[Peace-discuss] Nader may challenge Bush in GOP primary (fwd)

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Now here's an idea I like.  I've never thought much of Borosage, and I'd
get to vote in a Republican primary... --CGE]

Liberal pariah Ralph Nader flirts with new White House run

Thu Jun 19,10:02 AM ET Agence France-Press (AFP)

WASHINGTON (AFP) - One election campaign transformed Ralph Nader from the
perennial champion of liberal causes to a hated figure for the American
left, but Nader is not finished yet.

The man many Democrats blame for Al Gore's achingly narrow defeat by
George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential vote, could be a candidate when
the next election is held in 2004, he will be 70.

Some progressives still consider the Harvard-educated attorney a hero for
his consumer advocacy work of the 1960s and his more recent role in the
anti-globalization movement, among other causes.

But he has not been spared the wrath of liberals after Nader stood in the
2000 election as the Green Party presidential candidate. Nader siphoned
off critical votes from Gore, and the Republican Bush won the key to the
White House.

"He is despised by some parts of the Democratic party," said liberal
pundit Robert Borosage. "The party bitterness toward him is pretty deep."

In 2000, Nader convinced many Democratic voters that there was little
difference between Bush and Gore, who was vice president under Bill
Clinton, and that they would be better off supporting the Green party.

Many on the left had counted on a narrow Gore victory in the election,
with the Greens clearing the necessary five percent of the vote threshold
to receive federal campaign funds, thus boosting their bid to become a
viable third party alternative to the Democrats and Republicans.

But the Greens failed to win five percent of the vote. Many of the votes
the party did garner came from disaffected Democrats, whose defection
likely gave Bush victory.

Democrats have been unforgiving ever since. Nader complains that he no
longer gets invited to progressive strategy sessions and is omitted from
witness lists drawn up by Democratic lawmakers seeking experts to testify
in Congress.

"Even ... when they have gatherings on specific issues that I have worked
on, they don't invite me," he complained in an interview.

"It is true that he pays a price for the folly of his (election)
strategy," said Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America's Future, a
Washington-based progressive non-profit group.

"He is being scapegoated for a defeat that shouldn't have taken place, but
he also contributed to it."

Despite the rift, Nader and liberal Democrats agree at least one point:
that the Bush presidency has been "beyond terrible," in Nader's words, for
issues such as the environment and civil rights.

The president, he said, "is wrecking our economy, surrendering our
government to corporate power more than ever, and alienating many of our
former friends around the world by militarizing foreign policy."

But Nader is just as scathing toward the opposition Democrats, whom he
accuses of capitulating to the conservative president.

"They could have stopped both of his tax cuts, his unconstitutional war
... the notorious massive assault on our civil liberties ... but they
don't do any of this," he complained.

Nader said he still stands by his 2000 campaign statement that the two
parties are virtually the same. "The Democrats are D-plus, the Republicans
are D-minus," he said. "On foreign and military policy it's hard to find
any difference."

For 2004, a second Green Party presidential candidacy may be in the works.

"It's too early to say," commented Nader.

Green party official John Strawn confirmed that Nader is among several
potential candidates for the next election.

"Many folks are actively promoting particular candidates, Ralph being one
of them," he said.

Nader says that if the Greens reject him, he might choose to run as an
independent, or possibly even as a Republican, which would pit him against
George W. Bush in the primary.

"Wouldn't that be interesting? A Republican run?" he muses.

When asked why a campaigner so closely identified with progressive causes
would contemplate running for the White House as a candidate from a party
on the other end of the political spectrum, Nader answers without missing
a beat.

"To give the American people a choice as to the political institutions
they desire and the clean elections they deserve," he said. "Isn't that
what politics should be all about?"

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