Except for his lack of experience in elected office, Ralph Nader is well qualified to be President. He has demonstrated over a period of forty years the required temperament, intelligence, and dedication to the public interest.

Unfortunately, most Americans nowadays have never heard of him except as a third-party candidate. Back in the sixties and early seventies, however, he was widely recognized as tireless consumer advocate with enormous credibility.

The sorry thing is that a Nader administration in Washington would almost certainly fail. Not because of Nader personally, but because neither major party in Congress would cooperate with a third-party President. They would torpedo any legislation he proposed. They would not want him re-elected or his party to become an important force in future elections. That Nader is an Arab-American would, I believe, have little to do with it. The same would happen to Ross Perot - or any other third-party President.

Of course there's probably more anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice in the country now than ever before. I'd like to believe, however, that very few voters are primitive enough to hold Nader's ethnicity against him.