Ralph Nader, An Unreasonable Candidate?

• Ralph Nader, 73, announced his candidacy Sunday on Meet the Press. It is his fifth run for the Presidency having already run in 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004.
• In his previous campaigns Nader has run as an Independent and as the Green Party nominee. It is unclear from his website if he will run as an Independent or have a party affiliation in this year's campaign.
• He said "You take that framework of people feeling locked out, shut out, marginalized and disrespected," he said. "You go from Iraq, to Palestine to Israel, from Enron to Wall Street, from Katrina to the bumbling of the Bush administration, to the complicity of the Democrats in not stopping him on the war, stopping him on the tax cuts." "In that context, I have decided to run for president,"
• The home page of www.votenader.org asks "Which side are you on?" and then lists "corporate greed", "corporate power" and "corporate control" on one side and "people fighting back" on the other.
• So who is Ralph Nader? He was born to Lebanese immigrants whose native language was Arabic which Nader has spoken since he was a child.
• Ralph Nader graduated from Princeton University in 1955 and Harvard Law School in 1958 before serving 6 months in the US Army in 1959. The details surrounding his short stint in the Army are not readily available.
• He began his career as a lawyer in Hartford, Connecticut. Nader also lectured on History and Government at the University of Hartford between 1961 and 1963 before making the move to Washington, DC in 1964.
• He became a consumer safety advocate against the automobile industry. His efforts led to the passage of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act in 1966. This Act established the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
• Nader has founded many non-profit organizations and continues his activism for many diverse causes.
• In 2006 he starred as himself in the movie An Unreasonable Man (trailer can be viewed at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0492499/trailers-screenplay-E30800-314)
  
  Sources:
  http://www.votenader.org/media/2008/02/24/nader-launches-presidential-bid/
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader#_note-7
  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0492499/
  
  
  
  
  Ralph Nader, An Unreasonable Candidate?