"Consumer advocate Ralph Nader's quixotic presidential campaign says it submitted about 5,400 signatures to get on the Michigan ballot, far short of the required number of 30,000. Luckily for him, approximately 43,000 signatures were filed by Michigan Republicans on his behalf, more than meeting the requirement."

"This week in Michigan, state Democrats filed a complaint to challenge a majority of those signatures, which they say are invalid. It is one chapter in an odd but potentially history-altering side story of this presidential election: Pro-Nader Republicans and anti-Nader Democrats may now be waging more aggressive Nader campaigns than even Nader's own effort."

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Politics/nader_040724-1.html

Nader surprised the heck out of me in a recent interview that I read. I won't post the web site since the bleeding hearts around here will immediately start flaming. Regardless, assuming even half of what he said in the interview is true, I am going to have to reexamine my opinion of the man. I have always seen him as a shill for lawyers and not much more. Since I refuse to vote for Bush, and see Kerry as a joke, I either sit the election out or find a new candidate. Maybe Nader hasn't a prayer of even hitting double digits but I would rather vote for someone I believe in than be a part of something I can't stand.

The latest Time poll has Nader at 5% which I think is a better showing than electoral analysts would have conceded when he announced his candidacy.

bleeding hearts around here will immediately start flaming

That doesn't make sense. Nader is liberal/extremist-far-left. The people that still support Nader today ARE the "bleeding hearts".

The Democratic base is to the right of the "bleeding heart" progressives, Greens, etc... Some of Nader's harshest critics are former "Naderites" disillusioned with what they perceives as lies by Ralph Nader, one of the most notable being that the Republican and Democratic party are the same, a completely false statement across the spectrum of policy issues from abortion to education to taxes.

One of the biggest ironies is that the extremist stances continually repeated by conservative media when attempting to label the Democratic Party are much more accurately descriptive of Nader and those with similar philsophical inclinations. In other words, conservative media attacks Nader's views as being far left of mainstream while inaccurately portraying those views as those of Democrats.

Nader's motivation for running has been to pull the Democratic Party back towards the left and away from center, he says so himself. Many believe it has to do with his ego as well, though.

I'd be really interested to know on which policy stances you agree with Nader.

Ok, here's the interview that so surprised me.

http://www.amconmag.com/2004_06_21/cover.html

I totally agree with his points about Iraq, Israel, and our entire screwed up policies in that part of the world. Much of what he says about illegal immigration works for me. The Sierra Club showed their true colors when they decided that baby breeding people of Hispanic descent are OK even if they tend to be completely oblivious to their effects on the environment both in their native countries and in the US. After years of parroting the Forbes version of capitalism I'm coming around to Nader's views on the predatory and suffocating effects of huge multinational corporations. I still don't buy his opposition to NAFTA but I agree that the biggest beneficiaries seem to be the same large companies that he despises. And his points about NAFTA's effects encouraging poor Latin nations to do nothing about their own problems and using the US as an outlet for excess population is easily understtod. Same with the exclusion of our own poor from decent paying jobs. I partly agree with his ideas about income taxes assuming he is serious about going after the truly wealthy who create no real value to society. I disagree with his idea of a special tax on what he calls idle investment capital. His views on abortion and rights for homosexuals are the same as mine. He doesn't say anything in this interview about the environment which surprised me after being the candidate for the Greens. Assuming he doesn't support the anti human policies of that group then I would probably find his views not that far out of touch. All in all the guy really surprised me. Keep him away from the asshole lawyers that generate lawsuits for no ones benefit but their own and I can handle his views far easier than Bush's true beliefs that showed up AFTER he was elected.