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- Subject: Nader Targets Non-Voters in Midwest
- From: AOLNews@aol.com
- Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 19:20:11 EDT
- Full-name: AOL News
Nader Targets Non-Voters in Midwest
.c The Associated Press
By EUN-KYUNG KIM
MILWAUKEE (AP) - Presidential candidate Ralph Nader and filmmaker Michael Moore, first famous for their criticism of General Motors, returned to the industrial Midwest on Wednesday for a ``nonvoter tour'' targeting young and disillusioned Americans.
Nader, the Green Party nominee, hopes to revive his campaign in union-heavy states like Wisconsin and Michigan, where his support has flagged after reaching as high as 8 percent last winter.
Moore, who wrote newsletters for Nader causes in the early 1980s, says he's happy to help. And if the celebrity they won by taking on the auto giant lures nonvoters, they're both glad to use it.
Nader's high-profile career as a consumer advocate got its start with his 1965 book ``Unsafe at Any Speed,'' a harshly critical look at U.S. auto manufacturing that focused on GM's Corvair. Moore's 1989 documentary ``Roger & Me'' assailed the company's actions in closing its plant in Moore's hometown of Flint, Mich.
Nader began the tour by meeting with community minority and union leaders before a rally at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he addressed racial issues.
``Race and class are inextricably intertwined - you can't deal with one effectively without dealing with the other,'' he said. ``People who get decent standards of living, they get decent health care, decent schools in prosperous neighborhoods. People who are poor are not going to get addressed in their problems.''
Nader said the government needs to adequately enforce its civil rights laws. He criticized the Department of Justice, saying its civil rights division has had a worse record in the areas of police violations and affirmative action under President Clinton than during the Reagan-Bush era.
Hundreds of students greeted Nader enthusiastically in the university's Student Union, with dozens more spilling into a hallway to hear his speech on a speaker.
Nader, who urged students to ``vote your conscience,'' suggested he was tired of being asked whether a vote for him would be a ``wasted'' one that could take support away from Democrat Al Gore and deliver the presidency to Republican George W. Bush.
``Why do you want to waste your vote on one of two corrupt political parties that have been working overtime to waste our democracy?'' he said.
Nader also paid a visit to a $100-per-person fund-raiser in Madison. About 130 people, including former talk show host Phil Donahue, attended the finger-food party for a chance to chat with the presidential candidate before he headed to a less expensive fund-raiser - this one for $10 a piece at the nearby Orpheum Theater.
Nader said the goal is to connect with students newly eligible to vote, and with disillusioned people who haven't cast ballots in decades.
Wisconsin and Michigan, two important battleground states, are considered tossups. Nader has a strong following in Michigan and his appearance on that state's ballot initially scared Democrats who feared he would siphon away votes from Gore. But Nader's poll ratings have slipped in recent months.
``It's a Catch-22. You don't go up in the polls unless you get mass media and you don't get mass media unless you go up in the polls,'' Nader said.
He said he hopes to rally his Midwest supporters in an effort to get into next month's presidential debates - which require national poll support of 15 percent. As always, he's also campaigning against the ``resurgence of corporate influence in the American democracy'' and free trade.
``We've already succeeded in one way because, you see, there's no doubt that out of November there is going to be a significant third party presence,'' he said.
He invites doubters to note upcoming ``super rallies'' by his campaign - on Friday at the Target Center in Minneapolis and Saturday at the Key Arena in Seattle. He hopes to match the success of a similar fund-raiser last month - his biggest campaign event so far - at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Ore., when about 10,000 people paid $7 apiece to hear him speak.
Moore sees other evidence of success, saying Nader has forced Gore to refocus his message.
``He's Mr. Populist now. His whole rhetoric has changed. Gore's all for the people and, as a result of doing that, his poll numbers have gone up,'' Moore said. ``The purpose of Ralph's candidacy is to keep his feet to the fire because otherwise he's going to be there at the behest of the people who are giving him tens of millions of dollars instead.''
AP-NY-09-20-00 1919EDT
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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