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Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader challenged Al Gore"s populist credentials on Monday and urged him to reject campaign money from industries he criticized during his address to the Democratic National Convention.
"In his speech he challenged and criticized the giant drug companies, the
oil companies, the pharmaceutical industry, the HMOs.... He talked
populist but buys into corporate power," Nader said at a news conference
outside Staples Center, site of the Democratic convention last week.
Gore should reject the money poured into the party"s coffer"s, Nader
said. "Give the money back, Mr. Gore, or stand condemned of deceiving and
misleading the American people," he said. Accepting the Democratic
presidential nomination last week, Gore told delegates: "Big tobacco, big
oil, the big polluters, the pharmaceutical companies, the HMOs _
sometimes you have to be willing to stand up and say no, so families can
have a better life."
"He"s trying to make a passing grade in Populist 101," Nader said. "The
problem is for the past eight years Gore has been walking a corporate
line, not the populist line."
Nader insisted that he remains a contender in the presidential race
despite a new CBS News poll showing him with just 5 percent support
nationally.
"The Gore campaign has said they"re not losing any sleep over my campaign
and to that I say, slumber on, Al Gore, slumber on," he said. Earlier,
Nader, a longtime consumer advocate promoted the "committed life" in a
speech to incoming freshmen at Occidental College. He urged them to get
involved in social issues. "There is no ticket of admission to
democracy," Nader said. |
