The independent campaign of Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez for President of the United States just announced that it is on the ballot in 45 states and has qualified as a write-in candidate in four more. The only state which denies its citizens the right to vote for Nader at this point is Oklahoma. The campaign is considering a lawsuit there since the state does not allow write-in votes and requires tens of thousands of signatures to qualify for the ballot, which places a heavy burden on campaigns that shun corporate financing.
This showing is more impressive than in Nader's previous runs in 2000 as the nominee of the Green Party, in which he was on 43 state ballots, and in 2004 as an independent, when lawsuits initiated by the Democratic Party and its backers limited him to 34.
The central theme of the Nader-Gonzalez campaign is limiting the control of both dominant political parties by commercial interests. On the campaign's website, www.votenader.org, Nader lays out a 14-point program of reform with which Obama and McCain disagree. The program ranges from a reversal of our middle east policy, to single-payer health care for all, to a rejection of nuclear power and fossil fuels in favor of clean renewable energy, to "an aggressive crackdown on corporate crime and corporate welfare".
