Outside the Emmanuel AME Church on 119th Street in Harlem, television cameras were clustering around volunteers from the Independence Party, the Green Party, and Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign, looking for a sound bite to explain why the gnomish crusader was pursuing the presidency again. There was high-minded talk of defending the Constitution and ending dependence on the Democratic Party, said with the grim determination of folks who know they have signed up for ridicule, an uphill and thankless task.

This is four years, four miles, and a lifetime away from Madison Square Garden, where in the fall of 2000 dozens of left-leaning luminaries such as Michael Moore, Tim Robbins, and Patti Smith held a rally for Ralph Nader. The message to their fans was that a vote for this Green Party presidential candidate would “send a message” to the centrist Democrat Clinton-Gore administration. Then came Florida, where Ralph Nader won 96,000 votes and Vice President Gore lost by 537. Michael Moore has since apologized to Mr. Gore.

Now Ralph Nader’s celebrity quotient is severely diminished: the fliers handed out on the sidewalk for the Green Party’s Senate candidate, David McReynolds, list among his qualifications for higher office that “he has lived for many years in the Lower East side with his two cats.” But Ralph Nader goes on, undaunted.

In late September, the Independence Party of New York nominated Ralph Nader to be its 2004 presidential candidate with near-unanimous support. Unlike the party’s 2000 nominee, Patrick Buchanan – Ralph Nader’s apparent ideological opposite in many things – Mr. Nader made good on his promise to come to Harlem at the request of Lenora Fulani. The yellow sign on the altar makes this clear: “Dr. Lenora Fulani and the Independence Party of New York Welcome Ralph Nader to Harlem.”

In AME fashion, there is a lengthy windup to the main event. It began with a song, “We Who Believe in Freedom Can Not Rest Until It Comes;” then Jesse Fields, Independence Party candidate for Congress in the 15th congressional district, praised Ms. Fulani’s “tremendous and incredibly inspiring leadership.” The vice president of the Transport Workers Union, Local 100, called for an “end to the corporate rape of our economy.” Geoffrey Davis – unsuccessful Independence Party candidate and brother of the slain City Council member – then endorsed Ralph Nader for president, explaining “as a community we can’t continue to rely on the Democratic Party.”

Ms. Fulani’s declared goal is to build the independent movement by marrying it with the concerns of the African-American community and dispossessed members of the left. “We must have new and diverse coalition partners,” she says, “we must have the freedom to be independent.” She criticizes Senator Kerry for failing to reach out to black voters, and castigates the Democratic Party for “destroying the progressive anti-war candidate – Howard Dean.” She condemns the Rev. Al Sharpton as a “full-fledged, no-holds-barred John Kerry Democrat.” But the surprise demon of the address was the Congressional Black Caucus, whose name was greeted with hisses from the pews when she recounted their efforts to get Mr. Nader to drop out of the race. “In my book, democracy means that Ralph Nader runs and black people get to decide for ourselves who to vote for,” she shouts. “Did Dr. King die so that we would have the right to vote only for Democrats?”

As she spoke, the recipient of Ms. Fulani’s praise, Mr. Nader, looked bored and sour, staring at a pen he was twirling in his fingers as she spoke. But when he finally took the podium, the full dimensions of his fringe celebrity were in bloom. There are shouts of encouragement and applause, the man in the pew behind me in a black sweatshirt that reads “Lake Tahoe” holds a “Kerry + Bush = War” sign in one hand and hoists another fist in the air in a silent socialist salute of solidarity. It is a feast for true believers.

Fueled by righteous indignation, the aged consumer advocate adopts a strained impression of a Pentecostal preacher. He launches into an attack on the society that allows “1% of the population to control 95% of the wealth” and then says that “the similarities between the two parties tower over their diminishing differences.” This is Mr. Nader’s patented attack on the “corporate duopoly” and he rails against the gerrymandering that produces more than 90% safe seats for Congress, pointing out that in the vast majority of districts “there is only one party, the incumbent party; no real election, just a coronation.” He punctuates the barrage with two surprise heroes, Business week magazine – for publishing a cover story questioning whether corporations have too much power – and his one-time nemesis, Richard Nixon, for being the nation’s last liberal president, asking “where are we politically when we look back at Richard Nixon with nostalgia?”

History has not broken the way Ralph Nader hoped. His stump speech was well-received by the crowd in Harlem, but in this campaign he is ultimately making a case for his own relevance. When he accuses John Kerry’s campaign of “dirty tricks” there is a tinge of Watergate nostalgia behind the venom. This rally represents the nobility-in-failure wing of American politics, the left trying to retain legitimacy under the independent label. These cards were clearly shown when Mr. Nader quoted failed Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene Debs: “I’d rather vote for someone I believe in who will lose, than someone I don’t believe in who will win.” As Mr. Nader spoke, the fist-in-the-air guy in the Lake Tahoe sweatshirt behind me recited the quote from memory under his breath, in rapture.