snort

[sisyphusshrugged]

the Nader campaign is upset because Democrats refused to sign Nader petitions and conspired to beat their opponents during their nominating convention

The think tank alleges that, during the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Democrats recruited lawyers and plotted strategies for challenging Nader signatures at state boards of elections and limiting the ability of voters to sign petitions for the independent presidential candidate.

"It is unprecedented for a national political party to have a core strategy of their campaign be to deny the ballot access of another candidate," said Sarah Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Committee for a Unified Independent Party.

The basis of the complaint, said Lyons and an attorney for the CUIP, is that the convention was funded by about $14 million of public money. They allege that a component of the convention was a series of meetings to hatch the plan to deny ballot access to Nader, who is blamed by some Democrats for pulling votes from Al Gore in 2000 and contributing to George W. Bush’s victory.

"They’ve challenged (Nader’s) petition in about every state he’s filed, except non-battleground states like Massachusetts," said Harry Kresky, a New York City attorney representing the CUIP.

The group claims that party officials in Oregon obstructed efforts to get Nader on the state ballot by sending Democratic volunteers to infiltrate a convention aimed at attracting support for the candidate. Signature-gathering efforts after the meeting were thwarted when the Democrats refused to sign the petition, the complaint alleges.

The complaint also alleges that Illinois state employees were assigned by House Speaker Michael Madigan, chairman of the state Democratic party, to go to the state Board of Elections to work on a challenge to the Nader petition there.

"If you look at it from the vantage point of a voter and a taxpayer, public money is going to decreasing the choices you have in a national election," said Lyons.

Aaron Rizzio, who coordinated the petition campaign that successfully qualified Nader for the New Hampshire ballot by submitting far more than the required 3,000 signatures, said he was not aware of any efforts by Democrats in the state to sabotage the signature drive.

Nader’s ballot access in New Hampshire was publicized earlier this month when temp workers hired by a Republican consulting firm gathered signatures from Bush supporters at a rally in Stratham where the president spoke. The workers were informed that the purpose of the drive was to help Bush.

The state Democratic party alleged in its own complaint with the FEC that the drive spearheaded by the firm, Norway Hill Associates, was an in-kind donation to the Nader campaign in violation of campaign finance law.

Hard to believe that this is the candidate who blamed the Democrats for what happened in '00 because they didn't fight hard enough.

FYI, Harry Kresky, Nader's lawyer, is also by some obscure coincidence an attorney for LaRouche and Buchanan associate, virulent anti-semite and all-around leftist political spoiler Lenora Fulani, last seen trying to game the NYC ballot initiative process so that no-one would have to put their party affiliation on the ballot and only the very rich would be able to finance their campaigns.

All in the interest of inclusion, no doubt.

She's a great supporter of our current mayor. You know, the media billionaire who thinks the first amendment is a suggestion.

Now I guess we take bets on who gets up with fleas.