Consumer advocate Ralph Nader announced that he will run for president in an interview with Tim Russert yesterday.
(Alex Wong/Getty Images for 'Meet the Press')
WASHINGTON - Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, widely blamed by Democrats for siphoning votes from Al Gore in 2000 and thereby helping George W. Bush win the White House, announced yesterday that he will run for president again this fall.
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," the 73-year-old Nader said he will mount another long-shot bid for the presidency. He criticized Democrats and Republicans alike as too beholden to corporate lobbyists and said that he wants to energize third-party politics in America.
"The great issues have come in our history . . . through little parties that never won any national election," Nader said. "Dissent is the mother of ascent. And in that context, I have decided to run for president."
While political analysts said that Nader is unlikely to repeat his performance in the 2000 election, in which he won nearly 3 million votes, his presence on the ballot could still have an impact if the contest is close. In 2004, Nader won about half a million votes, including nearly 33,000 in Florida.
"In a close race, it could be important," said Bruce Buchanan, a political science professor at the University of Texas at Austin. "Right now it's an irritation and a possible problem that the Democrats would rather not have."
Democrats reacted angrily to the decision by Nader, who will turn 74 on Wednesday. They accused him of damaging his legacy as a champion of progressive causes by repeatedly playing the role of potential spoiler for liberal candidates.
"He is ancient history and rapidly turning himself into a joke," said Steve Rabinowitz, a Democratic media consultant who is supporting Hillary Clinton.
"All of us who were once big fans of his treaded so carefully eight years ago to be respectful of his legacy, but expressed disappointment in his run. We were less respectful four years ago, and now I couldn't care less."
Similar sentiments, often expressed in harsher language, were common throughout the left-wing blogosphere yesterday. But Nader rejected such criticism, saying that the two major parties should not have a monopoly on the nation's democracy.
"Let's get over it and try to have a diverse, multiple-choice, multiple-party democracy the way they have in Western Europe and Canada," Nader said.
"This business of 'spoiler' is really very astonishing," he said. "These are the two parties who have spoiled our electoral system. . . . The Republicans steal the votes, and the Democrats knock third-party candidates off the ballot. That's their specialty these days."
In explaining why he felt the need to run, Nader concentrated on Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.
Nader praised Obama as "a person of substance" and "the first liberal evangelist in a long time," but accused Obama of leaning "toward the pro-corporate side of policy making" and of keeping silent about Palestinian suffering because criticism of Israel "is a real off-the-table issue for the candidates."
Campaigning in Ohio yesterday, Obama told reporters that while Nader deserves praise for his past work as a consumer advocate, his more recent performance as a "perennial presidential candidate" is not helping advance the "issues that are so important to working families."
"He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush, and eight years later I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about," Obama said.
Clinton told reporters that Nader's announcement was a "passing fancy," but that she hoped it would not hurt the Democratic nominee.
"Obviously, it's not helpful to whomever our Democratic nominee is," she told reporters as she flew to Rhode Island, according to the Associated Press. "But it's a free country."
Nader first gained fame in the 1960s when he battled the US automobile industry to improve safety, such as by including seat belts in their products. He later founded several public-interest groups that led fights for stronger environmental regulations and workplace safety rules and that opposed nuclear power.
Nader played a minor role in the 1992 presidential election as a write-in candidate during several primaries. He was also drafted as a candidate by the Green Party in 1996, but did little campaigning.
But Nader ran actively as the Green Party's nominee in 2000 and won nearly 3 million votes. Among them, he won 97,488 in Florida, where Bush defeated Gore by just 537 votes in the final official tally after the Supreme Court shut down a statewide recount.
Because exit polls showed that Nader voters favored Gore over Bush, many Democrats believe that if Nader had not been on the ballot Gore would probably have won Florida and become president.
Nader, however, rejects the view that he is indirectly responsible for Bush's rise to power and subsequent record, from the war in Iraq to the appointment of two conservative Supreme Court justices. Nader argued that there were many other factors that contributed equally or more to Gore's defeat.
Still, former governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, who trails far behind Senator John McCain of Arizona in the race for the GOP nomination, said yesterday that Nader's presence on the ballot this fall would be good for Republicans.
"I think [Nader's candidacy] always would probably pull votes away from the Democrats, not the Republicans," Huckabee said on CNN. "So, naturally Republicans would welcome his entry into the race."
But Nader said if Democrats lose this fall they will only have themselves to blame. "If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up [and] close down," he said.
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