2008 Woodie Awards
The Nader Factor
Tyson Collazo
Issue date: 9/29/04 Section: News
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With all the media attention given to George Bush and John Kerry, it's easy to forget that there is a third candidate running for President of the United States: the Independent, Ralph Nader. Ralph Nader started out as an attorney in Hartford Connecticut. At the age of twenty-nine, he abandoned his law practice and took a job in Washington D.C. working for the U.S. Department of Labor under Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Nader also worked as a freelance writer, covering issues of consumer safety, and eventually becoming a leading consumer advocate.
Of course, Nader is most famous- or infamous, depending on your viewpoint- for his Presidential campaign in 2000 when he ran as the Green Party nominee. Although Nader only received about 2.7 percent of the vote nationally in 2000, many Democrats see Nader's campaign as the factor that tipped the scales in George W Bush's favor during the extremely close election. Democrats contend that Al Gore would have won the state of Florida if Nader had not run. Bush won Florida by only 537. Nader received a total of 97,421 votes, which according to polls, would have mostly gone to Al Gore had Nader not been on the ballot.
In February, Nader announced on the news program, "Meet the Press" his intention to run for president in the 2004 election as an independent candidate. Since then he has received the nomination of the Reform Party and has aggressively been trying to get on ballots around the country. Although it is generally accepted that Nader has no chance of winning the Presidency, he seems to want to run on principle. Nader says he is running to "take our democracy back from the corporate interests that dominate both parties." According to his website, "The Bush Administration and the Democratic Party, in varying extremes, are putting the interests of their corporate paymasters before the interests of the people. In the Nader Campaign the PEOPLE RULE. Mr. Nader takes seriously a government "of, by and for the people" within a deliberative democratic society."
Of course, Nader is most famous- or infamous, depending on your viewpoint- for his Presidential campaign in 2000 when he ran as the Green Party nominee. Although Nader only received about 2.7 percent of the vote nationally in 2000, many Democrats see Nader's campaign as the factor that tipped the scales in George W Bush's favor during the extremely close election. Democrats contend that Al Gore would have won the state of Florida if Nader had not run. Bush won Florida by only 537. Nader received a total of 97,421 votes, which according to polls, would have mostly gone to Al Gore had Nader not been on the ballot.
In February, Nader announced on the news program, "Meet the Press" his intention to run for president in the 2004 election as an independent candidate. Since then he has received the nomination of the Reform Party and has aggressively been trying to get on ballots around the country. Although it is generally accepted that Nader has no chance of winning the Presidency, he seems to want to run on principle. Nader says he is running to "take our democracy back from the corporate interests that dominate both parties." According to his website, "The Bush Administration and the Democratic Party, in varying extremes, are putting the interests of their corporate paymasters before the interests of the people. In the Nader Campaign the PEOPLE RULE. Mr. Nader takes seriously a government "of, by and for the people" within a deliberative democratic society."