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Nader says system is rigged { October 7 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--nader-newyork1007oct07,0,7037865.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wirehttp://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--nader-newyork1007oct07,0,7037865.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire
Nader blasts Edwards, Bush, Kerry during campaign stop
By MARK JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer
October 7, 2004, 7:06 PM EDT
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Conceding he will not win the November presidential election, Ralph Nader continued Thursday attacking other candidates in the race including "sniveling coward" John Edwards.
Nader derided Edwards, the Democrats' vice presidential candidate, for not attacking Vice President Dick Cheney for his stance in favor of limiting awards in medical malpractice lawsuits during the Edwards-Cheney debate Tuesday night.
When asked if he thought there is a single state he could carry in November, Nader said: "Of course not, the system is rigged."
"Our two-party electoral dictatorship, the Democrat-Republican party, works overtime to make sure it has no competition to its surrender of our national government to the big corporations who have turned Washington D.C. into corporate occupied territory," Nader said before addressing a mostly college-age crowd of about 200 just a short distance from the state Capitol.
"This is not a candidacy that in one or two efforts can topple the two-party electoral dictatorship," Nader said. "But they are going to be exposed, they are going to be undermined and they are going to lose the confidence of the American people."
Nader discussed his opposition to the war in Iraq, saying he has a six-month plan to remove U.S. forces from the country while claiming that "a vote for John Kerry is a vote for war." He referred to President Bush as "one big corporation disguised as a human being."
He voiced his support of universal health care and decried the influence of corporate money in politics. He derided current U.S. policy toward illegal drugs as the "criminal injustice system."
The consumer advocate turned politician said he is on the ballot in more that 30 states, including New York, and is suing for ballot access in several others. Nader said he expects to be on the ballot in about 40 states and will mount write-in campaigns in the others.
Nader is the candidate of the Peace and Justice and Independence parties in New York.
Democrats worry that Nader will take some support from Kerry, potentially giving President Bush the edge in swing states considered critical by both parties in this year's election.
Critics have said Nader's candidacy in 2000 cost Democrat Al Gore the presidential election. Gore lost by just a few hundred votes in Florida, where Nader received 97,000 votes.
Mercedes Rodgers, 26, who voted for Nader in the last election and attended his appearance Thursday, said her vote for him again will not be a wasted one.
"I want to vote for change," she said. "I want to vote for someone who's going to bring change. I don't feel like I'm throwing my vote away."
After his stop in Albany, Nader made an appearance in Syracuse where he told several hundred supporters at a church that "Kerry is outhawking George Bush."
A Quinnipiac University poll released Sept. 15, showed Democrat John Kerry leading Bush in New York, 47 percent to 41 percent, with Ralph Nader at 4 percent. With Nader out of the race, Kerry led Bush, 49 percent to 42 percent.
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On the Net:
Nader Campaign: http://www.votenader.org/
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
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