{"id":2100,"date":"2004-07-12T10:31:40","date_gmt":"2004-07-12T15:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2100.html"},"modified":"2004-07-12T10:31:40","modified_gmt":"2004-07-12T15:31:40","slug":"does-the-nader-campaign-want-gop-money-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/does-the-nader-campaign-want-gop-money-or-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the Nader campaign want GOP money or not?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A rift is apparently developing within the Nader-Camejo camp over what do with GOP donations. It’s not a good sign for a team that doesn’t have a message anyway.<\/p>\n

At the outset, let’s acknowledge that the Nader campaign is clearly enjoying support<\/a> from Bush loyalists.<\/p>\n

Newsweek reported that one in 10 of Nader’s biggest donors — those who have given more than $1,000 — are longtime Republican donors.<\/p>\n

The donors include several of Bush’s so-called Rangers and Pioneers, the nickname given to contributors who have lassoed $200,000 and $100,000, respectively, for the president’s campaign.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s also fair to assume that these Republicans aren’t writing checks for Nader because they approve of his single-payer health care plan.<\/p>\n

To his credit, Peter Camejo, Nader’s running mate, seems to recognize the game the GOP is playing — and he doesn’t like it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“If there has been a wave of these (donations), then that’s something Ralph and I will have to talk about — and about returning their money,” he said Thursday in an interview with The Chronicle. “If you oppose the war, if you’re against the Patriot Act, your money is welcome.<\/p>\n

“But if your purpose is because you think this is going to have an electoral effect, we don’t want that money. I take no money from people who disagree with us,” Camejo said. “We’re not interested in that.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good for him — that’s a principled, defensible position. Too bad his running mate disagrees.
\n
\nAt the Howard Dean-Ralph Nader showdown<\/a> last week, the former Vermont governor noted that Nader is benefiting from generous donations offered by a major GOP fundraiser.<\/p>\n

Then, thrusting again at Nader’s soft underbelly, Dean asked him to return the money his campaign had received from Richard Egan, a Bush fundraiser from Massachusetts who served as Bush’s ambassador to Ireland. <\/p>\n

“I wasn’t aware he was a corporate criminal,” Nader said in defense of Egan. “He’s an American citizen. He might be a Republican, but he just happens to believe in civil liberties, maybe. I don’t even know the man. But Republicans are human beings, too.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Salon report on the debate noted that Nader’s supporters on hand for the event “applauded vigorously” after this remark.<\/p>\n

What a strange route Nader has traveled of late. He’s running for the third consecutive cycle because he doesn’t see a significant enough difference between Dems and Republicans, but now he’s reveling in GOP donations while his strongest supporters cheer the notion that “Republicans are human beings, too.”<\/p>\n

To whom, exactly, is this message designed to appeal?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A rift is apparently developing within the Nader-Camejo camp over what do with GOP donations. It’s not a good sign for a team that doesn’t have a message anyway. At the outset, let’s acknowledge that the Nader campaign is clearly enjoying support from Bush loyalists. Newsweek reported that one in 10 of Nader’s biggest donors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}