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NADER ’04
What did Ralph Nader do with our money?
BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN

Since declaring himself a candidate in February, Ralph Nader has raised and spent a little more than $2.5 million on his presidential run. More than 30 percent of that came from the US taxpayer, in the form of $798,827.36 in federal matching funds. The public’s money, it seems, went to fund a sloppy and sometimes-incompetent attempt to get a candidate whom nobody wanted on the ballot, onto ballots. Or, it went to fund a noble attempt to fight the two-party stranglehold on ballot access. It’s open to interpretation.

But how was the money actually spent?

Of the $2.5 million, more than $650,000 went directly to ballot-access "consultants," according to a Phoenix analysis. That’s not including other expenses — legal consultants, field staff, supplies, travel, and payroll — spent in the effort to get on state ballots, an effort that has consumed the bulk of the campaign’s time and resources. Very little of the money went to actually getting Nader’s message out, through advertising or public events. Little seems to have gone even to the key function of fundraising.

Much of the ballot-access funding went in chunks of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to individuals willing — for money — to get people to sign ballot petitions. "We had a bunch of road crews," says Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese, "people who early on really had a knack for it, so they would go to different states."

Kendle Greenlee of Houston, Texas, for instance, made more than $7000, plus travel expenses, for getting signatures. Unfortunately, he and others sometimes went on the road to states that require petitions be circulated by residents. Greenlee was one of several whose petitions collected in Virginia were disqualified, ultimately leaving Nader off that ballot. "We are obviously aware of those laws and didn’t send those road crews there," Zeese says. "Some people didn’t follow the rules."

In many states, the Nader team had to run newspaper ads to recruit signature-gatherers. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the Nader campaign in that city recruited dozens of homeless people to circulate petitions — and then failed to pay them. In a number of states, thousands of signatures were disqualified as invalid or forged.

Even more controversially, Nader hired several firms that specialize in gathering signatures — for conservatives. JSM Inc. of Florida, which has also gathered signatures for anti-gay-marriage initiatives, made $164,490 from Nader this year. Mike Arno, of California-based Arno Political Consultants, which collects signatures for right-wing causes, from Ronald Reagan to the tobacco industry, made $82,500 — while at the same time being paid by the Republican National Committee to register voters.

Zeese says Democratic Party officials threatened left-leaning firms that if they did business with Nader they’d never get another client. He also says Democrats’ efforts are what kept the campaign from succeeding in many states.

There is surely some truth in that, but as of this writing Nader has succeeded in just 35 states, a woeful showing for a candidate with his name recognition and funding. He is off the ballot in some of the most populous states — California, Texas, Illinois — as well as some of the most hotly contested — Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arizona, Missouri, Oregon. In Virginia, the Libertarian and Constitution Parties got on the ballot, but not Nader. It would seem that Nader and his campaign utterly failed to convince even a small number of people of his message.

So, was this struggle worth $800,000 of public funds? Zeese thinks so. "I think this was a basic battle for democracy," he says. "Third parties have traditionally been the incubators of ideas in the electoral arena."


Issue Date: October 29 - November 4, 2004
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