Ralph Nader shakes up Virginia governor's race with charge that Terry McAuliffe once tried to bribe him

Terry McAuliffe, the money man of the Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaigns, is running for governor of Virginia. Yes the behind-the-scenes back-slapper is looking to move out front.

With two other competitive candidates in the Democratic primary, McAuliffe has borrowed a page from Barack Obama's playbook, organizing a massive grassroots effort, campaigning (as seen above) with backing from will.i.am, stumping as an agent of change, someone who can "shake up" politics and business in the Old Dominion.

Now comes Ralph Nader, the bad boy of Democratic politics, to shake up McAuliffe.

A onetime car safety advocate and perennial presidential candidate, Nader is widely viewed as the spoiler who robbed Al Gore of the controversial 2000 election eventually decided for George W. Bush by drawing votes away from the Democratic vice president in Florida.

Now, Nader is telling reporters that in 2004, when McAuliffe was the Democratic National Committee chairman, he offered presidential candidate Nader an unspecified amount of money to spend in 31 states if he promised to stay out of 19 battleground states where he could potentially hurt Democrat John Kerry.

Although McAuliffe's staff has not denied the allegation, it's clearly are not happy about this.

"It looks like Ralph Nader misses seeing his name in the press," said spokeswoman Elisabeth Smith. "Terry's focused on talking with Virginians about jobs, not feeding Ralph Nader's ego."

Nader made the charge in an interview with the Washington Post, calling to verify the allegation, which was made in a recent book by Theresa Amato, who was Nader's national campaign manager in 2000 and 2004, called "Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny."

Nader not only confirmed it, he made clear he thinks the former DNC chairman and Syracuse, N.Y., native now running for Virginia's governor is unfit for office. Nader's actual words: “Terry McAuliffe is slipperier than an eel in olive oil.”

With the primary election on June 9, it's not clear how much such an allegation will hurt among the Democratic base, who regard Nader with all the warmth of a skunk at a family reunion.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photo credit: Bill Tiernan / Associated Press

Ralph Nader has some choice (and highfalutin) words for Barack Obama

Let's say this for Ralph Nader -- he cannot be accused of engaging in sound-bite politics.

This generation's version of Harold Stassen (an erstwhile Republican who ran for president -- with varying degrees of intensity -- nine times) today issued an "open letter" to Barack Obama. Here's how it opens:

In your nearly two-year presidential campaign, the words "hope and change," "change and hope" have been your trademark declarations. Yet there is an asymmetry between those objectives and your political character that succumbs to contrary centers of power that want not "hope and change" but the continuation of the power-entrenched status quo.

We think that means Nader views Obama as a charlatan.

Nader has pressed this case on any number of fronts as he has struggled to gain attention or traction in his latest campaign. In his new missive, he spotlights the Palestinian/Israeli issue:

To advance change and hope, the presidential persona requires character, courage, integrity -- not expediency, accommodation and short-range opportunism. Take, for example, your transformation from an articulate defender of Palestinian rights in Chicago before your run for the U.S. Senate to an acolyte, a dittoman for the hard-line AIPAC lobby, which bolsters the militaristic oppression, occupation, blockage, colonization and land-water seizures over the years of the Palestinian peoples and their shrunken territories in the West Bank and Gaza.

We think that means Nader (an Arab American) views Obama as a sellout.

The entire letter can be viewed here.

Intriguingly, Nader did not feel compelled to send off a simlar dispatch to John McCain (he can read polls as well as the next guy).

A Nader aide, Toby Heaps, told us the candidate believed "the most lucid writeup of McCain's character" was provided by Phillip Butler, who like the Republican endured years of imprisonment in North Vietnam during the Vietnam war. So Nader last week passed along to the national media the link to Butler's piece on why he isn't supporting McCain.

-- Don Frederick

And you thought the debates were over? Not for Bob Barr and Ralph Nader

John McCain and Barack Obama aren't the only presidential candidates making their final plea for votes this week.

Libertarian Party nominee Bob Barr and independent Ralph Nader are doing it, too.

And today, Barr and Nader will square off in their first -- and last -- debate. You might not notice. But The Ticket sees all.

OK, so it's not a 30-minute prime time television special. But it's a start.

The candidates will meet this afternoon in Cleveland to talk about the economy, according to a news release sent out by Barr's campaign Wednesday.

Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party nominee, will also take part in the debate. (Nader and Baldwin have met before. There's a video of their previous debate below here.)

Much to their chagrin, none of the third-party candidates were invited to any of the Obama-McCain debates put on by the Presidential Debate Commission this fall.

Nader, Barr, Baldwin and Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney had planned to appear at their own debate earlier this month at Columbia University, but that event was canceled because of scheduling conflicts.

In related news, the New Yorker's Raffi Khatchadourian has an excellent profile of Barr that gives a glimpse of what it's like to be a third-party candidate (Hint: They get no respect).

-- Kate Linthicum

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Ralph Nader weighs in on the debate (you know, the one he wasn't invited to)

Ralph Nader, while driving this afternoon through the bucolic hills of western Pennsylvania en route to a rally in Pittsburgh, said Friday's presidential debate must go on, despite John McCain's proposal to postpone it to allow time to craft a government bailout for finance firms.

"Sen. John McCain is engaged in showboating," said Nader, an independent presidential candidate who is on the ballot in at least 45 states.

"I think whatever is happening in the massive bailout, in the $700 billion blank check that Bush wants from the Congress, is not dependent on Sen. McCain's returning to Washington. But over 50 million American voters are depending on his showing up on Friday at Ole Miss for the debate."

If McCain demurs, Nader said he would love to fill in for him.

"If he doesn’t reconsider, I would be very happy to take his place in the empty chair on the stage," Nader said. "I'm the No. 3 presidential candidate."

The sunny demeanor belies Nader's heartfelt belief that the meetings between presidential nominees, organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates, are controlled by a biased cabal of major media companies and the Democratic and Republican parties. Nader, along with Bob Barr, has not been invited to participate.

The commission "is controlled by our two major competitors who don't want us to compete in front of tens of millions of Americans," Nader said. "Only in America. No other Western nation has such farces."

Nader spoke with The Ticket in advance of a five-day swing through California, starting with a 2 p.m. rally Friday in the Embassy Room of the Davidson Building at USC. From there, he will head to UC San Diego and Encinitas on Saturday, UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on Sunday, Monterey Peninsula College on Monday and San Francisco State on Tuesday.

Nader said he's visiting California because he expects to draw great support here, and the state is ignored by Barack Obama and McCain, aside from when they are trying to raise money.

"We will spend more time campaigning in California than both McCain and Obama together," Nader said. "Because Obama's going to win California, why bother? Because McCain knows he's going to lose it, why bother? Thirty-four million Californians don’t get the benefit of the two major parties' presidential campaigns. They just go to California to collect money. That’s disrespectful."

-- Seema Mehta

Ralph Nader, cranky and California-bound

Presidential candidate Ralph Nader -- yes, he's still running -- is unhappy that he's been denied a voice at Friday's first presidential debate at the University of Mississippi. So starting hours before the match-up, he and vice presidential running mate Matt Gonzalez will campaign in Los Angeles and along the California coast to decry "the unjust, restrictive, and undemocratic Commission on Presidential Debates."

According to the California Peace and Freedom Party nominee, who expects to be on the ballot in at least 45 states:

"The CPD, a corporation headed since its inception by two former chairs of the Democratic and Republican parties, shuts third-party candidates away from public view, maintaining a stranglehold on the two-party system and stifling the political conversation in this country."

For the record, Bob Barr's people aren't happy with the CPD either.

The Nader/Gonzalez ticket's popularity in the polls is paltry. But some surveys show it pulling potentially significant numbers in battleground states -- deja vu for Democrats who still blame Nader for Al Gore's loss to President Bush in 2000.

Perhaps an indication of their hopes of drawing support from young adults, Nader and Gonzalez will hold a rally at USC on Friday, the day of the debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, and then head to UC San Diego and Encinitas on Saturday, UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on Sunday, Monterey Peninsula College on Monday and San Francisco State on Tuesday.

-- Seema Mehta

Photo credit: Dave Allocca / Reuters