Ralph Nader calls Democrats whiners
0:49 AM 11/09/03
Scott Milfred State government reporter

Consumer advocate and failed Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader said Saturday he'll decide by the end of the year if he's running for the White House again in 2004 - something a Madison man and past supporter publicly urged him against. <

Nader also called Democrats "chronic whiners" for continuing to blame him for the election of Republican President George Bush in 2000. <

"They should realize that the retrospect on Florida concluded (Democrat Al) Gore won Florida," Nader told the Wisconsin State Journal shortly after his speech at a the National Conference on Media Reform at UW-Madison on Saturday morning. <

"Gore won the election," Nader continued. "It was stolen from the Democrats. And they should concentrate on the thieves and the blunderers in Florida, not on the Green Party." <

He added that 300,000 registered Democrats in Florida voted for Bush. <

"I think the Democrats can be fairly charged with chronic whining, and they ought to look at themselves first and foremost," Nader concluded. <

Jay Gold of Madison wasn't so sure. Near the end of Nader's speech to several hundred people in the Humanities building on campus, Gold stood to make a request. <

Gold said he agrees with many of Nader's positions and supported his past campaigns with money and votes. But, "Please don't run again next year," Gold implored Nader. "There's too much at stake." <

Nader responded: "Please, never tell any candidate not to speak." <

When a second audience member and admirer raised the same issue, Nader said he agrees on the need to defeat Bush next year, whom he called "the west Texas sheriff out of control." <

"The question you have to ask is: Do the Democrats know how to do it?" Nader said to applause and cheers. <

Nader was a featured speaker at the three-day conference that wraps up today with a talk by political commentator and comedian Al Franken. The conference registered about 1,600 people including about 200 volunteers. <

The conference's immediate goal is to roll back a Federal Communications Commission decision allowing media companies to get bigger. A court challenge has stopped the new rules from taking effect for now. <

Nader touted his plan Saturday for requiring television and radio stations to relinquish one hour of prime and drive time programming each day that would revert to the true owners of the airwaves - the public. <

People who listen to and watch broadcasts could produce segments of their own to air, he said. If they need money, perhaps the public should charge broadcasters some "rent" for the other 23 hours a day media companies get exclusive access to certain frequencies. <

"We've got to have community-owned and audience-owned media that is not commercial if we're going to have a vibrant democracy," Nader said. "Democracy that has to rely on commercial media and all the frivolity, sensationalism, advertising pressure and myopia, is not going to be able to extend the civic impulses, the civic demands of its people." <

Nader said major news outlets fail to cover Africa and South America unless there's a coup or suspected terrorists there. He said most college and union newspapers fail to challenge or investigate school administrations and serious risks to workers. <

Many major news sources do produce revealing and important investigative reports, Nader acknowledged. But rarely do those reports prompt change, he lamented. Politicians, citizen groups and the news sources themselves often fail to follow up and push for reform, he said. <

Nader belittled late-evening TV news as 90 percent entertainment and ads. The programs also obsess over weather statistics and graphics and pass off street crimes as big news. The sound bite has become so short it's now a "sound bark," Nader said. <

But there's hope for a more diverse and inclusive media, Nader said. While conservatives and liberals disagree on many issues, "they agree on one," he said. "They want voice."