NADER NEWS - JULY 2004
QUOTATIONS FROM RALPH NADER AND OTHERS
about Nader's presidential campaign, the
right-wing Republicans who now support him,
Michael Moore's criticism of Nader, and a
whole lot more...
-- This issue of NADER NEWS is dedicated
to Ronnie Dugger. His crusading
journalism has inspired many and article on Ralph Nader in 2002 helped launch the "Ralph,
Don't Run" campaign. In the July
29th issue of the Nation, he explains "How They Could Steal The Election
This Time" -- about the real
possibility of fraud with paperless computerized voting machines, and
the push for such machines by Jeb Bush and other right-wing Republicans.
-- Harry G. Levine, Department of
Sociology, Queens College, City University of New York, hglevine@QC.edu
--Michael Moore interview on the Charlie
Rose Show, Aired July 1, 2004
Charlie Rose: Who did you vote for in
1996?
Michael Moore: In '96, I voted for
Nader.
Charlie Rose: And who did you
vote for in 2000?
Michael Moore: Nader again.
Charlie Rose: Who are you going to vote for in 2004? Nader
is in there again. Is he going to lose your vote now?
Michael Moore: Nader is not going
to get my vote, that's right. That's right. Nader should not be running
now. I don't understand what is wrong with him. This is not the
year, this is not the election. And even in the 2000 election, those of
us who were for Nader, we were told by Ralph Nader that he would not campaign
in the swing states. And then he got upset at Gore because he wasn't
allowed into the debates, and he made it personal and he went after Gore, and
he went to the swing states to campaign in October. And a lot of us got
off the bus at that point and would not go to the swing states.
And in fact, I went down to Florida on my own two
weeks before the election, because I was so worried about what Ralph was
doing.... I said to the Nader people in Florida, I said look, I'm a Nader voter
from New York, but I get to vote for him there because it's not going to put
Bush in the White House. You have a different job here, and that's to
stop George W. Bush.
Charlie Rose: So you argue, as many people have, the argument is,
if it's a close state, don't vote for Nader, that is your idea. If in
fact it's a clear.
Michael Moore: I don't think you
should vote for Nader at all at this point.... I think Nader is going to
have an impact on the election this time. I think the Kerry people need
to be very worried about this.
[interview available as video
tape and transcript from The Charlie Rose Show]
-----------------------
--Lisa Chamberlain,"The Dark Side
of Ralph Nader," Salon.com, July 1, 2004
Ralph
Nader spent his 70th birthday with Bill Maher on his HBO show "Real
Time," where Maher pressed him on exactly what his controversial fourth
presidential campaign will contribute to the national debate. Nader repeated
once again that he's the only candidate not beholden to "corporate
America"....
It is worth noting that the onetime national hero
wasn't celebrating his landmark birthday surrounded by the hundreds of people
he has worked with and influenced over four decades. Indeed, virtually no one
who worked with him since the heady days of Nader's Raiders is supporting him
politically or personally today. He has inspired almost no loyalty and instead
has alienated many of his closest associates. The estrangement between Nader
and many of his former intimates is not a new phenomenon; it's not the result
of his ruinous campaign for president in 2000; it dates back to his earliest
days as a public figure.
Dozens of people who have worked with or for Nader over the decades have had
bitter ruptures with the man they once respected and admired. The level of
acrimony is so widespread and acute that it's impossible to dismiss those
involved as disgruntled former employees, disillusioned leftists or
self-seeking turncoats. Usually it was Nader himself who ratcheted up what was
often just a parting of ways into professional warfare and vitriolic personal
attacks. While Nader continues to campaign against corporate abuse, his own record,
according to many of those who have worked closely with him, is characterized
by arrogance, underhanded attacks on friends and associates, secrecy, paranoia
and mean-spiritedness -- even at the expense of his own causes....
But no one expects that Nader will actually withdraw from the race -- despite
the fact that even among those who maintain cordial relations with him, there
isn't one former associate who thinks his campaign is a good idea.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/07/01/nader_jacobs/
-----------------------
--New York Times, "Odd Alliances
Form to Get Nader on Ballot," July 1, 2004
In his
search for access to the ballot, Ralph Nader can sometimes seem as if he has
never met a third party he did not like.... Mr. Nader's efforts have only
intensified given that last weekend he was spurned by the Green Party, which
endorsed him for president in 1996 and 2000. He is also getting helping from
other unexpected quarters.... Republicans and some conservative groups in
Oregon, Arizona and Wisconsin are feverishly, if not cynically, mobilizing to
get him on ballots in those states in a drive to siphon votes from the likely
Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry....
Shawn O'Hara, national chairman of the Reform Party ... insisted that Mr.
Nader's views were not entirely out of synch with the party as currently
constructed.... "We've moved to the center," Mr. O'Hara said, while
conceding that he once favored the execution of doctors and nurses who
performed abortions....
Conservative groups have already mobilized for Mr. Nader in Oregon as well as
in Arizona, where 46 percent of the registered voters who signed petitions last
month to get Mr. Nader on the ballot were Republicans, almost double the
percentage of Democrats or Independents....
In Wisconsin, a conservative group said it was
preparing to follow Oregon's example, by urging Republicans to sign petitions
when Mr. Nader's signature drive begins next month. "We'll definitely be
spreading the word that we'd like to see Nader on the ballot," said
Cameron Sholty, the Wisconsin state director for Citizens for a Sound Economy,
a conservative antitax group. "We'll do phone trees and
friends-of-friends, and those Nader events will be a great way to drive our
membership to get out to sign petitions for Nader." In the interview, Mr. Nader said he had not
seen any evidence that Republicans had acted inappropriately.... [http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/politics/campaign/01NADE.html?n=Top%2fNews%2fWashington%2fCampaign%202004%2fCandidates%2fRalph%20Nader]
-----------------------
--Washington Post, "Nader won't be on the
ballot in Arizona," July 2, 2004
Independent candidate Ralph Nader, denied a spot on the Arizona ballot, accused
the Democrats and presidential candidate John Kerry of engaging in political
"dirty tricks.''.... Nader and Kerry met in May, with the two
offering compliments following the session. Whatever truce existed was clearly
gone on Friday as Nader campaign spokesman Kevin Zeese warned Democrats about
future ballot challenges. "John Kerry may be making an enemy of Ralph
Nader if he doesn't stop the harassment," Zeese said. "We've been
focusing our criticism on Bush rather than Kerry, but Kerry has a pretty lousy
record himself." http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/658329541.html?did=658329541&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT&date=Jul+3%2C+2004&author=Paul+Davenport&desc=Nader+Won%27t+Be+on+the+Ballot+in+Arizona
-----------------------
--David Sarasohn, "The Uprising of
the Nader Republicans," The Oregonian, July 2, 2004
It's been a difficult week for Ralph Nader. It
started when the Green Party, whose support Nader accepted to get onto many
state ballots in 2000, refused him its nomination for 2004. Nader then
denounced his former supporters as "strange." This immediately raises a key question for
the 2004 campaign: What can it mean when Ralph Nader calls you
"strange"?
Nader, after all, has just accepted the endorsement
of the Reform Party, which in 2000 nominated Pat Buchanan.... But the Reform endorsement is part of a wave
of right-wing and Republican support Nader has piled up in the past week. It
makes absolute sense for Nader to inherit Buchanan's nomination: He's clearly
claiming Buchanan's position as the right's favorite third-party candidate
Last Saturday in Portland, Nader made his second attempt to
get on the ballot in Oregon by holding a 1,000-voter convention. His efforts to
reach the needed number were bolstered by the conservative groups Citizens for
a Sound Economy and the Oregon Family Council, plus Republican encouragement.
Nader campaigned for their turnout on a conservative radio talk show.
Republican support for Nader, or at least for his appearing
on the ballot, is exploding all over. The Wisconsin chapter of the Citizens for
a Sound Economy plans to work to get him onto that state's ballot. According to
an Arizona Democratic attorney quoted in The New York Times, 46 percent of the
signatures filed by the Nader campaign in that state belong to registered
Republicans. Arizona Naderites are being represented by Lisa Hauser, an active
Republican attorney and counsel to former GOP Gov. Fife Symington....
Everybody understands what's going on here, except Nader,
who insists that he sees no Republican effort to bolster Bush by getting him on
the ballot. Nader will, he insists, take more votes from Bush than from John
Kerry, which is contradicted by every poll, and would be a considerable
surprise to the Citizens for a Sound Economy and the one and only deep-pocketed
Richard Egan. It would also be a surprise to the Greens, who nominated David
Cobb for president after he pledged not to campaign in swing states and who
chose a vice-presidential candidate who said she'd vote for the ticket most
likely to defeat Bush.
Last month Nader, who'd complained that Democrats had
treated him with no respect in 2000, met with Kerry, and then said that he
might try to avoid swing states. A few weeks later, Nader said he might only
campaign in swing states. After all, they offer more media.
Nader, unlike many of his new supporters, insists his
campaign isn't about helping President Bush. In fact, Nader recently called for
Bush's impeachment, although it might just be simpler for Nader not to help
re-elect him. Nader's preference for impeaching Bush suggests only an up-to-now
unsuspected fondness on his part for Vice President Cheney, who would then be
installed in the Oval Office. If that outcome seems what you might call
"strange," bear in mind that this year's Nader campaign isn't about
reality or results. It's about Ralph. And, increasingly, Republicans.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0702-10.htm
-----------------------
--Interview with Judy Woodruff, CNN,
July 5, 2004
WOODRUFF:
Terry McAuliffe is basically calling on you to disavow the Republicans, the
conservatives who are helping you in Oregon and other states, Citizens for a
Sound Economy and any of these other conservative groups. Are you prepared to
do that?
NADER: It's just press releases, Judy. They have produced nothing. The
real results have come by the Democrats obstructing us, infiltrating our
political convention to swell the numbers so we close the doors, thinking we
had enough. And...
WOODRUFF: But these conservative groups have said openly...
NADER: No, they haven't produced anything. They haven't produced anything.
WOODRUFF: ... that they're supporting you in Oregon.
NADER: They haven't produced a thing. We didn't see any evidence whatsoever.
But we did see three corporate law firms in Phoenix hired by the Democrats,
with the approval of Terry McAuliffe, to harass us and get us off the Arizona
ballot. So the Democrats are obstructing, the Republicans are just talking.
WOODRUFF: So you're comfortable with the Democrats furious at you and the
Republicans embracing you?
NADER: I'm trying to get as many votes as we can get....
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0407/05/ip.01.html
-----------------------
--The
Cinncinatti Post, "Spurning Ralph Nader," July 6, 2004
The Green Party has spurned
its two-time presidential standard-bearer, Ralph Nader, in favor of nominating
one of its own, David Cobb, a Texas lawyer and longtime party member. It is a near-fatal dilemma for third parties
in the American way of politics that they need big-name candidates to get
noticed, but then rarely survive the loss of the big name. Indeed, some third
parties -- American Independent, Dixiecrat, Bull Moose -- have been nothing but
single-candidate vehicles.
It was probably time for
the Greens to stand on their own nationally and, besides, Nader didn't want
their nomination. Modestly, he proposed that the Greens nominate no one but
endorse him instead. Nader, rather than building his own organization, hoped to
get a series of third-party endorsements -- he has the Reform Party's -- so he
could run not just as a fringe candidate but a consensus fringe candidate.
In 2000, all the third
parties together got 3.75 percent of the vote; 2.74 percent -- 2.8 million
votes -- went to Nader. Still, it arguably tipped the outcome from Al Gore to
George W. Bush. (Nader denies he's a spoiler, but the Republicans sure think he
is because some of them are helping him get on state ballots, clearly in hopes
that he'll hurt John Kerry.)
....Nader said basically
that the Greens had condemned themselves to obscurity and futility by not
endorsing him. And Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese offered this patronizing
assessment: "Often when adolescents rebel against their parents, they make
mistakes. But they learn from those mistakes. Hopefully, they're not mistakes
that kill them."
With friends like that, the
Greens are better off on their own and stand a better chance of reaching that
pinnacle of third-partydom -- being important and influential enough to have
its issues ripped off by the two major parties.
http://www.cincypost.com/2004/07/06/editb070604.htm
-----------------------
--Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber, "Look Who Has Jumped Into Bed With Ralph
Nader," Commondreams.org, July 6, 2004
Ralph
Nader's run for the presidency of the US has brought him some strange
right-wing bedfellows such as Citizens for a Sound Economy. CSE has been
working hard to place Nader on the presidential ballot in Oregon, and will do
so too in Wisconsin and other states, according to press accounts describing
them as a conservative anti-tax organization. Such a description is a little
like saying Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are Christian ministers. We reveal
much more about Citizens for a Sound Economy in our new book 'Banana Republicans: How the Right is Turning America into a
One-Party State'.
To understand CSE, you have to know a little about their founding
benefactors Charles G. and David H. Koch who each has a net worth of $4 billion
apiece, earning them separate spots in the Forbes list of the 50 richest people
in America. Like their father, Fred Koch, an oil-and-gas entrepreneur who was a
founding member of the far-right John Birch Society in 1958, they have used
their wealth in concert with a handful of other extraordinarily wealthy
individuals to build a political machine that spreads their ideas about law,
culture, politics and economics throughout the political and media
establishment.
The Kochs are part of a network of conservative benefactors
that support industry-friendly think tanks, experts and subsidized media that
repeat, embellish and reinforce their core message that corporations are good
while government regulations, labor unions, environmentalists, liberal
Democrats, and anything else that might restrict corporate behavior are bad.
They have lavished tens of millions of dollars on "free market"
advocacy in and around Washington. According to their filings with the Internal
Revenue Service, they gave away more than $9 million in 2001 alone, almost all
of it to conservative groups such as the libertarian Cato Institute (which
Charles co-founded in 1977), Citizens for a Sound Economy (which David helped
launch in 1986), the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Reason
Foundation, Heritage Foundation, Landmark Legal Foundation and Young America's
Foundation
Citizens for a Sound Economy describes itself as an
organization of "grassroots citizens dedicated to free markets and limited
government," but according to internal documents leaked to the Washington
Post in January 2000, the bulk of its revenues ($15.5 million in 1998) came
not from its 250,000 members but from contributions of $250,000 and up from
large corporations. CSE is co-chaired by former Republican Majority Leader Dick
Armey and C. Boyden Gray, a Washington attorney who served as counsel to former
president George H.W. Bush.
The Koch Family Foundations continue to provide some of
CSE's funding, but the bulk of its income now comes from corporations including
Allied Signal, Archer Daniels Midland, DaimlerChrysler, Emerson Electric
Company, Enron, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Philip Morris and U.S.
West. Other funding comes from the same conservative foundations that finance
other conservative think tanks: Castle Rock, Earhart, JM, Olin, Bradley,
McKenna and Scaife.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0706-09.htm
-----------------------
--CBS News - San
Francisco, "Republicans Give to Nader Campaign, July 7, 2004
Leo Lacayo says he's about to write a check to the independent Nader-Camejo
presidential campaign. That's strange because Leo Lacayo also happens to be the
local spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign. So what gives?
"I'm a Republican, and I
support Republican candidates as well. Very much so," Lacayo said.
"But I think it's important to be diverse in our politics and really back
up stuff that's good." When asked
if it wasn't an attempt to get some votes for Nader to siphon them away from
Democrat John Kerry, Lacayo said, "I don't think that anything in the
realm of politics is unbelievable." But this one comes close, because
records show that 10% of the big donors to Nader have also given big bucks to
the Bush-Cheney ticket...
Nader simply says there's
precedent to all this. "The Democrat fat cats and the Republican fat cats
pour millions of dollars into each others parties to hedge their bets," he
says.
And yes, there is a precedent,
says CBS 5 political analyst Joe Tuman. "It was only a couple of years ago
that our own former governor, Governor Davis, ran negative advertising in a
Repubilcan primary to get Dick Riordan out of the race, to set himself up
against Bill Simon," Tuman said.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are
loving every minute of it. "We certainly love a good competition, and the
more players the better," Lacayo said.
http://cbs5.com/news/local/2004/07/09/Republicans_Give_to_Nader_Campaign.html
-----------------------
--San Francisco Chronicle, "Nader
Ticket Denies 'Trojan Horse' Accusations," July 14, 2004
Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo, dismissing criticism
they are part of a "Trojan Horse'' campaign to hurt Democrat John Kerry
and help President Bush, touted endorsements Tuesday of [some local] Green
Party officials and announced a paid signature drive to get on the ballot in
Democratic-leaning California. "The majority of the Democratic Party
members ... are closer to the politics of the Nader-Camejo ticket than to
Kerry,'' Camejo said at a San Francisco press conference.
Opponents of Nader's bid for office and others say
there is increasing evidence the consumer advocate is receiving financial aid
and campaign support from ultra-conservative Republicans who back the
Republican president. The Institute for
Public Accuracy, a San Francisco-based policy research group, said Tuesday that
Citizens for a Sound Economy, a national organization led by former House
Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, had contributed to Nader's effort in
Oregon and was "widening its efforts to help presidential candidate Ralph
Nader get on the ballot in pivotal states."
"It's an ego-fueled Trojan Horse for the right
wing,'' said former Democratic Congressman and Texas Supreme Court Justice Bob
Gammage, now a spokesman for StopNader.org, a group aimed at countering the
consumer advocate's efforts. "The
Republicans perceive (the Nader campaign) the same way we do: A vote for Nader
is a vote for Bush,'' he said. "They're hoping ... they can confuse enough
people to take the election away from Kerry"....
And Nevada Republican political consultant Steve Wark told The
Chronicle on Monday that he had worked on the effort to qualify Nader for
the Nevada ballot as a way of helping Bush win the state. After the Nevada petition drive gathered
11,000 signatures by the deadline, Wark said the GOP in other swing states was
"taking an active role'' to help Nader and improve Bush's re-election
chances. Kevin Zeese, a spokesman for
Nader's campaign, called the story 'bizarre" and insisted his campaign was
unaware of Wark's efforts.
Camejo, questioned again Tuesday
about such donations, said, "I want to encourage Republicans to give us
money.''
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0714-09.htm
----------------------
--Calvin Trillin,
"For the Day Ralph Nader Shuffles Off This Mortal Coil," The Nation,
July 15, 2004
In canned obits that papers keep,
The second graf relates
The fact that Nader gave us Bush,
Through votes in several states.
And now he's on another quest
He knows cannot succeed.
It's possible the second graf
May yet become the lead.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040802&s=trillin
----------------------
--Barbara Ehrenreich, "It's Over
Ralph," The New York Times, July 18, 2004
All right, Ralph, I always knew we had issues: Me
the Led Zeppelin fan, you the policy monk. Me the fervent feminist, you who
once dismissed gay rights and abortion as ''genital politics.'' But four years
without even a phone call....? I voted
for you in, yes, Florida. I lost friends on account of you; I risked death by
sporting your bumper sticker well into the reign of Bush.... So I will admit I
was hurt when you didn't call me to discuss your plans to run again this year,
although none of the other former Nader loyalists I know got a phone call
either. Maybe you could guess what we'd say. Because, Ralph, a lot of sewage
has passed under the bridge since 2000....
If the first time was tragedy -- and I will admit
now, with hindsight, that it was -- the second time is predictably farce. Maybe
those years spent wandering in the wilderness -- disdained by Democrats,
excluded by arcane ballot access rules -- have taken their toll, because
there's been something grotesque about your campaign from the start, when you
advised left-wing critics, in words no one knew your vocabulary included, to
''relax and rejoice'' in your run. This while casualties mounted in Iraq and civil
liberties evaporated here.
In 2000, you could at least claim to be doing it
all for the Green Party. This summer you didn't even bother to drop by its
convention. You were in Portland, Ore., addressing an audience of 1,100 (you
got almost 10 times as many there four years ago) that was heavily larded with
conservatives eager to get you on the ballot to suck votes from John Kerry.
When Howard Dean confronted you about your conservative ''supporters,'' you
lamely observed that ''Republicans are human beings too.''
Republicans are the least of it. You've been
kissing up to the Reform Party, which ran paleo-right-winger Pat Buchanan the
last time around.... I loved you for
your principles ... and now you've tossed them for a few more moments in the
sun.
http://query.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F20A15FC395E0C7B8DDDAE0894DC404482
-----------------------
--Martin Seiff,
"Ralph Nader's Shadow Still Hanging Over Democrats," Insight on the
News, July 19, 2004
Behind closed doors in
Boston on Monday, pollster and political strategist Stanley Greenberg gave his
fellow Democrats the latest grim news about third-party candidate Ralph Nader:
He can still cost them the presidency this November, just as he did four years
ago.
According to sources at the meeting, Greenberg told
his audience that his polling research currently shows the "Nader
Facto" likely to tilt at least two key states -- Nevada and West Virginia
-- to President George W. Bush by taking far more votes from presumptive
Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry in this year's presidential
election.
Greenberg's warning came only one day after Nader
deliberately served notice to the Democratic delegates gathered in Boston ...
that he was determined to savage them at least as much as he did four years
ago. In a full-page op-ed prominently displayed in the Sunday edition of the Boston
Globe, Nader blasted Kerry and the Democrats....
[Nader's] article in fact could be interpreted as
an exercise in demagoguery. It was long on assertions and virtually devoid of
facts. It neglected the very abundant evidence actually agreed to by
Republicans and Democrats that Bush and Kerry have widely differing records,
positions and policies on almost every issue.... But it should leave the hopeful but still far from fully
confident Democrats ... with no doubt that Nader remains as determined as ever
to lacerate them at least as much as he did four years ago....
Publication of Nader's op-ed also signaled that he
remains determined to ignore the many appeals he has received to suspend his
campaign and clear the way for Kerry....
Only last weekend, Nader was sent a letter signed by 116 left-wing
members of the Italian Parliament praising his decades of work as an advocate
for U.S. consumers but pleading with him to end his candidacy. "We ask you
to withdraw your candidacy for the White House and give your support to John F.
Kerry," they wrote. "Your candidacy could mean defeat for John Kerry,
whom we are following with a lot of hope. ... We ask you not to give George W.
Bush a second chance that would be costly for your country and for the entire
international community."
There are some signs that Nader's drawing power in
November may not be as potent across the nation as hopeful Republicans and
fearful Democrats both have thought.... In Florida, where Bush has edged 4
percentage points ahead of Kerry in the USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll, aided by a
rebounding economy, Nader's support is down to 1 percent. But the overall picture remains consistent
and clear for both parties... The U.S.
electorate remains polarized down the middle between "red"
Republicans and "blue" Democrats, with both sides set firm in their
basic views and loyalties. In such an
America, Nader can still make all the difference -- and he knows it.
-----------------------
--Jeff Cohen, "Nader's
'Grassroots' Campaign...Courtesy of GOP,"
July 20, 2004
Four
years after the Florida debacle, with nearly all of Ralph Nader's longtime
progressive allies now tactically supporting Kerry in swing states to retire
the Bush regime, the Nader campaign has created none of the grassroots thunder
of 2000. Indeed, it's been a hollow enterprise -- attracting a few leftwing
sects and polemicists. Given this
vacuum, it's no surprise that pro-Bush forces have rushed to Nader's side. What
is a surprise is the brazenness of their support. And, how readily Nader has
accepted the right-wing help.
Nader has complained -- correctly in at least one state --
of covert Democratic efforts to keep him off ballots. But in Michigan, he has
no such excuse. In that key battleground state, after Nader volunteers had
collected only 5,000 of the 30,000 signatures necessary to get on the ballot,
Michigan's Republican Party came to the rescue with 43,000 Nader signatures.
Nader campaign spokesman Kevin Zeese initially took a
principled stand, telling Associated Press last week that the campaign would
not accept the GOP's help: "We won't take any signatures from them."
But within hours he flip-flopped, AP reported, saying the campaign might accept
the Republican signatures if state officials did not certify Nader as the
nominee of the Reform Party in Michigan, which is split into two factions.
Yesterday, team Nader made it official: They'll accept the
"independent" ballot line provided by the Republican signatures in
case they fail to get the Reform Party nomination: "We have to get on the
ballot somehow," said Zeese.
If Nader picks up the Reform line in Michigan, it will be
with the strong backing of the party's national chairman, Shawn O'Hara, who
told a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter: "I’m doing everything I can to
make sure John Kerry never gets around the White House." O'Hara is a
former evangelist who now says he supports abortion rights but admits he once
supported the execution of doctors and nurses who perform abortions. (The
Reform Party, which ran rightwinger Pat Buchanan for president in 2000, still
maintains an anti-immigrant stance.)
In Oregon, another swing state where Nader could tip the
election to Bush, he only needed to attract 1,000 registered voters to a
nominating convention to get on the ballot. Four years ago, 10,000 activists rallied
for Nader in Portland. But in April, he couldn't rally even 1,000 supporters.
Once again, the Right rode to the rescue. When Nader made a second attempt at a
convention on June 26, Oregon's Republicans enlisted the anti-choice, anti-gay
Oregon Family Council and the corporatist Citizens for a Sound Economy to
recruit rightwingers to attend and sign Nader's petition. The CSE's phone
script asking Republicans to put Nader on the ballot explained the need to
"pull some very crucial votes from John Kerry." Nader's Oregon
coordinator said he saw nothing wrong with rightwing help: "It's a free
country. People do things in their own interest."
Citizens for a Sound Economy is a lavishly-funded corporate
front group, chaired by former top Republican leader Dick Armey, that lobbies
against virtually everything Nader has ever lobbied for. Asked by CNN why such
a group would back him, Nader dissembled in the extreme, referring to it as a
group "opposed to Congressional pay raises" (perhaps the one issue
out of a thousand that Nader and CSE have in common) -- as honest as
identifying Pat Buchanan as a Palestinian rights advocate. After Oregon, Armey's army issued a news
release pledging to help Nader get on ballots "in key battleground states
like Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and elsewhere."
Besides activists, Republicans are deploying money behind
Nader. On July 9, when the San Francsico Chronicle reported that 1 of 10
big Nader donors had also donated to Bush and the Republicans, Nader's vice
presidential running-mate Peter Camejo told a Chronicle reporter that
the campaign would consider returning money from Republicans hoping to help
Bush against Kerry: "We don't want that money." Days later, Camejo
flip-flopped, telling the same reporter: "It is conceivable that pro-Bush,
pro-Republicans believe we have a right to be on the ballot. We will not
establish lie detector tests for people who give us money." Camejo's new
line was in keeping with Nader's laissez-faire attitude on accepting GOP cash:
"Republicans are human beings too," he argued in a recent radio
debate.
As a progressive, I've admired Ralph Nader for as many years
as I've disliked the corporate centrism of Democrats like John Kerry. But
compared to the corporate and religious rightwing forces behind Nader, Kerry is
a paragon of progressive virtue. For
many of us inspired by Nader's 2000 campaign, it was easy four years ago to
dismiss the charge that "a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush" as a
Democratic defense of the corrupt status quo. Today, the sad reality on the
ground is that a vote for Nader in these swing states is a vote for Bush's
money, his organization, his rightwing activists.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0720-15.htm
-----------------------
--Associated Press, "Nader Says
He'll Now Accept Signatures Collected by GOP," July 20, 2004
In an about face, Ralph Nader decided Monday to
accept thousands of petition signatures collected by Michigan Republicans if that
is the only way he can qualify for the state's presidential ballot.
Last Thursday, Michigan Republican Party officials
submitted 43,000 signatures -- far more than the 30,000 needed -- to ensure
Nader could appear on the ballot as an independent. Republicans began collecting signatures after it appeared that
Nader might not get on the ballot as the Reform Party's candidate for
president.
Nader's campaign had turned in about 5,400 signatures. But
spokesman Kevin Zeese said it stopped collecting them a month ago after the
national Reform Party endorsed Nader and it looked as though he could get on
the ballot as its candidate.... Zeese
said the goal is to get Nader on Michigan's ballot -- however it happens. "We're going to continue to pursue the Reform
Party, but we're not going to close off the independent option at this time
while the Reform Party has not decided" who is in charge, he said.
Michigan Democratic Party leaders have asked Nader to refuse
the signatures, saying Republicans want him on the ballot only to draw votes
away from Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. "We urge Nader to
reject this Republican political trick and demonstrate that he is still a man
with great integrity who honors his own beliefs," Michigan Democratic Executive
Chairman Mark Brewer said.
Zeese initially said last week that the campaign would
refuse the GOP signatures. He later said he wasn't sure that was still the case
if it turned out state officials wouldn't accept the Reform Party nomination.
Brewer said Nader's decision not
to withdraw as an independent will force the party to file a federal election
complaint against Nader's campaign and the Michigan Republican Party, which it
contends exceeded a state political party campaign limit of $5,000 in helping
Nader get on the ballot. State GOP Executive Director Greg McNeilly said last
week that the party didn't exceed any campaign spending limits because it
collected most of the signatures through volunteers.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0720-06.htm
-----------------------
--Jake Tapper & Mary Hood, "Who
Backs Nader: Dems Claim Independent Candidate Gets Back by GOP to Divert
Votes, ABC News, July 24
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader's quixotic
presidential campaign says it submitted about 5,400 signatures to get on the
Michigan ballot, far short of the required number of 30,000. Luckily for him,
approximately 43,000 signatures were filed by Michigan Republicans on his
behalf, more than meeting the requirement.
This week in Michigan, state Democrats filed a
complaint to challenge a majority of those signatures, which they say are
invalid. It is one chapter in an odd but potentially history-altering side
story of this presidential election: Pro-Nader Republicans and anti-Nader
Democrats may now be waging more aggressive Nader campaigns than even Nader's
own effort.
At an Oregon campaign event on June 26, Nader told
the crowd, "You are invited here whether you are a Democrat, a Green, a
libertarian, independent, a Republican; you are all invited." Many
Republicans didn't need the invitation and were already working hard to help
Nader's signature drives to get on state ballots.
The Michigan Republican Party volunteers out
circulating petitions two weeks ago, however, do not want Nader to be
president. Rather, they hope Nader will siphon off votes from John Kerry to
ensure President Bush's re-election. Nader could have rejected those
GOP-obtained signatures, but the deadline to do so passed at 4 p.m. Monday with
no protest from him or his campaign.
Just as aggressively, Democratic officials are
doing everything they can to keep Nader off ballots, challenging his signatures
in Michigan and elsewhere. Friday in Boston, Nader told reporters he had
complained about these tactics — which he has called "dirty tricks" —
with none other than Kerry himself....
Nader cautioned Democrats ... that "It will only be a few days
before we hold John Kerry and John Edwards personally responsible for what is
going on." Seemingly threatening legal action, Nader added, "It won't
be entirely verbal."
The notion that Nader took votes away from Al Gore
in 2000, enabling president Bush to be elected, has become lore. On a 2002
episode of "The Simpsons," the villainous Mr. Burns, presiding over a
meeting of the Springfield Republican Party, asks, "What act of
unmitigated evil should the Republican Party undertake this week?" Nader,
sitting to Burns' left, raises his hand like an anxious kid in class.
"You've already done enough, Nader," Mr. Burns replies.
This perception is partly why the conservative
group Citizens for a Sound Economy, or CSE, worked hard to get him on the
ballot in Oregon, enlisting at least 400 of its local volunteers to help Nader's
signature drive. "We saw it as an obvious opportunity to split the liberal
base in a swing state," Matt Kibbe, CSE's president and CEO told ABC
News.... CSE's chairmen are influential Republicans — former House Majority
Leader Dick Armey of Texas, and the former lawyer for the president's father C.
Boyden Gray. The president's first ambassador to Ireland, Richard Egan, has
raised more than $200,000 for the president's campaign. But he and his family
have also given $6,000 to the Nader campaign.
"I don't know Mr. Egan," Nader told ABC
News, "but we'll take money from any individual American citizen under
lawful procedures. We take no commercial money, no PAC money." Nader said
Democrats were being hypocritical: "Democrats get money from Republican fat
cats who are playing both sides, and John Kerry wanted Sen. [John] McCain on
his ticket. I wouldn't talk if I were them."
When GOP efforts to help Nader first became
apparent a few weeks ago, Nader's running mate, Peter Camejo, told The San
Francisco Chronicle that, "If you oppose the war, if you're against
the Patriot Act, your money is welcome. But if your purpose is because you
think this is going to have an electoral effect, we don't want that
money." But he later seemed to
backtrack a bit from this stance, last week asking, "How are we to know if
a person sends $200, that they're not a Republican who plans to vote for Nader?
It is conceivable that pro-Bush, pro-Republicans believe we have a right to be
on the ballot. We will not establish lie detector tests for people who give us
money.''....
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Politics/nader_040724.html
-----------------------
--Anthony Lappe, reporting on Michael
Moore's comments at a screening of Fahrenheit 9/11,June 25, 2004,
When Ralph Nader was brought up, [Michael] Moore
lashed out, showing an almost equal level of contempt for his old pal as he
shows for Bush. "He doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself. He's let
himself be taken over by his own anger towards the Democrats…He's gone
crazy."
http://www.guerrillanews.com/media/doc4732.html
-----------------------
--Craig Varoga, Houston Chronicle, July
26, 2004
Republicans are again using a fringe candidate —
ultraliberal Ralph Nader — to peel votes away from a Democratic candidate. In Arizona, 46 percent of the signatures
filed to get Nader on the ballot came from registered Republicans. In numerous
battleground states including Florida, Oregon and Wisconsin, signature
petitions have been coordinated by Citizens for a Sound Economy, the national
organization led by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey of
Texas.... Republicans are also funding Nader's campaign for president,
including at least one Bush Ranger who raised $200,000 for the Bush-Cheney
campaign.
The GOP strategy in 2004 to divide the opposition
is cynical and brazen. But ... it just might work. Earlier this year, CNN polled
voters in 18 states and asked how they would vote without Nader on the ballot.
In 15 states, Nader took votes from Kerry. In three states, the effect was
neutral. Nader did not help Kerry in a single state. Nader is not an ideal pawn for the GOP, largely because history
is not on his side. Already marginalized and seen by many past supporters as on
an ego trip, Nader will probably be on fewer state ballots than four years ago.
He will certainly get less than 2.7 percent of the national vote (his 2000 percentage)
based on the historic decline of third-party candidates who run a second or
third time for president....
A diminished Nader, however, is still dangerous,
which explains Republican machinations on his behalf. Nader, with or without
GOP assistance, could receive a fraction of his 2000 numbers and still be a
spoiler nationwide and in key battleground states. Four years ago, for example,
Nader's Florida percentage was below his national average, but he still pulled
97,000 votes — far more than Bush's disputed 537-vote margin of victory.
It's a given that politics makes strange
bedfellows. And Ralph Nader and the Republicans make for an especially weird
alliance.... Republicans now publicly boast about promoting a fringe candidate
in order to peel votes away from a Democrat. This divide-and-conquer cynicism
remains a cornerstone of the GOP strategy to keep George W. Bush in the White
House....
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/2702644
-----------------------
--KCRG-TV (Iowa), "Bush Supporters Working to Get Ralph
Nader on Iowa Ballot," July 22, 2004
President Bush's backers are gathering signatures
to put Ralph Nader's name on the presidential ballot in Iowa.
Most polls show the race between Bush and
presumptive democratic nominee John Kerry a virtual tie. Nader's presence on
the ballot could be crucial in deciding where Iowa’s seven electoral votes
land.
Nader volunteers approached people leaving a Bush
campaign rally in Cedar Rapids with – “a project to help the president''
petition. State republican party officials say they didn't organize the
petition drive.
http://www.kcrg.com/article.aspx?art_id=86008&cat_id=123
-----------------------
--Interview with Ralph Nader, The Athens
(Ohio) News, July 29, 2004
Q: Many on the left are panicked that in a tight
race you'll throw the election to George Bush. I imagine your answering machine
is filled with messages from Very Important People urging you to not run.
NADER: That's true. That's because the politics of
fear shuts down their brain and --
Q: But who's calling? Hollywood?
NADER: Sure. Susan Sarandon called, Tim Robbins...
Q: What did they say?
NADER: "Not this time." To which I say,
Oh, are you for democracy, Hollywood stars? "Yes, of course." Are you
for competitive elections? "Yes, of course." But not this time, huh?
Some other time? What other time?
http://www.athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=17408
----------------------
--Business Week Online, July 29, 2004
Jeffrey Cohn, a 31-year-old accountant and Ralph
Nader fan, smiles as he implores shoppers streaming from a suburban
Philadelphia Wal-Mart to sign his petition. An hour into the effort, Cohn has
persuaded 20 people to back the move to get Nader on the Pennsylvania ballot as
an independent Presidential candidate. But when the store's assistant manager
objects, Cohn heads to another mall.
The scene is being repeated on sidewalks and
parking lots across America as the Nader campaign scrambles to meet late-summer
filing deadlines to get on some 33 state ballots. But Democrats are gearing up
to fight back just as hard, fearing a repeat of 2000. Then, Nader siphoned
enough votes from Al Gore in extremely tight races in Florida and New Hampshire
to tip the election to George W. Bush....
In Pennsylvania, Dems are mounting a court
challenge to Nader's petitions. Nationally, they've assigned Vermont Governor
Howard Dean the task of persuading wayward Democrats that a vote for Nader is
tantamount to a vote for Bush. Dean has declared "an extraordinary
emergency" and his forces are packing some Nader events with
protesters....
Republicans, on the other hand, have rallied to
Nader's aid. Conservative groups, such as the antitax Citizens for a Sound Economy,
helped collect ballot signatures in Oregon and Nevada. And the GOP collected
42,000 signatures to place Nader on the ballot in Michigan, where Kerry leads
Bush by just two percentage points in a three-way race.
For Republicans, the math is easy: Three of every
four Nader votes are expected to come from Kerry's hide. Meanwhile, Nader
refuses to turn away Republican money or volunteers and has demanded that Kerry
stop his party's efforts to exclude him from the race. "It shows the lack
of confidence Democrats have in their own candidate," says Nader.
The GOP rally-'round-Nader has freed Democrats to
be more open about their counter-ballot efforts, lessening the risk that
they'll be tarred as anti-democratic. In Philadelphia, attorney Gregory Harvey
is investigating reports that homeless people hired to collect signatures at $1
each have been forging names on Nader petitions....
Nader is unlikely to receive the 2.88 million votes
he won in 2000. But in a close race, a few thousand votes his way in key states
could once again determine the winner.
Reason enough for neither Democrats nor Republicans
to take the Nader factor for granted.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jul2004/nf20040729_4468_db038.htm
----------------------
-- Southern Baptist Convention, BP-NEWS,
July 30, 2000
BARNEY FRANK'S GUARANTEE -- The Massachusetts
congressman, saying he was speaking on behalf of National Stonewall Democrats,
the homosexual movement within the Democratic Party, told the Democratic
convention July 29 of "how proudly we will vote in November for John Kerry
and John Edwards."
Frank, the leading openly homosexual congressman,
included a reference to Ralph Nader in his address: "... when Ralph Nader
tells us that there is no significant difference between the parties, he
trivializes our lives. Among the differences between the parties of
overpowering significance are the differences that exist on the right of people
who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered to be treated fairly with the
same rights as every other American."
Frank characterized the proposed Federal Marriage
Amendment, which seeks to protect marriage as the union of one man and one
woman, as a Republican effort "to knock a big hole in the U.S.
Constitution." When two people of
the same-sex "are in love," Frank said, "and they are willing to
be morally and legally committed to each other and financially responsible to
each other, that if they are prepared to get married, it's a good thing for the
stability of society."
"To be honest with you, we don't know why we
are; we just are," Frank said. "But we do know why we are Democrats.
We know we are Democrats because it is the Democratic Party, as opposed to our
very right-wing Republican opponents, who support that agenda of allowing us to
fight, of allowing us to marry, of allowing us to go forward as human beings
with the rights of everyone else."
http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=18783
----------------------
--Associated Press, "Nader keeps up
attacks on Kerry over ballot access," July 30, 2004
Ralph Nader has a message for John Kerry, now that
the Massachusetts senator is officially the Democratic nominee for president:
stop trying to keep him off the ballot.
At a press conference Friday, Nader accused Democratic party officials
in several states of interfering with his efforts to gain ballot access as an
independent candidate for president.
"I want to say to John Kerry ... call off your dogs," Nader
said. "Stop engaging in dirty tricks, or you will be held accountable
directly."
The consumer activist ... said he was unimpressed
by Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday.
"It's all just talk. Talk, talk talk," Nader said. "But even as
talk, it failed the test of confronting the needs of this country."
Nader said he believes a true three-way race could emerge
if he is allowed to participate in the presidential debates. Even if he is
excluded, his campaign still has merit, he said. "We want to move the political agenda," Nader said.
"That is best done at the presidential candidate level."
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/politics/9284731.htm
----------------------
--The Harvard Crimson, "Nader
Campaigns," July 30, 2004
As Boston geared up for the Democratic National Convention,
independent candidate Ralph Nader crashed the party with a spirited rally one
week ago in the Science Center. The
event last Friday, sponsored by the Harvard Socialist Alternative, featured
five speakers and culminated with a 45-minute address by Nader to a motley
crowd of over 500. His speech addressed why he is running for president and
what is wrong with U.S. politics. Nader’s loudest complaint was that the
creeping increase of corporate influence in government is turning the United
States into a de facto dictatorship.
“The two major parties are running this country
into the ground for corporate campaign contributions,” Nader said. “George W.
Bush is a giant corporation disguised as a human being residing in the White
House, and his administration was marinated in oil.”
Nader’s ridiculing of his incumbent opponent drew
loud roars from the fiercely anti-Bush attendees, many of whom were lured
inside the rally by a demonstrator on the plaza outside the Science Center,
where a disgruntled old man, crowned by multi-colored balloons, yelled “Fuck
Bush!” to help publicize the rally.
But in addition to criticizing the Bush
administration, Nader marshaled evidence that Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., the
Democratic nominee for president, does not support a liberal constituency.
“He’s for the war and wants to stay in Iraq, he
toes the Sharon party line, he’s for corporate globalization, the WTO and
NAFTA, and he voted for the Patriot Act -- the greatest single assault on civil
liberties in the country’s history,” Nader said....
In addition to describing why he was running for
president, Nader explained why he had chosen Peter Camejo, a member of the
socially responsible investment movement, as his running mate, using anecdotes
from Camejo’s past and noting what he thinks Camejo brings to the election.
“He’s Latino, and we’ve never had a Latino candidate for V.P. -- he speaks
Spanish beautifully,” Nader said....
After Nader finished answering questions, a Nader
spokesperson attempted to raise money from the crowd for the campaign—which he
claims does not accept any corporate donations.
“I’m looking for a $1,000 hero,” the spokesperson
said. No such “hero” stepped forward, although two individuals came forward to
donate $500 each. The Nader campaign representatives passed buckets around the
crowd looking for additional donations, and autographed copies of Nader’s book,
Crashing the Party, were available for $75 each at the end of the question and
answer session.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=503236
----------------------
--C. Fraser Smith, "Having the
wisdom and courage to run scared," The Baltimore Sun, August 1, 2004
Near the end of their quadrennial pep rally,
Maryland Democrats got a stern warning from their newest congressman, C. A.
Dutch Ruppersberger: Don't
underestimate the skill and determination of the Republicans. They're
disciplined. They're focused. They've got a lot to lose. You may feel like the
major issues are breaking your way, he said, but don't think you're not in for
a fight.
Earlier in the week, Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin, Sen.
Barbara A. Mikulski and just about every other Democratic lawmaker delivered a
version of the same caution. Against what? Overconfidence? Was that the most amazing and unexpected
message of this year's Democratic convention? How could Democrats need such a
warning? Republicans have been outmaneuvering them for some time, and they are facing
a determined incumbent president in George W. Bush.
Rep. Albert R. Wynn believes President Bush has
irretrievably squandered his likeability. It's not missteps in Iraq, he says.
It's the loss of credibility inflicted on him by Iraq. People are saying the
president and his men lied about the threat in Iraq. Cab drivers, campaign
buttons and convention speakers tried to make it a truism of this campaign....
You hear it in pockets of conservative, rural West Virginia, where Democrats
were, in other years, wasting their time. Dan Rupli, a Maryland convention
delegate, has been working for months in the Mountaineer State - and is little
short of awe-struck by the anti-Bush response. He is among those, like
Congressman Wynn, who believe John Kerry will win. Their optimism flows from
the impassioned opposition to the war from West Virginia's defender of the U.S.
Constitution, Sen. Robert C. Byrd. Mr. Byrd could lead West Virginia into the
Democratic camp, an event that, in 2000, would have changed the outcome.
But, asked if Mr. Kerry would make them safer, one
pro-Kerry voter, questioned on television last week, paused.... John Kerry's campaign has to erase the
pause. Voters have to answer affirmatively without a pause. It's not something
the candidate or his party can count on.
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