Nader Launches Presidential Bid
Washington, D.C. – Ralph Nader today threw his hat into the 2008 Presidential ring.
Nader announced his candidacy on NBC’s Meet the Press with Tim Russert.
At the same time, the Nader campaign launched a web site – votenader.org.
The campaign web site highlights twelve fundamental differences between the Nader campaign and the corporate Republicans and corporate Democrats.
In a letter posted on the campaign web site this morning, titled Civics Test, a group of Nader supporters ask:
“Of the following Presidential candidates – Ralph Nader, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain – which one supports a single payer, Canadian style, free choice, Medicare for all health care system?
Answer: Ralph Nader
Which one supports solar energy and would take nuclear power off the table?
Answer: Ralph Nader
Which one would cut the huge bloated wasteful military budget?
Answer: Ralph Nader
Which one would reverse U.S. Middle East policy in Israel/Palestine, Iraq and Iran?
Answer: Ralph Nader
Which one would launch an aggressive crackdown on corporate crime and corporate welfare?
Answer: Again, only Ralph Nader.”
A separate letter, titled “Mr Frugal,” agrees that Hillary Clinton’s campaign spending $3.8 million in January on one consultant alone was “stunning.”
“Give our candidate – we call him Mr. Frugal – $3.8 million and he’ll get us on the ballot all across this country,” the letter reads.
The web site encourages people to join a Road Trip for Ralph – where volunteers will travel the country, getting Nader on the ballot in all fifty states.
On Meet the Press, Nader said that “dissent is the mother of assent.”
Nader said people are feeling “locked out, shut out, marginalized and disrespected.”
“You go from Iraq, to Palestine to Israel, from Enron to Wall Street, from Katrina to the bumbling of the Bush administration, to the complicity of the Democrats in not stopping him on the war, stopping him on the tax cuts (for the wealthy).”
“In that context, I have decided to run for president,” Nader told Russert.
Nader called Obama “the first liberal evangelist in a long time.”
But Nader said that Obama is censoring his better instincts.
“Senator Obama’s record has not been a challenging one,” Nader said. “He’s not been a Senator Wellstone or Senator Abourezk or Senator Metzenbaum by any means. He has leaned, if anything, more toward the pro-corporate side of policymaking. The issue is – do they have the moral courage? Do they have the fortitude to stand up against the corporate powers and get things done? Yes, get things done for the American people?”
