[NYTr] Nader Throws Support to Edwards

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Ed Pearl


Politico - Jan 2, 2007
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7647.html


Nader throws support to Edwards

By David Paul Kuhn

MUSCATINE, Iowa — Ralph Nader unleashed on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
Monday — criticizing her for being soft on defense spending and a chum
of big business — and expressed his strong support for John Edwards.

In an eleventh hour effort to encourage liberal Iowans to "recognize"
the former North Carolina senator by "giving him a victory," the
activist and former presidential contender said in an interview that
Clinton will "pander to corporate interest groups" if elected.

Nader specifically accused Clinton of failing to challenge military
spending because "she is a woman who doesn't want to be labeled as soft
on defense, and she doesn't want to be shown as taking on big business."

As Clinton campaigned through a snowstorm in southeast Iowa, pledging
to "bring about the changes we need," Nader accused the Democratic
senator from New York of using empty rhetoric.

[Clinton] has not led the way against the avalanche of military
contracting, corporate crime, fraud and abuse," he said. "We want to
inform the people of Iowa about Hillary Clinton because all the focus
is on, do they have the experience and do they have the personal
charisma, and can they cross the aisle" Nader said.

"The issue is corporate power and who controls our political system and
it's not who has experience for six years or two years," he said,
alluding to an ongoing debate over experience between Clinton and
freshman Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

"She has experience in the Senate, and what that experience has meant
is going soft on cracking down on corporate crime, fraud, and abuse,
soft on cutting tens of millions in corporate subsidies," he continued.

The Clinton campaign declined to comment on Nader's criticism.

Nader, a four-time presidential candidate, called Edwards a Democratic
"glimmer of hope." He has long criticized Democrats as
indistinguishable from Republicans, chiding both parties as slaves to
corporate financing and interests.

It was Nader who famously — or infamously to many Democrats — siphoned
off enough liberal votes from Al Gore in 2000 to hand New Hampshire and
Florida, and as a result, the presidency, to George W. Bush. Since
2004, however, Nader has been increasingly controversial within the
political left. He was booed at a national conference of progressives
earlier this year.

But he remains a popular figure among some liberals. Activists are
particularly influential in the Iowa caucuses, if only because
participation asks hours of voters' time. Only a small portion of Iowa
Democrats caucused in 2004.

Clinton is currently locked in a heated three-way race with Obama and
Edwards in Iowa, the first contest of the presidential primaries.

On Monday, Nader also issued a public statement criticizing Clinton as
a "corporate Democrat," echoing the exact words Edwards uses to
challenge Clinton. Nader said he has watched Edwards from afar and sees
his more pugilistic brand of populism as an encouraging sign. 

"It's the only time I've heard a Democrat talk that way in a long
time," Nader said, acknowledging what was, for him, a rare moment of
praise for a Democratic leader.

"Iowa should decide which candidate stands for us," he added. "Edwards
is at least highlighting day after day that the issue is who controls
our country: big business or the people?"