Third-party candidates unify, Bob Barr snubs

Third-party presidential candidates held a press conference today at the National Press Club. In attendance were Ron Paul (no longer a presidential candidate), Cynthia McKinney (Green Party candidate), Chuck Baldwin (Constitution Party candidate), and Ralph Nader (Independent). Bob Barr was expected but did not appear; see below for more.

The candidates held the press conference to announce agreement on a list of principles, including ending the Iraq war, no more national debt increases, investigation into the national reserve system, and protection of privacy and civil liberties. They also explained their reasons for splitting from the major parties and criticized the Commission on Presidential Debates. Ron Paul gave an idea for a better way of determining debate elligibility: if you're on the ballot in enough states that you could theoretically get enough electoral votes to win, you're in.

Paul also mentioned that he had gotten a call from the McCain campaign yesterday asking him to endorse McCain. Paul said the campaign had offered him no policy concessions in return. Paul refused to endorse, saying today that the request "didn't make a whole lot of sense" and laughing.

Nader was asked why Bob Barr was not attending and if he really agreed with the principles. Nader said he had spoken with the Barr campaign this morning and they had indicated Barr would be there.

Barr, however, did not attend and instead called his own press conference an hour later. At Barr's press conference, he said that having "bold, specific leadership" was the way to get policy changes made, not by presenting "an amorphous agenda." He did not want to appear with the other candidates because he did not want to "dilute" his message. Barr also mentioned he had offered Ron Paul the VP spot on the Libertarian ticket, but he had not heard a response. I asked Barr if his actions today should be taken as an indication that he would be unwilling to compromise if elected, and he said it should "absolutely" not be taken that way; he said compromise is necessary.

The statement of principles (which does not include Bob Barr's name) can be found here.

End the violence of white-collar crime, says Nader

Fill prisons with corporate criminals instead of non-violent drug offenders, said presidential candidate Ralph Nader at a press briefing at the Nader Gonzalez campaign headquarters. Nader called for a reversal of the War on Drugs, which unfairly targets minorities and the poor.

"Nader-Gonzales would shift the billions saved from the War on Drugs to a war on corporate crime," said Nader

Thousands of Americans die or are injured each year because of "preventable corporate violence," Nader said. 56,000 Americans die each year because of work-related diseases such as black lung and asbestosis.

Unlike presidential candidates Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Az.), Nader has a comprehensive plan to combat corporate crime and violence, according to Nader. With 2.1 million prisoners, the United States accounts for one-fourth of the world's prison population.

Nader's "12-point program" would increase power and resources for the Internal Revenue Service to chase down tax avoiders, grant shareholders of corporations the right to nominate and elect the board of directors, and impose a separation of commercial and investment banking services, which would prevent "conflicts of interest among financial entities." Nader's plan also asks publicly-traded corporations to unveil their tax returns to the public.

In 2004, Nader wrote a letter to President Bush asking him to grant clemency to 30,000 non-violent drug offenders incarcerated in American prisons. The letter recalled President Bush's use of cocaine and posited that if Bush had been imprisoned for his substance abuse, he would not have had such a successful career, Nader said.