Issue date: 8/27/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Vanessa Sanchez / Daily Lobo Presidential candidate Ralph Nader speaks during a rally Tuesday in the SUB. Nader encouraged students to vote for small-party candidates and spoke about student and environmental issues.

Presidential candidate Ralph Nader visited UNM on Tuesday to drum up student interest in his campaign before making his way to the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

About 90 students and faculty members crowded in SUB Ballroom C to ask Nader questions and to support his grassroots campaign for the presidential seat.

Nader, 74, is on his fifth campaign for president. He advocates consumer rights and was criticized in 2000 after some said he stole votes from Al Gore, tipping the election toward President Bush.

Nader said his desire to revive the U.S. economy and preserve the environment while searching for new forms of energy is what makes him the best candidate for president.

"For 40 years I have not flip-flopped," he said. "I have taken on all these giant corporations, and that's why there are safer cars in this country, and that is why we have the Drinking Water Safety Act of 1974."

Nader said he has advocated other laws to protect the environment, such as the clean air and water laws that were passed in the early 1970s.

"We (had) many other changes in Washington before other corporations got such a tight grip on our Congress and executive branch," he said.

Nader ran as the presidential candidate on the Green Party ticket in 1996 and 2000. For his 2004 campaign, he ran as an independent candidate and is doing the same this year. So far, Nader is on the ballot in 32 states and is a write-in candidate for Oklahoma, North Carolina and Indiana.

Donald Gluck, president of the College Republicans, said adding Nader to the political equation in New Mexico could potentially cause problems for the Democratic Party.

"He does kind of foul up the works for the Democrats, but the Republicans don't set him loose to cause this trouble," Gluck said. "He seems to do it on his own. I guess he's sort of an example of going to an extreme."

Lee Drake, president of the College Democrats, said that by running for president as an independent candidate, Nader is demonstrating exactly the type of behavior that makes a free country great.

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