Editorial: Nader’s shadowy help

Friday, July 16, 2004 | 4:31 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

July 17 - 18, 2004

Ralph Nader's left-wing presidential campaign has been receiving help from unlikely sources all across the nation -- Republicans and right-wing groups. They are willing to lend a hand in the hope that Nader will prevent Democrats from capturing the White House again. Nader drained enough votes from Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 election to result in Republican George Bush's victory. Las Vegas Republican strategist Steve Wark says he raised $30,000 for Nader's signature-gathering effort to put him on the ballot in Nevada. The money, Wark said, went to a nonprofit group in Missouri called Choices for America, which turned the money over to JSM, a signature-gathering company that Nader hired. Nader's campaign denies receiving help from either Wark or Choices for America, but the denials are hard to swallow in light of Nader's deeds. Nader has willingly accep ted the presidential nomination of the Reform Party, whose standard bearer last election was right-wing candidate Pat Buchanan. And Nader has openly welcomed financial aid from Republicans and conservatives.

It is telling that Nader, who claims to want to "clean up" Washington and end the corrosive effect that money has on politics, is being aided by such a shadowy process where the public has no way of knowing for certain who is helping him get on the ballot. If Wark hadn't spoken up, Nevadans might never had known Republicans were assisting the effort here. That's because, as the Sun's Kirsten Searer reported Friday, federal law doesn't require nonprofit groups such as Choices for America to publicly report the donations they receive. If Nader were true to his convictions, he'd refuse money that can't be accounted for and he would forgo donations from people whose views are antithetical to his own. But we don't see that happening anytime soon because Nader's campaign isn't about principles, it's about soothing his ego as he tries to stay in the limelight he so craves.