Nader receives presidential matching funds
The independent presidential candidacy of Ralph Nader will receive $411,000 in federal matching funds, the Federal Election Commission has announced. Larger sums will go to the now-defunct campaigns of Democrats Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr, and Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, as well as Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter.
Matching funds can be used through the primary season, which, for legal purposes, ends when the party nominating conventions conclude in late August and early September. Candidates who have dropped out of the race can still receive matching funds, which they can use to help pay off any outstanding debts
July 18th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Perhaps this is the whole objective of the Ralph Nader campaign: To collect funds from the Federal Government in order to fund all his ACORN and Far Leftist grass roots activities nationwide.
This way he can pay all his PIRG cronies using taxpayer dollars to do “community outreach.”
Very clever. Very clever indeed. Just amazing that nobody is looking into this.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Eric,
You are very naive on this issue, no offense.
In 2004 Nader was offered millions and millions of dollars for his what you call “Far Leftist grass roots activities nationwide”. These generally consist of corporate and governmental watchdog groups aimed at improving things for the consumer and citizens. Anyhow, if he raises maybe 10-20 million in this campaign, and he maybe gets 3 million in matching funds (because of the 250 cap) he would not get nearly as much as he would had he not run in 2004 or likely this year. If you know anything about his history, it would be a very easy conclusion to draw that he believes in what he is doing, and its all he knows how to do. Its all he has ever done his entire life. He does not have kids, his life is protecting citizen and consumer rights, and things are to the point there are very little avenues left for him to operate through effectively.
Do you realize if every time you bought a piece of fruit, it said made safer by Nader, or put on a seatbelt, or put gas in your car, or flew on an airplane, or voted on election day, or paid your taxes, or watched a sporting event, etc, etc, etc, etc…
He is everywhere, you just don’t realize it. And your complete lack of understanding shows through in your silly accusation.
-J
July 18th, 2008 at 9:30 am
far leftist…
hardly.
he’s where the dems used to be.
the dems are where the republicans used to be…
the republicans are pretty much where fascist europe used to be.
Nader is more in line with Eisenhower republicanism than anything else….
His policies put America first, instead of under the bus.
July 18th, 2008 at 11:16 am
If Nader just wanted to have made money he could have not run for president in 2004, as there were plenty of limousine liberals offered to shower money on his organizations if he didn’t run against John Kerry.
He said no. So much for the theory that he’s in this for the money.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I love when people make assumptions that anyone does any third party activity for money, glory or fame. Because thats the opposit of what third partyers get.
July 18th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
The only way to avoid living in the corpocracy is to vote for someone that rails against that control. Nader has ALWAYS pursued that end for the benefit of the constitution, and all of the people in this country. I’m not proud to be american, I’m shocked by how this country has ignored the transformation to ignorance. Dwight Eisenhower tried to warn us,
control of this country is no longer the peoples’, and if we don’t vote our conscience now, when will we? We as a people, should display a society that believes in and promotes fairness and justice in this country as an example for other governments to emulate. This is America’s responsibility.
Beware the military / industrial / corporate complex.
Vote Nader!
July 18th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Nader is the common man’s hero. He is one of the very very few that has consistently fought for us his entire life.
There are so few people in politics that you can look up to as having integrity—say what they will do and do what they say, have a track record of doing the right thing. During this election, those included Kucinich, Gravel, Nader and Paul (if you lean that way)...
The rest are part of the problem as far as I’m concerned.
I refuse to be on any guilt trip for giving my vote to Nader this time around. The Democrats have had their chance and so have the Republicans and between the two parties this country is more screwed up than ever. Time for a change. I’m so excited that Nader is on my state’s ballot.
July 18th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Nader should become the national chairman of the Green Party after this election.
Unify the Green Party.
Focus on recruiting Green Party candidates for 2009, and 435 for U.S. House in 2010.
That’s the best thing Ralph could do to actually build a party to implement his fundamentally conservative Green Party values.
July 18th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
I wish Nader the besr . He is an American Hero
July 18th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Isn’t this about half of what Ralph Nader had said he expected to receive when he was in that TV interview with George S. on ABC News This Week…
Of course the Green Party is rolllling in the $$$
Bernie Taupin and I are big Green Party contributors…
..whoooah…rotten peachs…rottenn.. in the sunnn…
July 19th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
While Obama and McCain are each around 45% in national polls, Ralph Nader and Bob Barr are each around 5% in national polls. To give candidates air time in proportion to the amount of support they enjoy, they would have to increase their coverage of the Nader and Barr campaigns dramatically. Let’s all ask them to be unbiased and to report on the various campaigns in proportion to their support/level of interest. Here is a list of contact pages and addresses for the cable networks:
letters@msnbc.com
Nightly@NBC.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6872152/
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77538,00. html
foxnewsonline@foxnews.com
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/hdlns/
July 21st, 2008 at 3:28 am
Eric does make a point about federal matching funds, just look at Pat Buchanan, he ran for the same reason. The system allows for a pretty good living for some people if they can qualify for matching funds. I know Babe Buchanan didn’t complain about getting around 100,000 dollars a year from those matching funds, when her brother ran for president.
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:47 am
Nader is not a guy running for the money. He’s already personally wealthy (apparently he still uses a typewriter, but he bet well on tech stocks – Cisco especially) but he lives on $25K a year. Also none of his organizations are involved in his presidential runs – certainly not the big name ones (PIRGs, Public Citizen, Clean Water Action, etc) which are all nonpartisan. He has a small retinue of advisors who’ve worked on his past runs and I’m sure are again, but given Nader’s emphasis on frugality I doubt any of them are making big money (or even over $60K)