Consumer advocate and four-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader will speak in Bowker Auditorium at Stockbridge Hall on Sunday, Oct. 5 at 11 a.m.
Nader, who ran for president on the Green Party ticket in 1996 and 2000 and as an independent in 2004 and 2008, will be visiting the UMass campus in his national campaign with running mate Matt Gonzalez.
Nader said in an interview that his speech will focus on the recent Wall Street bailout plan, single-payer health care and the presidential campaign, among other things.
"Everybody's interested in the bailout, so we'll be talking about that, what students coming out of college are facing," he said.
"It's the wrong kind of bailout," Nader said. "But more important is that there were no congressional hearings other than questioning [Ben] Bernanke and [Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulson."
"In congressional history they would meet for days," he said.
Nader will also speak about the presidential debates, to which neither Democratic candidate Barack Obama or Republican candidate John McCain will invite him, he said, without a grassroots effort to get him to the podium.
"Any one of the major candidates could get us on," he said. He went on to say "Obama would look good if he had us on and said: 'Hey, let's see what somebody else has to say.'"
Nader said that his campaign is in full-swing this election season, already on 45 of the 51 ballots. He said that in 2004, Democrats sued his campaign "24 times in 18 states in 12 days" to keep him off the ballot, and his support in Amherst suffered a "precipitous decline" in 2004 as a result of being a write-in candidate.
Nader began his career as a consumer advocate in 1965 with his book "Unsafe at Any Speed," which uncovered safety defects in American automobiles and was critical of the industry's safety standards.
He became an outspoken and high-profile advocate for consumer and citizen rights, starting the first Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) in the early 1970s. Since then, PIRGs have been founded across the nation, including MassPIRG, a Massachusetts-based public interest group active on the UMass campus.
Nader said that he's probably the only presidential candidate likely to visit Amherst.
"Obama's got it in the bag, and McCain's writing it off."
Nader's speech will be part of his national presidential campaign, and is open to the public with a suggested donation of $10, $5 for students. For more information, visit Votenader.org/events.
S.P. Sullivan can be reached at spsulliv@dailycollegian.com.
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