A GLIMPSE OF RALPH NADER FOR US IN EUROPE

By MARK PAZNIOKASwww.HartfordCourant.com

WATERBURY - — His position papers are from 2004. His stump speech is classic riffs on corporate power and government neglect, themes honed over 40 years as America's watchdog.

But Ralph Nader said Saturday that the $700 billion financial rescue Congress passed Friday gives his third full-fledged campaign for president a new urgency and relevance.

"You know, the thing is so outrageous, it is hard to convey it and keep one's indignation level down," Nader said on a campaign swing through his native Connecticut.But he manages. At 74, Nader is equal parts dry humor and pure outrage, served up with a stolid, professorial delivery that takes the edge off his withering commentary. He frets that America is asleep, ignorant of the corporate power that managed to wring $700 billion out of Washington with little accountability or oversight.
"There seems to be no degradation of our democratic processes that will arouse either the media, the commentators or citizens, with very few exceptions," Nader said. He blames — well, everyone.

In Connecticut, he has special scorn for U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, for creating the illusion that Congress did more than roll over for the Bush administration. "He's not fooling anybody. Basically, it remains the Bush bill, with $150 billion of tax freebies," Nader said. "So, when Chris Dodd comes back to Connecticut, I hope that enough taxpayers will summon him to a public auditorium or two so he can explain himself."

A graduate of Princeton and Harvard, Nader relied on Greek mythology to insult the flamboyantly bipartisan Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman as "the Hermaphroditus of American politics."

At the rally in Waterbury, he dismissed the local freshman Democratic congressman, Chris Murphy, as the "puppy" and "house pet" of the congressional leadership.

Like every member of the congressional delegation except Rep. Joseph D. Courtney, D-2nd District, Murphy voted for the financial rescue, which will allow the treasury secretary to buy distressed securities in an effort to stabilize the financial markets.
Nader said the Bush administration stampeded the bill through Congress with the same "Chicken Little deceptions" employed to justify the invasion of Iraq. "The federal government is supposed to never alarm the financial markets. Now they deliberately panic the financial markets in order to get this bill through," Nader said. "OK, so what are they going to buy? What are they going to buy? There's no criteria."

In Waterbury, he addressed about 75 people at a rally in a defunct bank, now the local headquarters of the Independent Party, which nominated him for president. To reporters and then to the audience, Nader slashed left and right, never raising his voice. "I have never in 40-plus years seen a more corrupt cowardly and callous Congress, refusing to confront the most criminal recidivist presidency in American history," Nader said. "That is your government."

Nader has been a national figure since publication of "Unsafe at Any Speed," a book that established him as the archetype of a consumer advocate. He was celebrated by some and bemoaned by others in a documentary, "An Unreasonable Man."

Moffett and others have denounced Nader's campaigns as a self-indulgent folly that has drawn progressive votes away from Democrats. Nader rejects the accusation that he tipped the election to Bush in 2000 by being on the ballot in Florida. And he returns the scorn. Nader is distressed that ABC, CBS and NBC have given his candidacy "zero minutes" this year, but he sounds angry and wounded when he talks about how liberal commentators and radio hosts have shunned him.

"The liberal progressive press is so freaked out by the Republicans that they are willing to go for slightly less terrible Democrats," he said.

He shrugs off criticism from old colleagues in the citizens' action movement who see his politics as destructive.
Nader said those old colleagues are afraid to admit that the old ways of harnessing grass-roots power to influence Congress on issues such as auto safety no longer work. "I face reality. Washington has been shut down by corporations on citizen groups," Nader said. "We either quit and go to Monterey and watch the whales, or we go into the electoral arena and try to invigorate more civic and political energies with more and more people."

He remains a lanky, slightly stooped figure who shifts on his feet as he speaks, often glancing downward, as though fighting shyness. At the rally in Waterbury, he entered the building unnoticed, passing by a table loaded with pastry to pluck a small bunch of green grapes. After his speech, he stood to the side while an aide, Matt Zawisky, tried to coax the thinning crowd into writing the campaign a check. He held up an autographed copy of "Unsafe at Any Speed." He asked for $1,000. The campaign accepts Visa, MasterCard and Diners Club, he said. Maryann Pierce of Old Saybrook, who sat in the front row, raised her hand for $1,000. Others followed as in a reverse auction, offering lower amounts: $500 from the man on the side; $100 from a couple in the back.

"See, it's all out in the open," Nader whispered, smiling. "No Beverly Hills salons, where they cut deals."

He started the day in Winsted, where he was raised and remains a registered voter, then campaigned in Waterbury, Hartford and the University of Connecticut in Storrs. Approached by a Lebanese reporter in Hartford, Nader quickly slipped into the Arabic he learned as the son of Lebanese Christians. Unlike John McCain and Barack Obama, he is unafraid to criticize Israel or reach out to Muslims. On Friday, he appeared outside the Grand Mosque in Washington, D.C., where President Bush spoke out against anti-Arab bigotry after the 9/11 terror attacks.

In a letter to McCain and Obama, he asked them to make the same gesture, noting they have visited many churches and synagogues, but not a single mosque. He is waiting for a reply.