Here's The Point
— -- Here's an excerpt from ABCNEWS Radio's Here's The Point, with Mark Halperin.
To listen to the full broadcast, click here!
ABCNEWS Political Director Mark Halperin: "Do you see any Democrats thinking or about or talking about running for President who...would give you the confidence that they would lead a Democratic Party that you could be proud to support?"
Ralph Nader: "Yes. I think that Russ Feingold is showing signs of running. I think he was appalled by the so called U.S. Patriots Act taking away out civil liberties and constitutional freedoms way beyond what's necessary for national security. He was appalled by Daschle preventing him from offering amendments on the Senate Floor. And he was the only Senator to vote against that bill."
Halperin : "If he asked for your support, would you give it to him?"
Nader: "Well I would if I didn't run on the Green ticket. But I certainly would support a lot of his positions whether I ran or not … ..He's a courageous man …If Wellstone runs, that will also make it for a more progressive Democratic primary. I think it is going to be a lot more exciting in 2004 than it was in year 2000."
Halperin "You write about the press in your book. How do you think the press in doing covering the Enron story as in reflecting your view of the actual truth behind what happened?"
Nader: "I think first rate. This is going to be the pride of the media. Now they have come to grips with this nexus between corporate power corrupting our elections, corrupting out government and I think it's going to be a great story and I hope we can come out of that unlike the savings and loan scandals more than a decade ago with some fundamental corporate crime reforms."
Celebrities
Nader on celebrities and popular culture: "Phil Donahue has been championing civil rights, civil liberties for years. Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins similarly. Jackson Brown was a big opponent of nuclear power. Bonnie Rait for the environment. We had Willie Nelson supporting us for the small family farm preservation movement, signal leader there. And I really like that. Eddie Veder, he's been great on many issues. He actually had voter registration tables at his big rock concerts in the year 2000.
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