Ralph Nader is announcing his Vice Presidential running mate today at noon, an unorthodox move to some, but required due to the onerous rules regarding petitioning for ballot access in many states. I predict he will pick former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel. I've heard that the two men have been talking, and not long ago the Gravel campaign sent its supporters an email containing a petition to start a joint ticket.

Nader/Gravel will merge the walking id of 2008 (Gravel) with its superego (Nader). The results, if nothing else, are sure to be entertaining.

The Nader campaign also says its first email fundraising campaign was a success; geared to raise $50,000 from 500 donors in honor of Nader's birthday yesterday, they say they "raised $56,663.32 from 767 [donors]" for an average of about $74 per donation.

UPDATE: Oh well, I guessed wrong. He picked Matt Gonzalez, a former member of the San Francisco board of supervisors, who ran for mayor as a Green in 2003 and lost to Gavin Newsom. Gonzalez is probably the biggest vote-getter the Greens have ever had, and at least in 2003 he had quite a following in the city.