Nader '55 considers candidacy

While the Democratic and Republican primaries have been dominated by graduates of Columbia, Wellesley College and the United States Naval Academy, among others, Princeton alumnus Ralph Nader ’55, a three-time presidential candidate, is considering a campaign of his own.

Nader has organized an exploratory committee to investigate whether a campaign as an independent would be feasible, a move that prospective candidates usually make before officially announcing their intent to run.

Nader said in an interview  with The Daily Princetonian last week that in preparing a potential campaign, he needed to “get good, committed, far-seeing volunteers.” He added that Princeton students had always volunteered for his previous presidential runs.

Other factors being examined by Nader’s exploratory committee are whether it could raise funds, establish a network of pro bono lawyers and find a talented staff.

Nader explained his interest in entering the race as a logical extension of his previous consumer advocacy work.

“When you’re shut out, and you can’t civically advance the issues and can’t even get a hearing, you either have to look for another career opportunity or go into the electoral arena,” he said.

After running as an independent in the 1996 presidential election, Nader took the Green Party nomination in 2000 and received 2.7 percent of the popular vote.

It has been widely noted that the support he received in the general election may have drawn voters who would have otherwise voted for Democrats and thus contributed to President Bush’s victory over former Vice President Al Gore.Nader ran for a third time in 2004 as an independent but took only .4 percent of the national vote.

Some experts doubt that Nader’s entry into the race would have any significant impact. “I’m sure he could put a campaign together, but it’s just a question as to how effective it might be,” politics professor David Lewis said.

There may be an obstacle to Nader’s bid to run as an independent, however. Nader won the California’s Green Party primary this Tuesday with 61 percent of the vote. The party’s procedures in that state allow a candidate to be nominated and appear on the ballot without having voiced their consent.

Nader evidently did not withdraw from that primary. “He had time to get off, but he didn’t get off,” Green Party of California Press Secretary Cres Vellucci said. He added that Nader would have needed to remove his name by this past December.

Motivations and Goals

Though Nader intends to run as an independent and has been the Green Party’s presidential nominee in the past, he mentioned the leading motivation in pursuing his campaign has been to “offer a pressure point on the least worst party,” as he describes the Democrats.

Nader’s goal in a campaign would be to address “so many of the widespread injustices [and] deprivations .... not being discussed,” he said, adding that he would like to tackle several issues, including the size of the military budget, the living wage, environmental and workplace morbidity, hospital infections and corporate crime.

Before entering politics, Nader worked for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Public Citizen and several other public-interest groups. His best-known work is his book “Unsafe at Any Speed,” which criticized the design of American automobiles. He was also involved in the anti-nuclear lobby.

Nader accused both politicians and the press of “a pattern of political self-censorship,” saying that “they engage in magnifying small differences, and they set aside issues that would have major difference, but they think would offend their paymasters.”

Princeton beginnings

A Wilson School graduate who wrote his thesis on Lebanese agriculture, Nader identified three factors in his Princeton education that helped lead him to his current position.

“One is they had a very liberal access to Firestone Library, therefore I went down into the stacks ... the Woodrow Wilson school because it was a multidiscipline major, [and] the third is I audited a lot of courses,” he said.