Nader Facing Flak Over a Flirtation With Fulani [View All]

[Freddie Stubbs]

By E.J. Kessler

Consumer activist and independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader is facing increasing criticism over what detractors describe as his campaign's flirtation with organizations and individuals associated with Lenora Fulani, the New York-based radical activist with a long record of alleged anti-Jewish extremism.

Nader, whose 2000 Green Party candidacy widely is credited with costing Democrat Al Gore the presidency, gave an hour-long address in January at a conference in New Hampshire on the "Choosing an Independent President 2004 Campaign." The conference was convened by Fulani and her longtime associate Fred Newman, a Marxist psychologist and proponent of "social therapy," and sponsored by her organization, the Committee for a Unified Independent Party. Fulani, who was trained by Newman, is also a psychologist.

Former followers who have broken with Newman's social therapy movement have alleged that the Committee for a Unified Independent Party is "related" to what they describe as a cult led by Newman. A Web site, ex-IWP.org, contains testimony from some defectors alleging instances of "deceit," "manipulation" and "control."

Fulani, the two-time presidential candidate and erstwhile leader of the now-defunct New Alliance Party, styles herself as the voice of a national movement of independent voters and has been described in the press as controlling at least the downstate faction of New York's Independence Party, of which she is a state committee member. She endorsed Nader in an interview with a writer for the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard and spoke of her desire to "nominate" him as her party's candidate and to have a "dialogue" with him about "helping the campaign."

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