ELECTION 2008 DEMOCRATS: Nader jumps in

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Consumer advocate Ralph Nader announced yesterday he's running for president, a move that isn't likely to put him in the White House but that could shave votes from the Democratic nominee in November's election.

Nader, who ran as the Green Party candidate for president in 2000, announced his White House intentions on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday.

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Nader's bid would be bad for whichever Democrat ultimately faces likely Republican nominee Sen. John McCain in November.

She called Nader's candidacy "a passing fancy" but conceded the only party likely to be hurt by it was the Democrats, adding, "I can't think of any Republicans that would vote for him."

Nader, 73, said he is running because mainstream candidates are too closely tied to corporate America. "The issue is do they have the moral courage, do they have the fortitude to stand up against the corporate powers and get things done for the American people?" Nader said. "We need to shift the power from the few to the many."

Sen. Barack Obama dismissed Nader's latest candidacy at a news conference in Ohio, calling him a perennial presidential campaigner. "He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush, and eight years later I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about," Obama said.

Nader has appeared on ballots as a third-party presidential candidate in 1996, 2000 and 2004 - each time taking only a fraction of the vote. In 1996 and 2004 he won around 1 percent of the popular vote. In 2000, he garnered 2.7 percent - which some blame for Gore's loss.

"His being on the Green Party prevented Al Gore from being the greenest president we could have had and I think that's really unfortunate," Clinton told reporters on her campaign plane yesterday.

Robert Zimmerman, Gore's New York State managing chair in 2000, put it more forcefully: "Ralph Nader's legacy is the criminal negligence and corruption of the Bush administration."

During the NBC appearance, Nader downplayed concerns this would occur again. "If Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form."

Nader first made a name for himself writing "Unsafe at Any Speed," a 1965 book that spurred the passage of tougher safety standards for passenger vehicles, and he fought to curtail misleading advertising and place warning labels on cigarettes.

"It is quite presumptuous of him to believe he's qualified to be president of the United States because he annoyed a bunch of companies a few years ago," said Matt Bennett of Third Way, a left-leaning Washington think tank.

Bennett said Nader's run doesn't present the same kind of threat to mainstream candidates as the one mulled by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg because Nader lacks executive experience. "Nader is running on his reputation as a gadfly," Bennett said.

Still, some observers said a third candidate could potentially gum up the electoral works.

"In a couple of close states in November his presence could conceivably tilt results in one way or another," said Andrew Polsky, a political-science professor at Hunter College in New York. "He tends to draw slightly more liberal voters. And in a close election that could make a significant difference."

Clinton stopped in Rhode Island yesterday for a fundraiser and two campaign events where she pushed her plan to reform health care and kept up pressure on Obama, whose hopeful rhetoric she parodied for a crowd at a college here.

"Now I can stand up here and say: 'Let's just get everybody together. Let's get unified.' The sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect," she joked. "Maybe I've just lived a little long, but I have no illusions about how hard this is going to be."

Rhode Island's primary on March 4 can only net Clinton 21 delegates. On the same day, races in delegate-rich Texas and Ohio could prove decisive for her candidacy as she struggles to regain footing after losing 11 straight primaries and caucuses to Obama.

In the delegate race, Clinton trails with 1,024 to Obama's 1,178, with roughly a third of the total still to be awarded, according to The Associated Press.

Related topic galleries: Ralph Nader, Elections, New York, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Barack Obama, Health and Safety at School