An Ad Campaign Asserts a Bush-Nader Alliance

ASHINGTON, Aug. 23 - A new advertising campaign satirizing the Republican financial support of Ralph Nader's independent campaign for the presidency sums up the effort this way: Bush-Nader '04.

In a 60-second television advertisement that begins running on Tuesday an announcer alludes to an unlikely partnership between Mr. Bush, the conservative incumbent, and Mr. Nader, the long shot who has made a career out of championing liberal causes. The advertisement displays state by state where Republican groups have supported Mr. Nader.

"Republicans are helping Nader get on the ballot in Oregon, Nevada, Michigan, Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, even Florida," an announcer says. "Why? Because the right wing believes that helping Ralph Nader helps George Bush."

The advertisement is sponsored by TheNaderFactor.com, a liberal group seeking to prevent the re-election of President Bush.Chris Kofinis, a senior adviser to the group, said the goal of the advertisement was to discourage Mr. Nader from accepting money and help from Republicans in qualifying for ballots.

"We're talking about organized Republican operatives," Mr. Kofinis said. "They're not doing it nonbattleground states."

The advertisement concludes with a blue italicized Bush-Nader logo, a parody of the Bush-Cheney logo. The advertisement is tongue-in-cheek, Mr. Kofinis said, "but the message of the ad is that Republicans are helping Nader, and Nader is not disavowing that help."

The commercial cost $5,000 to produce, and the TheNaderFactor .com is spending an additional $20,000 to run it dozens of times this week in New Mexico and Wisconsin, where Mr. Nader won a significant number of votes in 2000. His deadline for submittting the necessary number of signatures for getting on the ballot in those states is Sept. 7.

Polls suggest Mr. Nader could get at least 2 percent to 3 percent of the vote in a dozen swing states.

"He is now at a point where his entire legacy may come down to him helping Bush stay in office for another four years and him cooperating with the right-wing groups that he's opposed," Mr. Kofinis said.

It would have been nice of the Slimes to put thenaderfactor.com's ties to the Democrats under even one-tenth of the scrutiny provided to the Swift Boat Veterans. Of course, they didn't. The Slimes won't point out LIBERAL bias and Kerry ties.

Here's what I've found out from a simple Internet search --- the group is largely a front for the building and construction trade, and depends heavily on contributions from unions. The funding for thenaderfactor.com comes from a 527 called the National Progress Fund. In July, the Painters & Allied Trades Union contributed $25,000 and the Sheet Metal Workers Union contributed $15,000 to their efforts.

Another $227,000 in funding came from the misnamed 527 "Americans for Jobs". $100,000 of the funding for Americans for Jobs came from the International Association of Machinists, $20,000 came from the Transport Workers Union, $25,000 from the International Association of Ironworkers and $50,000 from the Laborers Intl. Union. Americans for Jobs even took $50,000 from disgraced former Democrat Senator Robert Torricelli's Torricelli for Senate.

And Americans for Jobs had some big Democrat contributors as well. $200,000 came from S. Daniel Abraham, Chairman of Healthy Foods of America (who has also given $750,000 to the liberal Joint Victory Campaign 2004), and $50,000 came from Lewis Cullman of Cullman Ventures, who has given $ 1.65 Million to liberal-friendly 527s, including the Joint Victory Campaign 2004, America Coming Together and Moveon.org.

It took me less than an hour to figure this out. Why couldn't the Slimes do the same?

It's twofold. I leave Mr. Glassman to figure it out.

Another reason for helping Nader get on the ballot is his running will keep John Kerry honest about his positions... If he heads too far left to win support from Nader voters, he loses votes to Bush. If he moves too far to the right, he loses votes to Nader.

So, this is about the Democratic process as much as it is a strategy for making John Kerry look like a flip-flopper.

The commercial cost $5,000 to produce, and the TheNaderFactor .com is spending an additional $20,000 to run it dozens of times this week in New Mexico and Wisconsin,...

And the New York Times is amplifying the message ten-thousand-fold by giving the message prominent play in it's pages. How much you wanna bet this commercial never airs on broadcast TV... Ever. The point of this ad was to produce this article, which included absolutely no critical evaluation of the charges contained.

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