Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader is Iowa today. In a phone interview with Radio Iowa prior to his appearance in Ames, Nader says all the talk about whether explosives are missing in Iraq is a marginal issue designed to distract voters. He says the two parties love to spar over those issues, “because then they don’t have to face up to the needs of 47-million workers who work fulltime getting a wage they can live on. They’re now working on WalMart wages.” He says nobody can live on those wages. Nader says it also distracts from the issue of 45-million people who don’t have healthcare. Nader says he and his runningmate would provide a plan to deal with the wages and healthcare issues, as well as other everyday things facing voters. He says like here in Iowa where he would preserve rural life for small farmers and ranchers from the “relentless devastating takeover and destruction of vertically integrated industrial agriculture, like the giant pig farms that’re replacing small Iowa farmers and devastating the environment with their wastes. Nader says he’s the candidate that will end the war in Iraq and a responsible withdrawl of our troops. Nader says he continues to fight the “Big lies” by the democrats that voting for Nader will help President Bush. He says if the Republicans thought he was taking more votes away from Kerry than Bush, then why aren’t they doing advertising in key states they way they did in 2000. Nader says, “if the democrats will stop whinning, and stop trying to scapegoat and exclude us from the ballot with all their dirty tricks and coporate law firms’ phony lawsuits, maybe they would pay attention to needs of the American people that they’re ignoring along with the republicans.” Nader says he shares the concerns of many Americans that there’ll be problems with the voting process on election day. And he asks, “Who’s responsible for the whole election machinery in this country? The two parties, Democrat and Republican. They’ve messed it up so badly that we’re the laughingstock by people in western Europe and even Brazil and Venezuela who manage to put off their elections in a smooth way.” Nader says after the election is over, there needs to be broad-based election reform. Nader says we need a smooth system where people can vote, the votes are accurately counted and nobody’s disenfranchised. The latest poll from C-N-N released today shows Nader has one percent support in Iowa.
