In this interview the consumer advocate, corporate critic and three-time presidential candidate discusses more of the major presidential contenders including Obomba, Edwards, Giuliani, McCain and possible candidates like Bloomburg and Fred Thompson.

Here’s another excerpt from the interview:

AMY GOODMAN: Barack Obama.

RALPH NADER: Great capacity. He knows the score. He knows who has power in the country. He was a community organizer in Chicago after a sterling record at the Harvard Law School. He could have gone and cashed in. But, as he said in his book, how can you keep raising that kind of money from those kind of interests and not have it affect you? And he’s now in a race with Hillary to raise 300 million bucks. He’s trying to do a lot of it on the internet in small amounts, but he’s going to one economic sector interest after another raising money. And so, the question is whether he’s going to mobilize the people or he’s going to parade in front of the people. And if he does that, he’s not going to be a distinguished winner if he wins.

I was very upset the other day when I heard him say publicly that he wanted to expand and modernize the military. I mean, really, the military needs more Trident submarines, huh? It needs more aircraft carriers. It’s already half of the budget, the operating budget of the US government. And there’s no major enemy left. The Soviet Union is gone, unless you thing Moldova is a threat, and communist China is converting into—from criminal communism to criminal capitalism. They want our jobs and industry. They’re not going to send missiles over here. So, of course, other perils are being wildly exaggerated and provoked into further expansion: the so-called war on terrorism and a criminal war in Iraq, which even Bush’s CIA chief and General Casey and others have said are provoking the insurgency, enlarging it and attracting more people to be trained in sabotage and terrorism from other countries. So that’s a real powerful antiterrorist policy. You pursue a policy against terrorists with state terrorism. You pursue a policy against terrorists and expand the number of terrorists. I mean, this should be a concept that could be easily enveloped by the limited mind of George W. Bush.

AMY GOODMAN: John Edwards.

RALPH NADER: Edwards making a good point on poverty. That was a no-no with Democratic [inaudible]. You look at Clinton’s speeches. It’s all middle class. He never would say “poverty.” He’d never talk about 50 million Americans in real poverty and tens of millions of more Americans in a state called—a category called “near poverty.” And, but, you know he’s got to become much more populist in a much more specific way. He should become the solar energy candidate. He should become the free communications candidate. He should become the affordable housing. More specific, not just, you know, the two Americas. And above all, he should become the law enforcement candidate against the corporate outlaws, the corporate exploiters. And he knows how to do that, but, you know, he has to raise money, too.

AMY GOODMAN: Rudolph Giuliani.

RALPH NADER: And I might add, he’s not good on foreign policy—Edwards is not good on foreign policy. Rudy Giuliani? Rudy Giuliani is the one-note candidate. No one has ever made more political capital out of what might be called “9/11 showupmanship.” I mean, what did he really do? He showed up, which is—quicker than Bush did, right? He did nothing for the massive contamination of the lungs of the firefighters. In fact, he opposed their full compensation rights. Or the police or the volunteers? He just turned his back on these people. There have been very good books written deflating the fraud of Rudy Giuliani. He’s also an authoritarian candidate. Don’t bet your civil liberties on Giuliani. He thinks the PATRIOT Act is weak. So there’s a real authoritarian language. If you look at the language that he’s conveying around the country, it’s frightening.

AMY GOODMAN: John McCain?

RALPH NADER: John McCain? He’s good on auto safety. He tries to do something on campaign finance reform, although he plays the game and has to raise it from the K Street lobbyists. He’s terrible on the war. I don’t know what got into this mind of his. I mean, he had great authority to be as good as Senator Chuck Hagel on it and to say it was the wrong war. He could have opposed it. But he stuck, and that’s why he’s going to have trouble even getting the nomination. And if he gets it, he’s not going to get elected. The American people will not elect a Republican in 2008, but they will definitely not elect a Republican who is for continuing the war in Iraq. 70% of the American people now want out of Iraq. That means a very sizeable chunk of conservative voters want out of Iraq. And all the Republican candidates of any significance who are running want to continue that war. They want victory.

AMY GOODMAN: The unannounceds: Fred Thompson, Mayor Bloomberg.

RALPH NADER: Bloomberg is the wildcard. He could easily turn it into a three-way race if he runs as an Independent. There’s talk of a Bloomberg-Senator Hagel ticket, and that could not just be another Perot rerun, it could really be a winning ticket. You know, Bloomberg is a surprise to most people. He’s got a Republican label. He’s a former registered Democrat. I don’t think he’s good on corporate welfare. But he’s got a way where he could really appeal to people who call themselves Republicans, Independents, Democrats. He is big business, so he’s not afraid to talk turkey to them if he wants to. Nobody can say he didn’t meet a payroll. But we’re still waiting to see whether the inside Bloomberg office talk about running is actually going to materialize.

Excerpt is courtesy of http://www.democracynow.org. Part V is coming soon!

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