Nader's follyNader enters in boon to GOP By: Mike Allen and Ben Smith
Feb 24, 2008 09:48 AM EST
Updated: February 24
Ralph Nader announced on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he'll run as a third-party, anti-corporate candidate for president this fall,
which would be likely to drain votes from the Democratic nominee and provide a huge boon to Republicans. Democrats say they will work behind the scenes — and use court challenges, if necessary — to try to thwart his access to ballots.
...The immediate question for Democrats is whether they'll be as ruthless as they were in 2004 in throwing procedural obstacles in the way of Nader's access to the ballot in key states.
Nader has a pending lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee on the issue and recently told Politico that he would make ballot access a central cause of a presidential campaign, which he restated on television Sunday morning.
Who benefits? The Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee,
speaking shortly before Nader's announcement,
said Nader's past runs have shown that he usually pulls votes from the Democratic nominee. "So naturally, Republicans would welcome his entry into the race," the former Arkansas governor said on CNN
The GOP funds Ralph Nader's "campaign":Nader's "illegal" GOP backers - Salon.com
Jun 29, 2004 | A Washington watchdog group is charging that Ralph Nader's presidential campaign benefited from "illegal" assistance provided by right-wing organizations -- at the behest of his supposed opponents in the Bush-Cheney campaign.
....In recent weeks, the Oregon conservative groups deployed their phone banks to contact Republican voters, urging them to attend a Nader rally in Portland on Saturday, where the candidate's organizers sought to gather enough signatures to place him on the ballot.
....he has accepted help from Republicans not only this year, when they have contributed thousands of dollars to his war chest, but in 2000, when the Republican Leadership Council sponsored television ads on his behalf in Wisconsin, Washington and Oregon. ..
Read Salon's The dark side of Ralph Nader Read all of it please.
Look at this Salon article which shows that Nader is either very dishonest or very dillusional:"Nader's Republican Pipe Dream" Jun 10, 2004 | Ralph Nader's latest presidential campaign does not have an official slogan. It does, however, have a kind of official rationalization. "I think I'm going to take more votes away from Republicans than from Democrats," Nader says, almost every time he speaks.
Factoids: Nader has run for President 5 times (in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008).
In 1992 he ran as a write-in in both the New Hampshire Republican and Democratic primaries, and other primaries. In 1996 and 2000, he was the nominee of the Green Party; in 2004, he ran as an independent, but was also endorsed by the Reform Party.