. It seems odd that in a year of no standing incumbent or VP wannabe that there is no leading voice to speak truth to power. Sure there will be a Greens and a Libertarian candidate, but they will be relegated so fast into fringe status that any hope that they can be effective or even tactically savvy is hard to comprehend.
While I fundamentally disagree about the role of government ( I'm happy with none ) and what Nader might envision, I'm all for a high profile Don Quixote who can make the media's toes curl. For every self effacing progressive who can't handle the heat, hah ! For every faux Conservative that has to swallow McCain for breakfast, hah ! Ralph is seventy four. Even if he sneaks off to the comforts of a fancy apartment on occasion, let the old man play his fiddle with the devil one last time. It certainly will fill the lacuna of John McCain and the the dynamic Democratic duo bickerfest.
The Nader-as-Spoiler tag is a label thrown on Ralph by the two-party oligarchs to dissuade other 3rd party candidates.