Bummed about Edwards dropping out? You shouldn’t be. Because about twenty minutes after he made his “I quit” announcement, Ralph Nader sent out word that he’s launched an exploratory committee for his own bid for the presidency in 2008. Cool. As a founding member of “Environmentalists Against Gore” in 2000, the thought of another Nader candidacy tickles my fancy. Those of us who truly believe in change need a candidate, you know.

I worked for a Nader group in the late 1980s in New York City and developed a good relationship with him when I went on to run Food & Water. He provided lots of help to our campaigns and provided great advice when we got whacked by John Stossel at ABC’s 20/20.

My favorite Nader story is when he called my house many years ago and my wife, Stacy, was certain it was my brother messing around. “Oh sure, Ralph,” she said, “he’s right here.” But it was Ralph, and he was calling to ask me why Food & Water’s anti-pesticide campaign was targeting Ben & Jerry’s. At the time, we were about to unveil the advertisements that declared “Ben & Jerry’s wants to save the world, but who will save us from Ben & Jerry’s?” You know, the kind of stuff that makes you really, really popular in Vermont.

I got the conversation off on the wrong foot by asking him who put him up to calling me. “No one puts me up to anything,” he tartly declared, before admitting that Ben Cohen was a friend of his and he truly wanted to know why we were picking on the ice cream mavericks.

So I told him about our numerous meetings with Ben & Jerry’s and the company’s ultimate rejection of our call for them to start the transition to organic. Believe it or not, Ben & Jerry’s declared that they had run the numbers and didn’t think they could “maximize profits” by shunning the carcinogenic chemicals like atrazine that are used abundantly on non-organic dairy farms in Vermont. How silly does that statement look today? But Ben & Jerry’s is STILL not organic.

None of us knew at the time that Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were seriously checking out of the company at this time, even actively shopping it around for its eventual sale to the very socially irresponsible Unilever Corporation.  Jerry and Ben are good guys, for sure, but they could have revolutionized Vermont agriculture by helping hundreds of Vermont dairy farms to transition to organic years ago and get ahead of the tremendous growth curve in that sector – not to mention stopping the pesticide pollution.

Ralph listened and, I think, understood what we were doing. But he did stay silent during the campaign, probably in deference to his buddy, Ben. That’s okay. I won’t hold it against him because we all know who was right, don’t we?

Besides, I like Ralph. He’s a fighter. And if you really want to talk about “change and experience,” Hillary and Obama aren’t even in the same stratosphere. Run Ralph, run.