User:LavaBaron/Nader

Ralph Nader has run a national campaign as a candidate for president of the United States on three separate occasions, in 2000, 2004, and 2008.

In addition to those three campaigns, in 1996 Nader staged a "largely symbolic" effort designed, primarily, to draw attention to under-reported issues and assist the Green Party obtain ballot access certification for the 2000 election (ballot listing by party in many U.S. states requires a political party to have received a minimum number of votes for its leading candidate in the preceding election). Nader accepted nomination as a candidate of the Green Party on the condition that no more than $5,000 was spent, so that he would not have to file personal financial disclosures as required by U.S. elections law. Despite the virtually non-existent budget and lack of active campaigning, Nader ultimately received more than 600,000 votes.

Four years earlier, in 1992, he reluctantly allowed his name to be registered as a write-in candidate for both the Democratic Party nomination and Republican Party nomination in that year's New Hampshire primary. Though he ultimately engaged in active campaigning in New Hampshire, in one case drawing three-times the crowd at a rally which Bill Clinton attracted at the same location, he explained that he was standing for purposes of drawing attention to what he characterized as the "narrow, shallow, redundant and frantic parades" of U.S. elections and had no intention of actively seeking either party's nomination after the end of the New Hampshire primary.

Nader's 2000 presidential campaign, his most successful effort, was marked by a number of celebrity endorsers unprecedented for third-party candidates, as well as "Super Rallies" - large, arena gatherings of Nader supporters. One such event, at Madison Square Garden, saw a sell-out crowd of more than 15,000 "20 and 30 somethings" pay $20 each to hear Nader assail George Bush and Al Gore. Another event, at Boston's Fleet Center, drew more than 12,000. The narrow loss of Gore to Bush in the 2000 election resulted in charges that Nader had engineered a spoiler effect, costing Gore the election. Subsequent statistical analysis of voting patterns in the disputed Florida election has largely debunked this notion.

Nader announced on December 24, 2003, that he would not seek the Green Party's nomination for president in 2004, but did not rule out running as an independent candidate. He and Democratic candidate John Kerry held a widely publicized meeting early in the 2004 presidential campaign, during which Kerry sought to mollify Nader's concerns and preempt a second presidential run. Ultimately, Nader announced his candidacy for president. Terry McAuliffe stated that Nader had a "distinguished career, fighting for working families", and that McAuliffe "would hate to see part of his legacy being that he got us eight years of George Bush". Theresa Amato, Nader's national campaign manager in 2000 and 2004, later alleged that McAuliffe offered to pay-off Nader if he would not campaign in certain states, an allegation confirmed by Nader and undisputed by McAuliffe. Lawsuits and challenges to Nader's candidacy launched in a number of states blocked his access from a number of ballot lines, including those of California and Texas. In Pennsylvania, several Democratic Party legislators and staff members were later arrested after it was revealed they had embezzled state funds to finance private challenges against Nader's eligibility.

In February 2007, Nader criticized Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton as "a panderer and a flatterer", later describing her as someone who had "no political fortitude". His third, and final, campaign was launched twelve months later during an appearance on Meet the Press at which he announced his intention to run for president as an independent.