Nader joins race, riles Democrats
Bid raises fears that split vote would aid Bush
To the consternation of many of his onetime supporters and cries of foul from leading Democrats, Ralph Nader declared yesterday that he again will seek the presidency of the United States, this time as a solo flier unaligned with a third party.
"Washington is corporate-occupied territory, and the two parties are ferociously competing to see who's going to go to the White House and take orders from their corporate paymasters," Nader said in making his announcement on NBC's "Meet the Press." "So they may be different in their mind, they may be different in their attention, they may be different in their rhetoric. But in the actual performance, these corporate interests and their political allies are taking America down."
Nader, a consumer-rights activist, was accused by many Democrats of siphoning votes from former vice president Al Gore and contributing to his defeat in 2000. In that race, Nader said he was providing a choice between Gore and George W. Bush, who he said were indistinguishable.
Nader said yesterday that he is running again to offer a choice to Americans not served by Democrats or Republicans. He said Republicans had earned a D-minus and Democrats a D-plus.
Nader, who turns 70 this week, appeared unbowed by well-publicized pleas from a number of former supporters that he not run, some of whom have fronted websites with names like www.ralphdontrun.net. When asked whether he is acting as a spoiler, Nader said, "A spoiler is a contemptuous term, as if anybody who dares to challenge the two-party system . . . is a spoiler, and we've got to fight that."
Some onetime backers said they fear that Nader, who drew 2.7 percent of the vote nationally in 2000, will act as a drag on Democrats again.
"I held a small fund-raiser for him in New York, and I was proud to have identified with Ralph Nader in 2000," Danny Goldberg, the chairman and CEO of Artemis Records, said in an interview yesterday. "But I am not happy with the outcome of the last election, and I don't want a rerun."
He added: "There are so many other important ways that Ralph Nader can be of service to the country. I am extremely disappointed that he made this decision."
Nader also faces the daunting obstacle of getting his name on state ballots across the country, a task made easier in 2000 when he ran on the Green Party ticket. His newly up-and-running website suggests that with Nader running as an Independent, his campaign's "primary focus" at the outset will be collecting the needed 1.5 million signatures.
Nader's announcement drew scoffs from Democrats, including the Democratic National Committee chairman, Terry McAuliffe, who had urged him not to run. "I can tell you Green Party members are all coming into the [Democratic] Party saying they want to help us because they know the stakes are so big this time," McAuliffe said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
The two leading Democratic presidential contenders, Senators John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina, issued statements seeking to downplay any distance between themselves and Nader.
"There are important values and issues where Ralph Nader and John Kerry stand together," the Kerry statement said. "Americans who want to see change in this nation know how important it is to defeat George W. Bush. To do that, it is important that we remain united in November and rally behind the Democratic nominee, whoever that may be."
Edwards's campaign said, "Senator Edwards has repeatedly shown that he attracts voters from across the political spectrum, and that's why he is the best candidate to take on George Bush in the fall."
Republicans offered a more obliquely dismissive assessment of the Nader candidacy, with former Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour, now governor of Mississippi, saying at a gathering of governors in Washington, "It will make less difference than the Democrats fear, but I know they're very nervous about it."
Nader outlined an agenda yesterday similar to that from his 2000 bid: diminishing corporate power, offering universal health care, enacting electoral reform, and eliminating poverty. Yet he enters the race with a radically changed political landscape, with many of his former supporters now actively opposing him. Last month, The Nation magazine, a longtime backer, issued an open letter to Nader urging him not to seek the presidency.
In a measure of the antipathy that runs deep for Nader, his campaign has not listed an address or telephone number on his website, a move that a campaign worker said was for security reasons. The staff member, who would not give his name, said: "We decided to keep a low profile. People can contact us through the website."
Teresa Amato, Nader's campaign manager, did not return phone messages yesterday.
The Green Party, which is ineligible for federal matching funds this year because Nader's bid in 2000 garnered less than 5 percent of the vote, issued a statement yesterday saying the party "welcomed Ralph Nader's entry into the presidential race today as an Independent. . . . Mr. Nader will take positions and raise issues of vital urgency in the 2004 race for the White House." Scott McLarty, a Green spokesman, said the party, which claims a membership of 300,000, has an active recruit-Nader contingent. But asked whether the party would offer assistance to him, McLarty said, "That depends on whether he is going to actually campaign."
A Nader campaign worker said yesterday's announcement drew a positive reaction from supporters of Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor who withdrew his bid for the presidency last week. In exiting the race, Dean urged his supporters, many of whom had been drawn by his outsider, antiestablishment message, not to back a third-party or independent candidate.
Yesterday, many of the entries in the online journal blogforamerica.com, operated by the Dean campaign, echoed the former governor's exhortation. One writer penned: "Ralph Nader is the Ted Kazinski [sic] of the presidential candidates. He should grow a beard and go live in a shack in the woods. He is the Unibomber [sic] Candidate."
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. 