Ralph Nader, the self-styled consumer crusader and perennial third-party presidential candidate, has conceded, telling the Free Press about 7 tonight that there was going to be “a landslide” for Barack Obama.
“The streets are going to be filled with revelry … both here and in Africa,” Nader predicted, followed by a 10-minute denunciation of most of the Democratic Party candidate’s policy and record.
Obama ran “a brilliant tactical campaign,” Nader said, but showed cowardice by failing to take on entrenched corporate interests or the Israel lobby in the U.S. While Americans “can be proud that an African American has become president,” Obama has done it without challenging the status quo, he said. Nader cited Obama’s support for federal assistance to General Motors, his nemesis for the last half century, as an example of “a serious character deficiency.”
Nader, who was accused of costing Democrat Al Gore the election when he received 7 million votes as the Green Party candidate in 2000, ran this year in Michigan under the banner of the Natural Law Party.
He said his 2008 campaign flagged because of media inattention and the exclusion of third party candidates from the televised debates.
