Nader '55 to speak tonight

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader '55, in the thick of a coast-to-coast campaign, will speak on campus Thursday. Campaign officials said he wanted to appear at his alma mater during the election season.

A fundraiser and book signing at Triumph Brewery will follow the speech, which will be held at 9 p.m. in McCosh 50. Whig-Clio offered to sponsor the event after being contacted by Carl Mayer '81 and Steve Welzer, both members of the local Green Party.

Speeding down the San Diego Freeway on Tuesday evening, Nader reflected on the dynamics of the current election and on his own presidential bid in an exclusive interview with The Daily Princetonian.

"A lot of people are reacting to the politics of fear, espousing a mantra that can be characterized as 'Anybody But Bush,'" Nader said.

It's the Democrats, however, who have taken Nader to court 18 times to keep his name off the ballot, he said, adding that in his opinion no other Western democracy has nearly as many barriers to ballot access.

Nader ran under the Green Party banner four years ago, but said he could not wait for the party's convention in June to begin his campaign.

He is currently on the ballot in 36 states, but efforts in other states have stalled in the courts.

"They've got fifty lawyers tying us down in Ohio in a dozen courtrooms," said Nader, who has won nine out of 11 state Supreme Court suits brought against him.

In terms of ballot access, Nader said, it would have been easier to run on the Green Party ticket. But running as an independent has its perks, too.

"From the point of view of the constituency out there I think more people identify themselves as independents than as Green," he said.

Jason Kafoury, national field director for the Nader campaign, said "a younger, idealistic 18-24 demographic is our strongest base of support this year."

In addition to the students on campus who are excited to hear his positions, there are many seeking justification for his second attempt at the presidency.

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"I'm just looking forward to seeing what he says and how he merges two points of views, and whether he has an explanation for why he is running, because many people aren't too excited about that," said Hillary Sutherland-Brown '08, a Canadian who is also a member of the College Democrats.

Cody May '05, who characterized his political views as the exact antithesis of Nader's, said he is glad to have Nader come. "I think his voice needs to be heard like everyone else," he said.

Kafoury said Nader is currently packing in three to four events a day to raise issues — on both domestic and foreign policy — that Nader says both leading presidential candidates have neglected to address or have failed to debate in any meaningful way.

"They're ignoring an exit strategy from Iraq," Nader said. "They want to pursue a strategy of victory, of civil war and public dictators backed by U.S. troops and oil companies. They're not talking about Israel-Palestine because they're all on the same page. They're not talking about the wasted military budget . . . [or] the criminal justice system and tort law."

Nader accused Kerry of not attacking Bush on the essentials, such as the concentration of power and big business, and said that Kerry let Bush off the hook on the environment.

"Bush is pulling Kerry toward him more than Kerry is pulling Bush toward him. You're getting a lot of 'me too' from Kerry," Nader said.

While many issues from the 2000 election are still vital to Nader's campaign — health insurance, corporate power and electoral reform — Nader said the war in Iraq and Patriot Act have changed the tone of this year's election.

He identified several national policies and trends that he says pose a particular predicament to younger generations of Americans. Among these are tuition increases at public universities, a possible military draft and difficulties for guardsmen and reservists returning from service, as well health insurance, outsourcing of jobs and the drug wars.

While many Democratic voters from the last election are still bitter over his purported role in deflecting votes from Gore, Kafoury said that Kerry is taking examples right out of Nader's repertoire to raise his popularity in the polls.

"I think that Ralph is putting out an agenda for America that is a road map for Kerry to beat Bush," Kafoury said. "If Kerry is smart enough, he will latch on to it, as he did on a few key points in the [first] debate, and lo and behold, most pundits say he won that debate."

Nader, who rose to fame as a consumer advocate in the 1960s, said he has noticed campus political activism on the rise.

In his days as a Princeton undergraduate, Nader said he wasn't drawn to either the Democrat or Republican clubs, but was active on a number of issues that would "pop up periodically."

"They tried to take away the license of a hot dog vendor cart" on Nassau Street, said Nader, who successfully rallied with other University students to protect the vendor's business. A later effort to protest the DDT spraying of campus trees was not as successful. But the 1950's were a "conforming decade," he said.

Nader will appear on Late Night with David Letterman on Thursday evening, followed by an appearance on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer on Sunday.