Nader ’55 considers Senate run

“I’ve been getting a lot of feedback from Connecticut about [running],” Nader said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian this week, emphasizing that he has not yet decided whether he will run.

Nader noted that Dodd’s struggling poll numbers indicate “a real anti-incumbent mood” in the state. “[Dodd] is not very popular in Connecticut, even among Democrats,” he said, explaining that many residents are not convinced the incumbent has fully transformed himself from an ally of big banks and brokerage firms.

“Dodd has been quite concessionary to Wall Street over the years,” Nader added. “He’s trying to change — he’s raised a lot of money in Wall Street and has been concessionary to the banks.”

Nader added that though Dodd has made “some pretty good statements lately … rhetorically,” the senator has yet to convince the people in Connecticut of his political conversion, which is why Nader believes Dodd’s polling numbers remain low.

A Wilson School major and a graduate of Harvard Law School, Nader is a consumer activist and four-time U.S. presidential candidate. He ran as an independent in 2004 and 2008 and as the Green Party candidate in 1996 and 2000, and he said he has no concrete plans for another presidential bid. “It’s too early to say,” he said when asked about running in 2012.

Nader expressed concern not just about Dodd’s candidacy, but about the U.S. Senate in general. “If you put the Senate on trial, it’s really just a burial ground for even legislation coming from the House,” he explained. “There is one man who just says no, and that’s it. Give them the majority rule, they give the back of the hand.”

Should he decide to run for Dodd’s seat, Nader said he plans to focus on the same issues that he did in his 2008 presidential campaign, including corporate crime, clean elections, single-payer health insurance, faster transitions to renewable energy, community health clinics and more farmer-to-consumer markets.

Nader, who was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century by Time magazine, recently published a novel titled “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!” The book uses fictionalized, real-world characters — Warren Buffet and Ted Turner among them — to act out Nader’s political ideals.

Nader also co-founded Princeton Project 55, an independent nonprofit organization aimed at providing Princeton students and graduates with opportunities to engage in activities that benefit the public interest.