Dean to Nader: Give up the race
Independent candidate accuses Democrats of driving a smear effort
July 10, 2004
BY MARIA RECIO
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- Ralph Nader, the independent candidate for president, and Howard Dean, a former Democratic hopeful, sparred in a 90-minute debate Friday.
In the lively radio discussion, Dean tried to get Nader to abandon his long-shot White House bid. Nader, the man Democrats blame for President George W. Bush's election in 2000, declined and promised to continue his independent campaign.
Dean relentlessly said a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush, while Nader accused Democrats of a smear effort in Arizona, where an orchestrated Democratic challenge forced the Nader campaign to abandon getting on the ballot.
In several states, Democrats are trying to keep Nader off the ballot.
With Nader's strength polling at up to 6 percent nationally, Democrats aren't taking chances.
Nader isn't on the ballot in any state. The fate of his candidacy will rise or fall in the next 60 days, as deadlines approach in more than 40 states that require voter signatures to qualify for a place on the November ballot.
"Ralph, I think you're being disingenuous about your candidacy this year, and let me tell you why," Dean began at the start of the debate. "Forty-six percent of all your signatures to get you on the Arizona ballot turned out to be Republican supporters. You accepted the support of a right-wing, fanatic Republican group that's antigay in order to help you get on the ballot in Oregon."
"This is not going to help the progressive cause in America," said Dean, who has urged supporters to stay within the party and vote for presumed Democratic nominee John Kerry.
Nader quickly dismissed Dean's criticism, telling the studio audience that Dean was engaging "in a desperate attempt to smear our campaign."
Nader drew laughter when he called Dean "an insurgent who is now adopting a role of being a detergent of the dirty linen of the Democratic Party." Even Dean chuckled over that remark.
Richard Winger, the editor of the Ballot Access News newsletter, predicted that Nader could be on as many as 45 state ballots.
Two weeks ago in Oregon, Republican and Democratic groups converged at a Nader convention designed to gather 1,000 registered Oregonian voters to sign a petition so Nader could be on the November ballot.
Democrats filled seats and decided as a bloc not to sign Nader's petition. In contrast, the conservative Oregon Family Council and the Citizens for a Sound Economy, cochaired by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, encouraged their members to attend the convention and to sign the petitions.
StopNader.com, a group organizing the challenges to Nader petitions, is behind much of the Oregon activity.
In Michigan, state Democratic Party officials called a news conference Thursday to accuse Republicans of helping Nader to collect the 31,776 signatures he needs by July 15 to qualify for the state's ballot.
Democrats have been particularly upset over Republican contributions to the Nader campaign. StopNader.com calculated from Federal Election Commission records for May that GOP contributors make up 10 percent of Nader's major donors.
Since Nader announced his campaign in February, Democrats have beseeched him not to run. Many Democrats blame him for taking votes from Al Gore in such razor-thin results in states like Florida and helping ensure Bush's victory in the 2000 election. Nader was a Green Party candidate in 2000.
Bush won't address NAACP: Bush said Friday that he is declining an invitation to speak to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People convention in Philadelphia because of harsh statements about him by leaders of the venerable civil rights group.
"I would describe my relationship with the current leadership as basically nonexistent," Bush said in York, Pa. "You've heard the rhetoric and the names they've called me."
Bush added that he "admired some" NAACP leaders and said he would seek members' support "in other ways."
In 2000, candidate Bush told the NAACP at its convention in Baltimore that Republicans hadn't always gotten along with the group and urged the two to find common ground.
It's the fourth straight year that Bush has declined an invitation to attend the NAACP convention. It opens today and runs through Thursday. He is the first sitting president since Herbert Hoover not to address the group.
NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, speaking to lawmakers and business leaders in Indiana last month, said Bush and other Republicans appeal to a racist "dark underside of American culture."
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