Nader joins race for White House

Consumer rights champion Ralph Nader announced on Sunday that he is to stand for the fifth time as an independent in the presidential election. For the Democrats, Nader's declaration raises the spectre of 2000, when he ran as the Green Party candidate and captured 2.7 per cent of the vote on election day, including 97,000 votes in the crucial state of Florida. This siphoned votes away from Al Gore and in effect delivered the White House to George Bush.

Nader (pictured), who turns 74 this week, announced his White House intentions to interviewer Tim Russert on NBC's Meet the Press. He said he still had a message to offer on the environment, workplace safety and against corporate interests. And he remained determined to "shift the power from the few to the many".

"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... in that context I have decided to run for president," he told Russert. If the Democrats could not win this year by a "landslide", despite his involvement, he added, then "they should just close down".

Hillary Clinton described Nader's candidacy as "a passing fancy" but conceded the only party likely to be hurt was the Democrats. Barack Obama also dismissed Nader's bid, calling him a perennial presidential campaigner. "He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush, and eight years later I think people realise that Ralph did not know what he was talking about," Obama said.

Nader's last attempt at the White House in 2004 garnered just 0.3 per cent of the national vote. As a result, many observers believe he is unlikely to be able to draw the kind of support he enjoyed in 2000. Many voters who might normally be sympathetic to his cause are already caught up in the riveting battle between Clinton and Obama.

FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 25, 2008