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AMY GOODMAN: Here, you have John Edwards dropping out, and on the same day, longtime consumer advocate and two-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader launched a presidential exploratory committee to decide whether to run as an independent. Ralph Nader ran on the Green ticket in ’96 and 2000, as an independent in 2004, which would make him three-time presidential candidate. On his website, Ralph Nader is urging supporters to “discipline the corporate crooks and lobbyists and their corporate candidates." He joins us now in Washington, D.C. in studio.


Ralph Nader, what are your plans?


RALPH NADER: Well, I’ve launched the exploratory committee with a website, naderexplore08.org, for those who want to get more details, in order to test the waters in three areas. One is to see if we have an adequate number of volunteers to run a robust fifty-state campaign that would include a network of pro bono lawyers to deal with the obstruction to ballot access that the Democrats engaged in in ’04, filing twenty-three lawsuits against us in just twelve weeks in that year, most of which we won. And second, to get adequate resources, contributions, donations—obviously, we’re not taking any money from corporate sources or political action committees. And that’s possible on the website naderexplore08.org. And finally, to get a talented, committed staff that connects with people’s daily lives and that can help organize one thousand people in each congressional district, not just for ’08, but also for ’09 and later. Congress really is the pivot institution that is most susceptible to change by popular forces, and, of course, it’s the most powerful branch of our government, if they care to use that power, like the impeachment power or the war declaration power under our Constitution.


AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you, Ralph Nader, you announced this exploratory committee the day that John Edwards dropped out. You had said that Nader—you had said that “Edwards now has the most progressive message across a broad spectrum of any leading candidate I’ve seen in years,” while he was running. Are you coming in because he just left and you saw this progressive stance dropping out of the race?


RALPH NADER: Well, I didn’t expect John Edwards to drop out so quickly, because he said for weeks that he was going to go all the way to the convention, and there were reports that he was going to have enough delegates to perhaps broker the convention between, say, Obama and Clinton. So that was rather disappointing. But the signs were clear that he was coming in third.


And I think it’s very important to note that there’s a difference between a populist platform and a record of commitment over the years. And I think my forty years indicate that I can be relied on to really pursue the shift of power that’s necessary from the few to the many in the area of our political economy, in the area of our constitutional principles and in the area of domestic and foreign policy. I don’t think that necessarily was the case with Senator Edwards when he was a senator. So he did provide a very good service in focusing on poverty, which was a no-no word for years by the Democratic Party, including President Clinton. He would always refer to the middle class as if he didn’t have fifty million men, women and children in dire poverty in the country’s—in the world’s richest country.


AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to—


RALPH NADER: So I think there’s never enough forces of justice, Amy. There’s never enough forces of justice to combat the concentration of power in the hands of the few used against the many in our country, representing giant corporations who basically have turned Washington into corporate-occupied territory.


AMY GOODMAN: David Bonior, your response to the possible run of Ralph Nader for president of the United States?


DAVID BONIOR: Well, I’ve always been an admirer of Ralph Nader and his record, his long record, as he has just indicated, over forty-something years, and his work as a public citizen has just been one of the more outstanding efforts in this country on behalf of working folks and social and economic justice. So, you know, I really admire his work and his voice. And we need voices like Ralph Nader’s in this country speaking up on these issues.


I would say, however, though, that one of the things I think it’s important to look to in people is how they mature, how they grow. And one of the things that drew me to John Edwards was the fact that his maturation as an activist, as a person of commitment in social and economic justice, was quite an amazing thing to see, especially in the last, I’d say, five or six years. There were some votes that he cast in his early years in the Senate that I was not comfortable with. The war vote, for instance, was one of them. I helped lead the effort against the war in the House when he was voting for it with virtually everyone else in the Senate. But I watched him grow on that issue, as well as all the other socioeconomic issues that we’ve touched on here and raised his voice and not be afraid to raise his voice. And, you know, that speech he gave at Riverside Church relatively recently in which he quoted Dr. King by saying that silence is a betrayal, a takeoff on King’s remarks forty—when King spoke there on his opposition to the war in Vietnam. It’s pretty indicative, I think, of where John Edwards has come from over the course of the years, and I think that we need to recognize people who make that journey. It’s rare when people do it at that stage in their lives, so when they do it and they speak out and it’s meaningful and they show it through their actions over a period of years, I think we need to embrace them. And so, Ralph has a long record—there’s no doubt about that—the longest probably of any progressive in this country, but there are others we need to bring along, and young people, of course, are one in which he’s after, obviously, with his website and his entrée to the race. And—


AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think, David Bonior, of Ralph Nader running for president? What do you think it would mean for the presidential race in this country?


DAVID BONIOR: I think it’s always important to have voices that express progressive views and populist views. I mean, I’m glad Ron Paul—I mean, I don’t agree with Ron Paul on very many things. In fact, you know, it’s wherever the ’tween shall meet. When we were in the House together, we used to actually vote on things together, because we came from a different perspective.


AMY GOODMAN: So would you encourage Ralph Nader to run?


DAVID BONIOR: I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.


AMY GOODMAN: Would you encourage Ralph Nader to run?


DAVID BONIOR: That’s Ralph’s decision. And I’ll—we’ll watch and see how this develops, and we’ll watch and see how the other candidates respond in the Democratic race.


AMY GOODMAN: David Bonior, I want to thank you for being with us, national campaign manager for John Edwards. John Edwards dropped out of the presidential race yesterday, where he started, in New Orleans. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. When we come back, we’ll stay with Ralph Nader, consumer advocate, three-time presidential candidate. Will he run again? He’s started an exploratory committee. Stay with us.


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AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Ralph Nader, three-time presidential candidate. Will he make it four? He has just formed an exploratory committee to decide whether to run for president here in this year, 2008. Ralph Nader, the issue of running and taking away votes from the Democrats, take that on, something that has made many people very angry, feeling that you took the race from Al Gore at a time that was absolutely critical for this country.


RALPH NADER: Well, if you ask Al Gore, he’ll give you ten reasons, each of which independently was a cause of his losing. He believes he won—I agree he won—in Florida, but it was stolen from him before, during, and after the election by the Secretary of State and Jeb Bush, all the way from Tallahassee to that atrocious political decision by the Supreme Court. There are a lot of “what if’s,” Amy. What if he got Tennessee? What if he got Arkansas? What if the mayor of Florida didn’t go to Madrid and not bring out thousands of his votes?