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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (21164)	12/23/2003 3:51:41 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793696

Looks like the Dems can breath easier. Nader Rejects Green Party Backing Run for Presidency Still Possible as Independent Candidate By Edward Walsh Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, December 23, 2003; Page A05 Ralph Nader, whose 2000 campaign many Democrats believe cost former vice president Al Gore the presidency, has decided not to run for president next year as the candidate of the Green Party but is still contemplating a presidential race as an independent, a Nader associate said yesterday. Ross Mirkarimi, who ran Nader's presidential campaign in California, said Nader recently called him to announce his intentions and is in the process of informing national Green Party officials that he will not be their standard-bearer in 2004. "My understanding is that, if Nader runs, he does not want to run a mediocre campaign, and he is trying to assess the political and resource variables on how he would run the most serious campaign possible to unseat George Bush," Mirkarimi said. He said there appears to be "no consensus" within the Green Party over its approach to the 2004 campaign. Ben Manski, a co-chairman and spokesman for the Green Party, confirmed last night that Nader will not seek the party's presidential nomination. Manski said it was not clear to him why Nader had made that decision. "What is clear is that the nomination of the Green Party was certainly something he had an excellent chance of securing, and I think this is a serious mistake on his part," he said. "If he does choose to run as an independent, his candidacy will be seriously weakened from what it would have been had he chosen to seek the Green Party nomination." The divisions within the party were evident at a national meeting in July. The meeting was closed to the news media, but participants said it centered on party strategy in 2004. Those present divided themselves into three groups: Those who wanted to run the strongest possible campaign throughout the country, those who wanted to run only in those areas where the Green Party candidate would not be a threat to cost the Democratic Party nominee electoral votes in the contest with Bush, and those who wanted to skip the 2004 campaign entirely and throw Green Party support behind the Democratic nominee. Participants said the overwhelming majority present favored running a strong candidate nationally in 2004, but some in the party strongly disagree with that view and believe the party's top priority next year should be the defeat of Bush. The division reflects, in part, the extraordinarily close outcome of the 2000 election. Nader, nationally known because of his work as a consumer advocate, won almost 3 million votes as the Green Party candidate -- four times as many as he received in 1996, when he first ran for president. Many Democrats believe the bulk of Nader's voters would have supported Gore if the Green Party candidate was not a third alternative, and that this cost Gore, who won the popular vote in 2000, the electoral votes he needed to win the White House. In Florida, which decided the election after the Supreme Court halted a vote recount, Bush defeated Gore by 537 votes. Nader won 97,488 votes in Florida. washingtonpost.com