Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader said, during a campaign rally and fundraiser at the University of Louisville, if elected, his administration would end the U.S. military presence in World War II countries such as Germany, Italy and Japan to provide American students free tuition at public universities.
“These are developed nations, and they don’t need our help anymore,” Nader said.
In addition to leaving territories given to the U.S. after World War II, Nader promised to cut military spending and end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with a six month negotiated withdraw of military personnel and civilian contractors in both countries.
Nader also said he would repeal the No Child Left Behind Act and attach civic skills to each public school curriculum.
“Our children will be much more motivated to succeed if they are studying their own communities,” Nader said.
Continuing on education reform, Nader described education subsidies as a way for universities to get more money without actually helping students.
“The minute you give them a subsidy they increase tuition, because they want more money and they think students can afford the higher tuition,” Nader said.
Public education was one of several issues including increasing the minimum wage to $10, ending corporate bailouts and a single-payer health care plan Nader addressed during his two hour presentation which was attended by more than 200 people.
Jennifer Thrasher, a speech therapist at the Cerebral Palsy Children’s Center, said she plans to vote for Nader, because she sees the effect of social issues such as health care in comparison to European countries like the United Kingdom where two of her family members had children at no expense.
Thrasher said although she supports Nader, she fears he will not have enough national support to win the election.
“I voted for him in 2000, and I thought about it long afterward,” Thrasher said.
In 2000, Nader ran for the Green party, and some democrats blame him for Al Gore’s defeat in that election.
In 2004, Nader ran as an independent, but he only received 0.38 percent of the popular vote.
Johnny Masters, campaign worker, said that democrats have either ignored the Nader campaign or given them a hostile response.
“We contacted a list of 50 ‘progressive’ organizations in Louisville to let them know we were going to be here, and we did not get a single positive reply,” Masters said.
Marty Krase, campaign worker, said he and other campaign workers were told they were not allowed to hand out flyers on the University of Louisville campus, because they did not turn in the proper request forms within five business days of the event.
Krase said the refusal came from student activities coordinator Sharon Mudd.
“We had to go through hoops to even get to Sharon Mudd,” Krase said.
“We would get redirected and pointed to the wrong person, and when we tried to contact Mudd our calls would not get returned,” Krase said.
Mudd said the problem was the campaign did not follow proper procedure, and the university is in the middle of staff adjustments which she said could have caused the miscommunication.
“We have the policy that you have to follow procedure to hand out flyers if you’re not a student group,” Mudd said.
Mudd said she had talked to Masters when he came to her office, and she said she does reservations for the school, but she didn’t remember telling him he could not pass out fliers.
“Were in a transition right now, people are changing positions and they may have contacted us at the wrong time,” Mudd said.
“We don’t try to stop groups from coming to campus, but we must be consistent in our rules,” Mudd said
Tommy Kruse, campaign worker, cited a lack of national media coverage as one of the reasons their candidate is unheard of in the election season.
“Mainstream media is controlled by large corporations, so it’s really no surprise that he doesn’t get much coverage,” Kruse said.
Christina Thomas, communications junior, and Maryam Ahmed, anthropology junior, said they heard of Nader, but they didn’t know where he stood on issues.
“We kind of heard about him, but most of the time you only hear about McCain or Obama,” Thomas said.
Both Thomas and Ahmed said they plan to vote for Obama, but they said they believe it is important to have a several parties represented in every election.
“There should be more focus on at least a third party, because most of the time you are picking from the least of two evils,” said Ahmed.
Aside from the lack of press coverage, Nader is only on 45 state ballots, and he has not been invited to any of the debates.
Nader said he blames the Republican and Democratic parties for pushing a two party system.
“The 60th seed in the NCAA has a chance at getting to the championship, but the best third-party candidate can’t get on the debates because of the two parties,” Nader said.
The end of coal mining, an industry that provides employment to many living in the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky, was at the top of Nader’s local agenda.
Thirty three coal miners were killed in the United States from work-related accidents in 2008.
Nader said he would replace the jobs and resources from the coal mining industry with cleaner alternative energies.
Nader spoke out against large coal and oil companies.
“They don’t want a smarter energy choice, because efficiency reduces sales,” Nader said.
Nader has been a consumer advocate since the early 1960s.
By MICHAEL MARCELL
Staff Writer
mdmarcel@ius.edu