It’s no secret that Republicans are going out of their way to help Ralph Nader gather signatures so he can appear on presidential ballots nationwide, but it’s rare when we get a peek at how, exactly, they’re doing it.
Bush was in New Hampshire on Friday for another event in a key swing state. Before Republicans heard from the president, however, they first encountered 10 to 15 signature gatherers looking to help Nader, and by extension, Bush.
Unlike previous instances, this wasn’t the Nader campaign looking for a friendly audience. Rather, this was Bush ally David Carney, a founder of Norway Hill Associates, a New Hampshire consulting firm, who saw a chance to help Bush by using Nader’s campaign to his own ends.
The local AP spoke to one young woman who explained the scheme.
Emily Sawka, of Kittery, Maine, was one of the workers Carney’s firm hired at $12-an-hour to gather the signatures.
The 25-year-old said she and other temporary workers were told to show up Friday morning at a Shaw’s supermarket in Stratham, near the dairy farm where Bush was to speak to supporters at a picnic that afternoon.
Sawka said she was given a clipboard and a script instructing her to tell those at the rally: “Without Nader, Bush would not be president.”
She also said her boss told her that “what we are doing is collecting signatures for Ralph Nader in support of Bush, because if we can get Ralph Nader on the ballot, then that would take votes away from John Kerry.”
To her credit, Sawka ultimately backed out of the scheme, because she found it wrong and “underhanded.” She did, however, share the script from which she was supposed to read.
Sawka provided Foster’s Daily Democrat with a copy of the script the workers were given. It advised them to approach people and say, “Excuse me sir/miss etc. I was wondering if you could take a second to help President Bush?”
The script also said: “In 2000 Nader got almost 30,000 votes — without his presence Al Gore would be president today.”
At what point, do you suppose, will Nader supporters realize why these things keep happening?
And, speaking of Nader’s ballot access, the consumer-advocate-turned-Bush-collaborator has been shunned by yet another state.
Ralph Nader failed to gather enough signatures to make the ballot in California as an independent presidential candidate, but his campaign said Saturday it will keep trying to get the consumer activist’s name before the state’s voters in November.
State election officials said Nader fell far short of the 153,035 signatures needed by Friday’s deadline. He submitted 82,923 with 56 of the state’s 58 counties reporting, said Lauren Hersh, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state’s office.
I’m not surprised Californians don’t want Ralph Nader on their presidential ballot this year, but am I surprised his campaign couldn’t meet such a low standard.
Four years ago, Nader received 418,707 votes in California in 2000, out of 11,000,000 votes cast. The campaign needed only a third of those voters to sign a petition to get their guy on the state ballot again.
As it turns out, the campaign barely got half the signatures it needed.
“It was very difficult collecting these signatures, as you can imagine,” [Nader’s campaign coordinator in California, Forrest Hill] said Saturday. “We tried to get some help, but the paid signature gatherers did not work for more than a week or two. They all quit. They said it was too abusive, the attacks that went on” from people opposed to Nader’s candidacy.