GOP donors double dipping with Nader

[Judi Lynn]

GOP donors double dipping with Nader

Contributors deny that financial support is designed to hurt Kerry


10:29 PM CST on Friday, March 26, 2004


By WAYNE SLATER / The Dallas Morning News



AUSTIN – Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader is getting a little help from his friends – and from George W. Bush's friends.

Nearly 10 percent of the Nader contributors who have given him at least $250 each have a history of supporting the Republican president, national GOP candidates or the party, according to computer-assisted review of financial records by The Dallas Morning News.

Among the new crop of Nader donors: actor and former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein, Florida frozen-food magnate Jeno Paulucci and Pennsylvania oil company executive Terrence Jacobs. All have strong ties to the GOP.
(snip)

Republicans who have given to Mr. Nader offered a variety of explanations, including a desire to provide voters a choice in November and to highlight the consumer advocate's issues. Some donors said they were miffed by efforts, primarily Democrats, to keep Mr. Nader off the ballot.
(snip/...)

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/032704dnpolnader.11e3e.html
(Free registration required)

[DeaconBlues]

1. Every supporter of Nader should be sent this article

Let 'em know who their allies are.

[President Jesus]

39. Campaign cash trail of Stein, Paulucci, and Jacobs

The Nader records haven't made it through the FEC database (it can take up to 3 months), but here's a long trail of donations that these three chumps have made over th past 12 years:

Ben Stein
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=CA&last=Stein&first=Benjamin

Jeno Paulucci
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=FL&last=Paulucci&first=Jeno

Terrence Jacobs
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=PA&last=Jacobs&first=Terrence

[bucknaked]

2. More instances of intellectual honesty from the Republicans.

So this is what they're resorting to, eh?

Smacks of desperation to me.

[Gman]

3. Nader probably has GOP fundraisers working for him

Nader's doing the coordinated cammpaign with the GOP.

Nader's going to do his dead level best to make sure Kerry loses. Maybe Nader wants a position in the next Bush administration.

[Jackpine Radical]

41. Well, I suppose Sharpton has a lot of "secret friends"

who are kind of at loose ends these days...

[i_c_a_White_Ghost]

4. More GOP Lies

let me get this straight, Pennsylvania oil is interested in the issues of a known envirnomentalist...ummm ok. Just wanted to make sure i wasn't dreaming. You can't make this stuff up.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. I guess the fact that GOP backers also funded Nader's ad campaign...

...in the U. S. Northwest during the 2000 campaign also strikes you as a fantasy?

Here's a clue for you...the more voters that Nader can attract from the Democratic base, the better the GOP likes it. Therefore, they are more than willing to give money to Nader's campaign if they feel it will hurt Kerry.

Yes, you're correct, certain things just can't be made up...but this isn't one of them.

[tabasco]

9. Ummm, no.

"Pennsylvania oil is interested in the issues of a known envirnomentalist"
No - they want Bush elected. Get it now?

[Crunchy Frog]

26. Of course the other possible explanation

is that Pennsylvania oil is interested in dividing the environmental vote is such a way that Bush would be more likely to win a second term.

That is of course, and outlandish suggestion. I mean I'm sure that such an idea would never even occur to the Republicans.

[linda d]

5. al sharpton also received

considerable gop support -- keep in mind roger stone's assist to the sharpton campaign.

[UpInArms]

6. so when did an oil company want

consumer advocacy to be highlighted?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. You and I both know that oil companies care about the consumer...

...only as long as that consumer is paying for their products.

But, they also know that if they give money to Nader that will prolong Nader's campaign. They hope that will hurt Kerry by taking votes away from his base.

All's fair in love, war, and politics.

[reprehensor]

10. Bastards.

Dirty rotten bastards.

[Just Me]

11. Those GOPs must be believin',...

,...that ole' Ralphie is too "moral" to stab them in the back and play their game even better than they do. I will be watching Ralph very carefully,...and taking notes.

[mobuto]

13. Ralph Nader doesn't have a moral bone in his body

He'd run over his own mother in a Corvair if he thought it'd help him.

[Just Me]

14. Ya' think? How come? *eom*

[mobuto]

15. How come?

Because he's willing to overturn his entire life's work on the environment and on consumer safety in order to make successive publicity stunts.

[Just Me]

17. Maybe he's become wise and calculating,...

,...to match the calculations of the professional politicians who have proven they don't give a crap about the environment and consumer safety. Maybe he's learning how to fight back.

Whaddya' think?

[mobuto]

18. Um

Ralph Nader was able over the years to coerce those "professional politicians" (if Ralph Nader isn't a professional politician, btw, then what is he?) to pass all sorts of environmental and consumer protections. So I take you're saying that Nader's contributions were not important?

Because either they were, in which case you're wrong because the politicians in Washington are indeed capable of making positive change, or they weren't, in which case Ralph Nader's life has been a total waste.

In fact the Bush Administration has taken on the responsibility of rolling back the safety standards, environmental protections, consumer rights, of all kinds, that Nader has devoted his life to getting through. He's sold his own agenda up the river by enabling the most radically right-wing government in the history of the Republic.

[Just Me]

19. Forked tongues and presumptious rhetoric are worthless.

The man is valuable. I do not believe either you or I are so morally righteous as to dehumanize or demonize this man's contributions. I do not believe that an engagement in some one-dimensional, single-faceted persecution of anyone advances any solution or hope for the future.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

22. Nader has brought all of this on himself...

...by not only taking votes away from Gore during the 2000 election, but also openly stating that he would vote for Bush over Gore.

Nader was indeed a champion of the environment at one time, but somewhere along the way he has become morally bankrupt. He has made the decision to sacrifice all that he has worked for over the years to help the NeoCons stay in office.

Disgusting.

[snippy]

25. Nader became "morally bankrupt" when he became wealthy by investing

in the corporations he once criticized. It was just a change in priorities and his priority became amassing wealth. His current campaign is an attempt to prevent his precious portfolio from suffering under an ethically and environmentally responsible government. Nader knows that by working for the election of Bush, he will profit personally.

[dfong63]

37. wrong

Nader has brought all of this on himself... by not only taking votes away from Gore during the 2000 election,

wrong. Nader didn't "take" votes from Gore, because those votes didn't belong to Gore in the first place. how arrogant to think that people should be forced to vote for Gore (or now Kerry) by depriving them of any alternatives. that's not democracy.

[Crunchy Frog]

29. Oh, I agree he's valuable alright.

The real question is which group of people is he most valuable to at this time. I think that the source of some of his campaign contributions gives some suggestion as to who that might be.

Oh, and I applaud his engaging in activism that advances progressive values, but when he is persuing a course of deliberately trying to take votes away from the only man who can beat GWB then he is definitely not advancing any hope for the future.

[fujiyama]

31. Fuck him...

He's worthless now. He hasn't done anything useful in the last thirty years.

[Crunchy Frog]

28. Maybe he's just decided

that if you can't beat them, you might as well join them. If you can join them, and get away with appearing to be righteous and progressive, all the better.

It's certainly no skin off of his wallet.

[The Zanti Regent]

38. Tell that to my nephew!

Jon lies in Walter Reed, his spinal cord severed by an Iraqui bullet, thanks to Nader.

23 years old and he's a quadraplegic for life because Nader has an insatiable self-centered ego!

[mobuto]

12. Where can I contribute to Roy Moore's Presidential Campaign?

Bastards.

[Just Me]

21. Sometimes being "passionate" can be quite destructive.

Don't you agree,...especially when heightened emotions are involved?

I don't know about anyone else; but, in my personal experience, when my feelings are in charge the environment is further physically charged and the rational/thinking minds shut down.

Geez,...

,...when has this kind of "emotional" reactive stuff ever worked to improve anything? NEVER!!! It is simply demonstrative of another level of violence,...an emotional violence,...which is every bit as destructive as the physical breed (for anyone who happens to be in denial of THAT).

Escape the "psy-ops" phenomenon which is specifically directed at stirring emotions which stir your body and shut down your mind.

Pull out,...breathe,...do whatever it takes to calm your body and distill your emotions so that you can THINK, again.

[The Magistrate]

30. Do Give It A Rest, Ma'am

Wrecker Nader is a witting agent of the worst elements of reaction in our polity today. His aim is the defeat of the Democratic Party candidate for President. He is therefore in a genuine alliance with the Republican Party: the true glue of alliance being overlap of interest, not principle or affection. Republicans will donate money to him as part of a strategy to depress turn-out for the Democratic Party, with which Wrecker Nader will eagerly cooperate to the best of his poor ability.

"Can't nobody here play this game?"

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[sadiesworld]

32. What in the hell are you going on about?

[VolcanoJen]

16. Ben Stein is a Noxious Weed.

Unfunny, too.

:grr:

[President Jesus]

40. ...and here's proof of that

http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=CA&last=Stein&first=Benjamin

[jamesinca]

20. This is a double edged sword

Nader talks an anti Bush message, swaying decline to state/ undecideds to Kerry or Nader. It may pull votes away from Kerry.

[Democat]

23. Nader is GOP?

Would you be surprised to find out Nader was working for Bush?

[seventhson]

24. Nope - He's a Princeton Spook and Classmate/Schoolmate of Rumsfeld

whom he frequently adulated on the stump in 2000.

Carlucci (Carlyle group and CIA assassin crew who ok'd the killing of Patrice Lumumba) is another Nader schoolmate like Rummy.

Nader is a right wing spook sleeper mole IMHO.

Everything about him says this is the case.

[Crunchy Frog]

27. How dare anyone impugn the integrity

of St. Ralph by publishing such a piece of drivel, and suggesting that he might be taking money from Republicans that want Bush to win.

I'm certain that Ralph would never do such a thing. His intentions are completely honorable. Why are you trying to alienate the true progressives on this board? <sarcasm>

[MadHound]

33. Dateline, '00 presidential debacle

Well over forty plus GOP donors double dip and give $100,000 and up to the Dems. Topping the list is Phillip Morris, generously awarding the GOP and the Dems over two million apiece.

So, Ralph gets in on the double, or triple dip action to a relatively minor degree and is deemed impure. Yet the irony of the matter is that the Dem and 'Pug parties have both been the benaficiaries of this incestous practice for years and decades now. It is how the corporations and priveledged elite in this country hedge their bets and retain control. It is also what is at the root of the two party/same corporate master system of government that we see rearing it's ugly head today.

It is also the best reason in the world to have publicly financed campaigns in all state and federal elections.

So perhaps we should all work to such a constructive solution, rather than pointing out the faults of others, and simultaneously ignoring one's own hypocrisy.

[John_H]

34. LOL! Where are DU's Naderite regulars? Will Ralph return these donations?

The FEC better make sure Nader doesn't use this republican money to increase his shares of the Wal-Mart and Pfizer owning Fidelity Fund or funding another union busting regieme at his front...er...organization.

[Dr Fate]

35. Nader should ashamed of this kind of consorting...

...I thought he was AGAINST monied, conservative interests- but it looks like he is FUNDED by them...

[indypaul]

36. Once again

"past is prologue." Preaching the message of JFK, RFK and
MLK but practicing the politics of Strohm Thurmond and George
Wallace. If the Republicans are assured that Nader would
drain anything from 1% to 5% of the vote there will always
be plenty of money around for him to support their purpose.
One can only hope that the history of 1968 and 2000 does not
repeat itself and the history of 1948 will prevail in so far
as third party candidates are concerned. If Ralph Nader wants
to join the likes of Thurmond and Wallace in history that is
his concern. However, one can only hope there will be nowhere
near 1% of the electorate duped into following his lead and
believing his message.