   #copyright

Ralph Nader

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Political People

   Ralph Nader (born February 27, 1934) is an American attorney and
   political activist. Issues he has promoted include consumer rights,
   feminism, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government.
   Nader has also been a critic of American foreign policy in recent
   decades, which he views as corporatist, imperialist, and contrary to
   the fundamental values of democracy and human rights. His activism has
   played a large part in the creation of many governmental and
   non-governmental organizations, such as the EPA, OSHA, Public Citizen,
   PIRGs and many more.

   Nader ran for President of the United States four times (1992, 1996,
   2000, 2004). In 1996 and 2000 he was the nominee of the Green Party;
   Winona LaDuke was his vice-presidential running mate. In 2004 he ran as
   an independent with Green activist Peter Miguel Camejo as his
   vice-presidential nominee.

   Nader speaks many languages, including English, Arabic, Chinese,
   Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish .

Early career

   Nader was born in Winsted, Connecticut. His parents, Nathra and Rose
   Nader, were Lebanese Christian immigrants, but he has always declined
   to name his family's religion.

   He has three siblings:
     * Shafeek Nader, Ralph's older brother and the founder of the Shafeek
       Nader Trust for the Community Interest, died of prostate cancer in
       1986.
     * Laura Nader Milleron, (a PhD holder and anthropology professor at
       the University of California, Berkeley).
     * Claire Nader (a PhD holder and founder of the Council for
       Responsible Genetics).

   Nathra Nader was employed in a nearby textile mill and at one point
   owned a bakery and restaurant where he engaged customers in discussions
   of political issues.

   Ralph graduated from Princeton University in 1955 and Harvard Law
   School in 1958. He served in the United States Army for six months in
   1959, then began work as a lawyer in Hartford. Between 1961 and 1963,
   he was a Professor of History and Government at the University of
   Hartford. In 1964, Nader moved to Washington, D.C. and got a job
   working for then-Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
   He later did freelance writing for The Nation and the Christian Science
   Monitor. He also advised a Senate subcommittee on automobile safety. In
   the early 1980s, Nader spearheaded a powerful lobby against FDA
   approval allowing for mass-scale experimentation of artificial lens
   implants. In later years he has been writing for The Progressive
   Populist .

   Nader is known for his personal frugality and his objection to
   commercialism. Current Biography reported in 1986 that just before
   leaving the Army in 1959 Nader made one last visit to the Army post
   exchange where he purchased twelve pairs of shoes and four dozen sturdy
   cotton military issue socks. The report goes on to say that as of the
   mid-1980s Nader had not yet worn out those socks.

Clash with the automobile industry

   In 1965 Nader released Unsafe at Any Speed, a study that purported to
   demonstrate unsafe engineering of many American automobiles, especially
   the Chevrolet Corvair and General Motors. GM tried to discredit Nader,
   hiring private detectives to tap his phones, investigate his past, and
   hiring prostitutes to trap him in a compromising situation. GM failed
   to turn up any wrongdoing. Upon learning this, Nader successfully sued
   the company for invasion of privacy, forced it to publicly apologize,
   and used much of his $284,000 net settlement to expand his consumer
   rights efforts. Nader's lawsuit against GM was ultimately decided by
   the New York Court of Appeals, whose opinion in the case expanded tort
   law to cover "overzealous surveillance". Ironically, a 1972 National
   Highway Traffic Safety Administration safety commission study conducted
   by Texas A&M university ultimately exonerated the Corvair and declared
   it possessed no greater potential for loss of control than its
   contemporaries in extreme situations.

Activism

   Hundreds of young activists, inspired by Nader's work, came to DC to
   help him with other projects. They came to be known as "Nader's
   Raiders" and, led by Nader, they investigated corruption throughout
   government, publishing dozens of books with their results:
     * Nader's Raiders ( Federal Trade Commission)
     * Vanishing Air ( National Air Pollution Control Administration)
     * The Chemical Feast ( Food and Drug Administration)
     * The Interstate Commerce Omission ( Interstate Commerce Commission)
     * Old Age (nursing homes)
     * The Water Lords (water pollution)
     * Who Runs Congress? (congress)
     * Whistle Blowing (punishment of whistle blowers)
     * The Big Boys (corporate executives)
     * Collision Course ( Federal Aviation Administration)
     * No Contest (corporate lawyers)
     * Destroy the Forest (Destruction of ecosystems worldwide)
     * Operation:Nuclear (Making of a Nuclear Missile)

   In 1971, Nader founded the NGO Public Citizen as an umbrella
   organization for these projects. Today, Public Citizen has over 140,000
   members and numerous researchers investigating Congress, health,
   environmental, economic, and other issues. Their work is credited with
   helping to pass the Safe Drinking Water Act and Freedom of Information
   Act and prompting the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health
   Administration (OSHA), United States Environmental Protection Agency
   (EPA), and Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

Non-profit organizations

   In 1980, Nader resigned as director of Public Citizen to work on other
   projects, especially campaigning against the believed dangers of large
   multinational corporations. He went on to start a variety of non-profit
   organizations:
     * Capitol Hill News Service
     * Citizen Advocacy Centre
     * Congress Accountability Project
     * Consumer Task Force For Automotive Issues
     * Corporate Accountability Research Project
     * Disability Rights Centre
     * Equal Justice Foundation
     * Foundation for Taxpayers and Consumer Rights
     * Georgia Legal Watch
     * National Citizens' Coalition for Nursing Home Reform
     * National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest
     * Pension Rights Centre
     * PROD (truck safety)
     * Retired Professionals Action Group
     * The Shafeek Nader Trust for the Community Interest
     * 1969: Centre for the Study of Responsive Law
     * 1970s: Public Interest Research Groups
     * 1970: Centre for Auto Safety
     * 1970: Connecticut Citizen Action Group
     * 1971: Aviation Consumer Action Project
     * 1972: Clean Water Action Project
     * 1972: Centre for Women's Policy Studies
     * 1980: Multinational Monitor (magazine covering multinational
       corporations)
     * 1982: Trial Lawyers for Public Justice
     * 1982: Essential Information (encourage citizen activism and do
       investigative journalism)
     * 1983: Telecommunications Research and Action Centre
     * 1983: National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest
     * 1989: Princeton Project 55 (alumni public service)
     * 1993: Appleseed Foundation (local change)
     * 1994: Resource Consumption Alliance (conserve trees)
     * 1995: Centre for Insurance Research
     * 1995: Consumer Project on Technology
     * 1997?: Government Purchasing Project (encourage the government to
       purchase safe and healthy products)
     * 1998: Centre for Justice and Democracy
     * 1998: Organization for Competitive Markets
     * 1998: American Antitrust Institute (ensure fair competition)
     * 1999?: Arizona Centre for Law in the Public Interest
     * 1999?: Commercial Alert (protect family, community, and democracy
       from corporations)
     * 2000: Congressional Accountability Project (fight corruption in
       Congress)
     * 2001?: League of Fans (sports industry watchdog)
     * 2001: Citizen Works (promote NGO cooperation, build grassroots
       support, and start new groups)
     * 2001: Democracy Rising (hold rallies to educate and empower
       citizens)

Consumer advocacy, public interest, and civic action

   Because much of his early work involved advocacy to protect consumers
   (and workers) from unsafe products, Ralph Nader is often referred to as
   a "consumer advocate." This description should not be misunderstood to
   suggest that Nader is an advocate of consumption. On the contrary, his
   message of civic engagement (citizen activism in the public interest),
   like his harsh critique of "rapacious" corporations, calls for
   resistance to commercially-driven consumer culture. According to Nader,
   mass advertising creates artificial and often harmful desires . Nader's
   "consumer" should not be conceived as a free-spending shopper, but
   rather as an active participant in democratic institutions . For
   example, in his critique of television news as largely empty
   sensationalism, Nader acknowledges that most Americans may have been
   trained to behave as passive "consumers" of what passes for news, but
   Nader's call for engagement urges citizens to work together to organize
   community-based news production .

Presidential campaigns

1972

   Ralph Nader's name was invoked in 1972 as a desirable and worthy
   presidential candidate, but this "Draft Nader" effort had no ballot
   line to offer, nor did Nader authorize his name to appear on any ballot
   until 1982.

1980

   Although Nader took no interest in running in 1980, he expressed the
   opinion that a victory by Ronald Reagan would be preferable to the
   reelection of Jimmy Carter. As he saw it, "Reagan is going to breed the
   biggest resurgence in nonpartisan citizen activism in history." This
   opinion may have foreshadowed his position in later elections,
   particularly in 2000.

1990

   Nader launched a third party around issues of citizen empowerment and
   consumer rights. He stated that the Democratic Party had become "so
   bankrupt, it doesn't matter if it wins any elections." He suggested a
   serious third party could address needs such as campaign-finance
   reform, worker and whistle-blower rights, government-sanctioned
   watchdog groups to oversee banks and insurance agencies, and
   class-action lawsuit reforms.

1992

   Nader waged a minor write-in campaign in the 1992 New Hampshire primary
   and received about 6,300 votes.

1996

   Nader was drafted as a candidate for President of the United States on
   the Green Party ticket during the 1996 presidential election. He was
   not formally nominated by the Green Party USA, which was, at the time,
   the largest national Green group; instead he was nominated
   independently by various state Green parties (in some areas, he
   appeared on the ballot as an independent). However, many activists in
   the Green Party USA worked actively to campaign for Nader that year.
   Nader qualified for ballot status in relatively few states, garnering
   less than 1% of the vote, though the effort did make significant
   organizational gains for the party. He refused to raise or spend more
   than $5,000 on his campaign, presumably to avoid meeting the threshold
   for Federal Elections Commission reporting requirements; the unofficial
   Draft Nader committee could (and did) spend more than that, but was
   legally prevented from coordinating in any way with Nader himself.

2000

   Nader ran again in 2000 as the candidate of the Green Party of the
   United States, which had been formed in the wake of his 1996 campaign.
   According to a former Green Party activist, Nader and his associates,
   not the Green Party, were the driving force behind the 2000 campaign.
   That year, he received 2.74% of the popular vote, missing the 5% needed
   to qualify the Green Party for federally distributed public funding in
   the next election, the claimed purpose of his Presidential bid.

   Nader campaigned against the pervasiveness of corporate power and spoke
   on the need for campaign finance reform, environmental justice,
   universal healthcare, affordable housing, free education through
   college, workers' rights, legalization of commercial hemp, and a shift
   in taxes to place the burden more heavily on corporations than on the
   middle and lower classes. He opposed pollution credits and giveaways of
   publicly owned assets.

   Nader's vice presidential running mate was Winona LaDuke, an
   environmental activist, and member of the Ojibwe tribe of Minnesota.

Accusations of Vote-Splitting

   The extremely close race between the two major presidential candidates,
   Al Gore and George W. Bush, helped to create some additional
   controversy around the Nader campaign. Many Democrats claimed that
   because Nader had no realistic chance of winning in the close election,
   that those who supported Nader should instead have voted for Gore and
   that a victory for Gore would have been preferable to a victory for
   George W. Bush. Many prominent liberal politicians, activists, and
   celebrities made this argument to voters in swing states, sometimes
   using the catch phrase "a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush". The
   Republican Leadership Council ran pro-Nader ads in a few states in a
   likely effort to split the "left" vote. Nader and many of his
   supporters responded with the catch phrase "a vote for Gore is a vote
   for Bush", claiming that while Gore was perhaps marginally preferable
   to Bush, the differences between the two were not great enough to merit
   support of Gore.

   The "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush" slogan, which supporters of
   Gore urged against Nader, was an instance of the so-called spoiler
   effect phenomenon, in an election where more than two candidates are
   running and it is feared that the presence of more than one candidate
   with relatively similar views will split the vote that is cast
   "against" another candidate, who becomes the beneficiary of the split
   vote. Such fears often plague third-party or independent candidates,
   especially those perceived as likely to draw most of their support from
   demographics who would otherwise support one or the other candidate.
   Thus, Gore supporters tried to persuade voters who preferred Nader to
   vote for Gore in order to prevent the election of the "greater evil"
   (referring to Bush). Some Democrats attempted to convert those who
   supported Nader by claiming that doing so made them "dupes" of the
   Republican party.

   Ironically, Greens in some states turned on supporters of David
   McReynolds, the Socialist Party USA candidate in the 2000 race, and
   used similar tactics to try to push McReynolds supporters to "get in
   line" and support Nader . (Despite what their supporters argued, there
   was no evidence that Nader and McReynolds had anything other than a
   'friendly-foe' respect for each other.)

Objective

   When challenged with complaints that he was taking away votes from Al
   Gore, Nader replied that the voters who preferred Nader did not
   "belong" to Gore, and that it would be more accurate to say that Gore
   was trying to take away votes from Nader, by scaring voters into voting
   for the lesser of two evils. When Nader argued that he would hold the
   Democrats' "feet to the fire," he was suggesting that he wanted to move
   the Democratic Party in a more progressive direction.

   However, at other moments Nader said that, because the Democratic Party
   had slid so low and had become so beholden to corporate power in his
   opinion, the Democratic Party deserved to go the way of the Whigs.
   Running as the Green Party's nominee in 2000, Nader indicated that he
   would support Green candidates who ran against even the most
   progressive Democrats, such as Paul Wellstone and Russ Feingold.

   Indeed, as some commentators pointed out, Nader's strategy seemed
   better suited to hurting Gore than helping himself. Instead of
   campaigning in states where the outcome seemed clear, Nader campaigned
   primarily in tight races, where he was less likely to gain votes -
   states where liberals would be more reluctant to vote for him, for fear
   of enabling a Bush victory. Pat Buchanan, on the other hand, focused
   his efforts on states where the outcome seemed clear.

   Nader's rejection of the vote-pairing strategy, which would have
   increased Green Party support and help Al Gore win the election, is
   further analysis supporting the assertion that Nader's campaign
   intended to hurt Gore more than help himself. Anticipating the type of
   close election that in fact happened in Florida in 2000, some voters
   attempted to minimize the spoiler problem by engaging in strategic
   "vote-pairing," or so-called Nader trading, in which Nader-inclined
   voters in swing states would agree to vote for Gore in exchange for
   Gore-inclined voters in safe Bush states to vote for Nader. This
   strategic idea, which was championed by law professor Jamin Raskin, was
   based on the observation that, under the electoral college system,
   individual votes for a losing presidential candidate within a given
   state (or individual "surplus" votes for the winner within a state) are
   necessarily wasted. Even though "Nader trading" had the theoretical
   potential to allow Al Gore to win the election and at the same time to
   earn the Green Party the 5% that would lead to a possible award of FEC
   party convention funding, Nader himself declined to endorse the
   "vote-trading" idea in 2000, explaining that they were running in every
   state and that they were encouraging voters to vote according to
   conscience.

Result

   As it turned out, Nader's vote total exceeded Bush's margin over Gore
   in Florida (as did those of several other third party candidates) and
   in New Hampshire, leading some to speculate as to whether or not Nader
   and/or his supporters "cost Gore the Presidency."
   Ralph Nader speaks out against the presidential debates at Washington
   University in St. Louis which he was excluded from on Oct 17, 2000.
   Enlarge
   Ralph Nader speaks out against the presidential debates at Washington
   University in St. Louis which he was excluded from on Oct 17, 2000.

   Nader's vote total in Florida was 97,488 where the final certified vote
   count had a margin of 537. A full manual recount of all uncounted
   ballots in Florida would have given Gore the victory regardless of
   Nader, but was not undertaken until long after the election results
   were certified, nor did Gore request it. In New Hampshire, Nader
   garnered 22,198 votes, and the margin was less than this. Many analysts
   believed that a substantial number of Nader supporters would more
   likely have chosen Gore over Bush. If this is true, and enough of those
   supporters would have still shown up to the polls, and enough of those
   would have still have voted for President, and enough of those would
   have not voted for another Green Party or other third Party candidate,
   then Nader may have been a factor in the outcome of the election.
   Nader, both in his book Crashing the Party, and on his website, stated:
   "In the year 2000, exit polls reported that 25% of my voters would have
   voted for Bush, 38% would have voted for Gore and the rest would not
   have voted at all." Nader also noted that in Florida 250,000
   self-identified Democrats voted for Bush -- over twice the number of
   Florida voters he attracted.

   Nader supporters countered that, instead of blaming Nader, Gore should
   accept responsibility because his own failure to win his home state of
   Tennessee was a "but-for cause" of Gore's loss. Nader supporters also
   maintained that the Democrats should handily have won the election
   against Bush (whom Nader referred to during the campaign as "a giant
   corporation masquerading as a human being"), with a better campaign or
   with a better candidate than Gore, who they say made a series of
   blunders throughout the campaign, including in his debates against
   George W. Bush. Nader supporters said that Gore's campaign themes were
   largely a creature of the "centrist" and corporate-supported Democratic
   Leadership Council, which had once been chaired by then-Arkansas
   Governor Bill Clinton. The U.S. presidential election, 2000 was hounded
   by the Florida situation, and some Nader supporters suggested that the
   Democrats should blame the Supreme Court for calling a halt to the
   Florida recount, thereby effectively declaring Bush the winner.

   During a press conference in support of Peter Camejo for California
   Governor, pranksters hit Nader in the face with a pie.

2004

   Ralph Nader (right) with Dennis Kucinich.
   Enlarge
   Ralph Nader (right) with Dennis Kucinich.

   Nader announced on December 24, 2003 that he would not run for
   president in 2004 on the Green Party ticket; however, he did not rule
   out running as an independent. On February 22, 2004, Nader announced on
   NBC's Meet the Press that he would indeed run for president as an
   independent, saying, "There's too much power and wealth in too few
   hands." Because of the controversies over vote-splitting in 2000, many
   Democrats urged Nader to abandon his candidacy. The Chairman of the
   Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe argued that Nader had a
   "distinguished career, fighting for working families" and he
   (McAuliffe) "would hate to see part of his legacy being that he got us
   eight years of George Bush."

   On May 19, 2004, Nader met with John Kerry in Washington D.C. for a
   private session, concerning Nader's factor in the 2004 election. Nader
   refused to withdraw from the race, citing specifically the importance
   to him of the removal of troops from Iraq. The meeting itself ended in
   disagreement. On the same day, two Democratic leaning groups, the
   National Progress Fund and the Democracy Action Team, were formed. They
   both sought to reduce the effect of Nader upon Democratic voters that
   might be persuaded to vote for him. The following day, the Democracy
   Action Team's Stop Nader campaign announced they would air TV
   commercials in key battleground states.

   On June 21, 2004, Nader announced that Peter Camejo, a former two-time
   gubernatorial candidate of the California Green Party, would be his
   vice presidential running mate. Shortly thereafter, Nader announced
   that he would accept (although he was not actively seeking) the
   endorsement, but not nomination, of the Greens as their presidential
   candidate. Later in June, however, the national convention of the Green
   Party of the United States rejected Nader, whose supporters were voting
   for "nobody" (a.k.a. Ralph Nader), as a candidate in favour of David
   Cobb, an attorney and Green Party activist. Nader's failure to take the
   Green Party's nomination meant that he could not take advantage of the
   Green Party's ballot access in 22 states, and that he would have to
   achieve ballot access there independently. Despite having chosen to run
   outside of the Green Party, Nader professed outrage at the Green
   Party's "strange" choice, terming the party a "cabal."

Ballot access

   The Nader campaign failed to gain a spot on a number of state ballots,
   and faced legal challenges to its efforts in a number of states. In
   some cases, state officials found large numbers of submitted voter
   petitions invalid. While Nader campaign officials blamed Democratic
   legal challenges for their difficulties in getting Nader's name on the
   ballot, the difficulties faced by petition-gatherers were also a
   significant factor - there were far fewer people in 2004 eager to sign
   petitions for Ralph Nader, and petition-gatherers complained that they
   often received verbal abuse from people they solicited. One of Nader's
   California organizers observed that "paid signature gatherers did not
   work for more than a week or two. They all quit. They said it was too
   abusive."

   On April 5, 2004, Nader failed in an attempt to get on the Oregon
   ballot. "Unwritten rules" disqualified over 700 valid voter signatures,
   all of which had already been verified by county elections officers,
   who themselves signed and dated every sheet with an affidavit of
   authenticity (often with a county seal as well). This subtraction left
   Nader 218 short of the 15,306 needed. He vowed to gather the necessary
   signatures in a petition drive. Secretary of State Bill Bradbury
   disqualified many of his signatures as fraudulent; the Marion County
   Circuit Court ruled that this action was unconstitutional as the
   criteria for Bradbury's disqualifications were based upon "unwritten
   rules" not found in electoral code, but the state Supreme Court
   ultimately reversed this ruling. Nader appealed this decision to the US
   Supreme Court, but a decision did not arrive before the 2004 election.

   Nader failed to gain a place on the Massachusetts ballot, though his
   efforts to do so faced no Democratic legal challenges (Kerry's ability
   to win his home state was never in doubt). Nader fell some 1500
   signatures short of the state's 10,000 signature requirement, and his
   campaign blasted the state's electoral requirements as arcane.

   Nader also failed to gather the requisite 153,035 signatures to place
   on the California ballot. The campaign submitted an estimated 83,000
   signatures. The Nader campaign briefly flirted with the idea of
   convincing the California Green Party to nominate Nader instead of
   David Cobb. This proved infeasible, however.

   On August 19, 2004, the Illinois State Board of Elections ruled that
   Nader lacked enough valid signatures to qualify for access on the state
   ballot. Nader appealed the ruling, claiming that Illinois's requirement
   of 25,000 valid signatures was an onerous burden on third-party
   candidates, and that the petition deadline was too early in the year.
   This suit was rejected by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly, who
   found that "Illinois' petition deadline and signature requirements . .
   . did not impose a severe burden on persons like Nader seeking to
   pursue an independent presidential candidacy." The Seventh U.S. Circuit
   Court of Appeals affirmed this decision on September 22, 2004. The
   court, headed by Judge Richard Posner pointedly noted that Nader could
   have filed his suit in February, just after declaring his candidacy,
   and contended that, given Illinois's population of 12 million, a
   signature requirement of 25,000 was not onerous.

   On September 18, 2004, the Florida Supreme Court ordered that Nader be
   included on the 2004 ballot in Florida as the Reform Party candidate.
   The court rejected the arguments that the Reform Party did not meet the
   requirements of the Florida election code for access to the ballot —
   that the party must be a "national party" and that it must have
   nominated its candidate in a " national convention" — and therefore
   Nader should have attempted to file as an independent candidate.
   Specifically, the court ruled that the term "national party" must be
   interpreted as broadly as possible. The Reform Party has a ballot line
   in only some U.S. states.

   Nader faced an uphill battle to achieve ballot access in Pennsylvania.
   Although his campaign claimed to have turned in over 50,000 signatures
   by the August deadline, the Democratic Party launched legal challenges.
   A series of Commonwealth Court decisions in the fall of 2004 came to a
   final conclusion on September 2, 2004. On that day, the state's highest
   Court ruled that Nader could not appear on Pennsylvania's ballot as an
   Independent candidate, as he was seeking the Reform Party's nomination
   elsewhere.. When the Nader campaign moved to block the examination of
   its signatures, Pennsylvania Judge James Garner Collins rejected it,
   declaring that the campaign's plea "tortured the law." Pennsylvania
   brought the Nader campaign another black eye: Nader was sued by a
   lawyer representing homeless people in the state who claimed that they
   had been hired to gather signatures, but not paid for their efforts.

   Nader also fell short of gaining the 3,711 signatures necessary to
   appear on the ballot in Hawaii. More than half of the 7,000 signatures
   submitted by the campaign were determined to be invalid or incomplete
   by state officials.

   In the general election, Nader appeared on the ballot in thirty-four
   states and the District of Columbia, notably fewer than his Libertarian
   counterpart, Michael Badnarik. Ballot access ultimately became one of
   the most significant issues of the Nader campaign; in his concession
   speech, Nader characterized ballot access as a "civil liberties issue"
   and noted that Democratic attempts to challenge his ballot access were
   rejected in the "overwhelming majority" of state courts.

Effect on major-party candidates

   The expectation among many analysts was that Nader's candidacy would
   benefit Bush by taking more votes from Kerry than from Bush. A
   Republican organization in Michigan worked to gather petition
   signatures to place Nader on the Michigan ballot after Democratic Party
   lawyers defeated Nader's effort to appear on the Michigan ballot as the
   Reform Party's nominee.

   In Arizona, according to an article by Max Blumenthal that appeared in
   The American Prospect and on AlterNet, a company called Voters Outreach
   of America, headed by a former executive director of the Arizona
   Republican Party, Nathan Sproul, had been involved in gathering Nader
   signatures Mr. Blumenthal's article was based this on interviews with
   petition-gatherers in Arizona, notably Michael Arno and Derek Lee.
   Arno, co-owner of a Republican consulting firm, told Blumenthal that he
   had declined repeated requests by Nader to petition for him, referring
   Nader instead to Jenny Breslyn, who was simultaneously gathering
   petitions for Protect America Now - a petition to restrict the
   availability of public benefits to undocumented immigrants. Lee had
   heard from several peers that petition-gatherers were simultaneously
   seeking signatures for Nader and signatures for the anti-immigrant
   initiative. News of the seeming collusion of Nader and right-wing
   anti-immigrant advocates incensed many Democratic Party activists .

   Democratic Party groups urging voters to worry about the so-called "
   spoiler effect", such as "Up for Victory", were formed specifically to
   dissuade people from voting for Nader and to knock him off the ballot
   in as many states as possible. These groups, as well as some
   journalists, pointed to FEC filings showing that the Nader campaign had
   accepted campaign contributions from several individual donors who were
   also contributing to Bush's campaign, including a donation from one
   individual who had helped to fund televised advertisements by Swift
   Boat Veterans for Truth that attacked Kerry's military service record
   in the Vietnam War and Kerry's subsequent activity in the 1970s as a
   leader of the antiwar group Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Nader's
   campaign countered that John Kerry had received far more money in 2004
   from individual Republican donors than Nader had, and that Nader was in
   fact not accepting organized Republican help.

   In Florida and several other states, Nader's ballot access came because
   of his nomination by the Reform Party. The Reform Party nominee in 2000
   had been conservative Pat Buchanan; some anti-Nader Democrats took this
   as evidence that Nader was being helped by supporters of Bush, but many
   conservatives had left the Reform Party after Buchanan's poor showing
   in 2000.

   A group of Nader's supporters from 2000 endorsed Vote to Stop Bush, a
   statement urging voters in swing states to vote for Kerry, in order to
   prevent a second term for President George W. Bush. Even Nader's
   running mate in 1996 and 2000, Winona LaDuke, endorsed Kerry, as did
   filmmaker Michael Moore, who had championed Nader in the 2000 campaign.
   Another approach was taken by (the now offline) "RalphPlease.org",
   which gathered conditional contributions, pledges to donate to Public
   Citizen if Nader would withdraw from the race. Nader responded by
   complaining that he had not been invited to the premiere of Fahrenheit
   9/11 and by calling Moore fat.

   The Nader campaign contended that the donations it received were given
   by "people who agree with him on the issues and want him to get his
   message out to the public." Nader also responded to such claims by
   pointing out that Democratic opponent John Kerry received $10.7 million
   dollars from donors who also contributed to Bush or to some other
   Republican candidate - nearly 100 times that of the $111,700 Nader
   received.

Electoral System Change

   A significant number of progressives criticized Mr. Nader for trying to
   change the electoral system through an impractical presidential
   campaign, pointing out that independent or third-party presidential
   candidates are highly unlikely to win an election under the current
   system. Supporters of Ralph Nader often countered that an alternative
   presidential bid can be extremely valuable (for example, by raising
   important issues and enhancing an otherwise money-dominated and inane
   political dialogue), regardless of the ultimate number of votes the
   candidate receives.

   Some Democrats, including Howard Dean, argued that Nader should not run
   for president but should instead concentrate on promoting fairer ballot
   access laws, campaign finance reform, and alternative voting methods.
   Nader's supporters thought that such pleas were insincere and off the
   mark. For several decades, Nader has been a leading advocate of fairer
   ballot access, campaign finance reform, and more representative
   election systems. Nader's first published law review article, "Do Third
   Parties Have A Chance?" (co-authored with Theodore Jacobs and published
   in the Harvard Law Record, October 9, 1958) was on ballot access
   reform, and Nader has founded several important organizations
   (including Public Citizen) dedicated to election law reform. Nader has
   also been one of the champions of including the so-called "NOTA" (none
   of the above) option on election ballots, to increase voter choice; a
   1994 "In the Public Interest" piece by Nader laid out the case for
   NOTA.

   Democrats respond that aside from writing some articles, and the
   campaign finance reform work of "Public Citizen", Nader is in a
   position to commit his extensive personal wealth and status among
   independent and minor party supporters behind the major election law
   reform interest groups such as Fair Vote and Ballot Access News, or
   even use a state's Initiative & Refrendum process to push for fairer
   ballot access laws, Instant Runoff Voting or proportional
   representation. Democrats argue that Nader's success with consumer
   advocacy, versus election law reform suggests that Nader is only
   tenuously interested in such reforms and prefers running vanity
   campaigns.

Results

   Nader received many fewer votes than he had in 2000, dropping from
   about 2.9 million votes (2.74% of the popular vote) to 405,623 (about
   0.35%) Nader's vote total placed him only slightly more than 63,000
   votes ahead of the fourth-place candidate, Michael Badnarik of the
   Libertarian Party, who appeared on 49 ballots. Fears that Nader would
   play a "spoiler" role that would harm the Democrats proved unfounded —
   unlike 2000, Kerry's margins of loss in states won by Bush were all
   substantially larger than the percentage of votes gathered by Nader.

Personal finances

   In 1970, General Motors paid an out-of-court settlement of $425,000 to
   settle an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit filed after it was revealed that
   GM hired private investigators in an attempt to expose any embarrassing
   details of his personal life, particularly his sex life. The
   investigation turned up nothing.

   Ralph Nader has lived an exceptionally frugal and simple life. He has
   never been married or had children. He has never owned a car, and has
   lived for decades in a cheap boarding house. He's been known to eat at
   cheap restaurants, buy his clothes at thrift shops, and even wear the
   same clothes for many years. Despite being a lifelong bachelor, it's
   believed that he has very rarely dated.

   According to the mandatory financial disclosure report that he filed
   with the Federal Election Commission in 2000, he then owned more than
   $3 million worth of stocks and mutual fund shares; his single largest
   holding was more than $1 million worth of stock in Cisco Systems, Inc.
   Nader's total net worth is between $4.1 million and $5 million. The
   largest recipients of Nader's donations have ranged anywhere from
   Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGS) to other non-profit
   organizations.

Unofficial appearances

   Ralph Nader was portrayed in an episode of The Simpsons that aired
   after the 2000 presidential election in which he is portrayed as a
   clandestine member of the Springfield Republican Party and is thanked
   for all the fine work he has done for the Republicans. He appeared on
   Da Ali G Show, where interviewer Ali G persuaded him to try out his
   rapping skills. He is portrayed in Tom Robbin's 1980 novel Still Life
   with Woodpecker as Princess Leigh-Cheri's love interest.

Works

Books

   Nader has authored, co-authored and edited many books. Among these are:
     * Unsafe at Any Speed
     * Action for a Change (with Donald Ross, Brett English, and Joseph
       Highland)
     * Whistle-Blowing (with Peter J. Petkas and Kate Blackwell)
     * Corporate Power in America (with Mark Green)
     * You and Your Pension (with Kate Blackwell)
     * The Consumer and Corporate Accountability
     * In Pursuit of Justice
     * Corporate Power in America
     * Ralph Nader Congress Project
     * Ralph Nader Presents: A Citizen's Guide to Lobbying
     * Verdicts on Lawyers
     * Who's Poisoning America (with Ronald Brownstein and John Richard)
     * The Big Boys (with William Taylor)
     * Nader, Ralph. The Good Fight: Declare Your Independency and Close
       the Democracy Gap. Paperback ed. Harper Collins Pub., 2004.
     * Nader, Ralph. Crashing the Party: Taking on the Corporate
       Government in an Age of Surrender. Paperback ed. St. Martin's Pr.,
       2002.
     * Nader, Ralph. Cutting Corporate Welfare. Paperback ed. Open Media,
       2000.
     * Nader, Ralph, and Wesley J. Smith. No Contest: Corporate Lawyers
       and the Pervertion of Justice in America. Hardcover ed. Random
       House Pub. Group, 1996.
     * Nader, Ralph, and Wesley J. Smith. Collision Course: the Truth
       About Airline Safety. 1st ed. McGraw-Hill Co., 1993.
     * Nader, Ralph, and Clarence Ditlow. Lemon Book: Auto Rights. 3rd ed.
       Asphodel Pr., 1990.
     * Nader, Ralph, and Wesley J. Smith. Winning the Insurance Game: the
       Complete Consumer's Guide to Saving Money. Hardcover ed.
       Knightsbridge Pub., 1990.
     * Nader, Ralph, and John Abbotts. Menace of Atomic Energy. Paperback
       ed. Norton, W.W. & Co., Inc., 1979.
     * Ralph Nader, Joel Seligman, and Mark Green. Taming the Giant
       Corporation. Paperback ed. Norton, W. W. & Co., Inc., 1977.
     * Canada Firsts (with Nadia Milleron and Duff Conacher)
     * The Frugal Shopper (with Wesley Smith)
     * Getting the Best from Your Doctor (with Wesley Smith)
     * Nader on Australia
     * The Ralph Nader Reader
     * " It Happened in the Kitchen: Recipes for Food and Thought"
     * " Why Women Pay More" (with Frances Cerra Whittelsley)
     * " Children First! A Parent's Guide to Fighting Corporate Predators"

Articles

     * The "I" Word - Boston Globe - May 31, 2005 - Nader calls for the
       impeachment of President George W. Bush (with Kevin Zeese)
     * Letter to Senate Judiciary Committee on Alito Nomination - Jan. 10,
       2006
     * Bush to Israel: 'Take your time destroying Lebanon' - The Arab
       American News - Aug. 2006

Selected speeches and interviews

     * Chowkwanyun, Merlin. " The Prescient Candidate Reflects: An
       Interview with Ralph Nader", Counterpunch, 2004- 12-16.

Video links

     * Ralph Nader video appearances on C-SPAN in RealVideo - rec. April
       9, 2000 to present - Retrieved June 6, 2005

     * A Call to Civic Engagement, online video of speech given on August
       18th 2005 in Montreal.
     * Interview with online video from Achievement.org
     * Ralph Nader speaks at the Reform Party Convention, 2004 - Provided
       by C-SPAN in RealVideo format.
     * On Corporate & Government Responsibility Talk at UC Berkeley April
       26, 2002
     * Nader on Iraq CBC Broadcast 3 days into the invasion of Iraq.
     * Nader on Ethics of Public Participation at Centre for Ethics, Emory
       College

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader"
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