IX: Obama’s Triumph of the Will: The 2008 Primaries 357him as being different. Do you see him as being any better than Al Gore or any of the other
Democrats that you’ve opposed over the years?
Nader: No. I mean, he’s deceiving people. He takes, he takes ... In this very building he would
take money from corporate lawyers who are not registered lobbyists but whose desks are across
the aisle from corporate lawyers who are registered lobbyists in the same law firm. That has
been reported more than once in the mainstream press ... Six out of seven industries, as of a
month ago, have given more money to Obama than they have to McCain, only the
transportation industry is more equal opportunity corruption. Look at the health care industry. It
has poured money into his campaign. The securities industry, the defense industry. No. There’s
only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential
candidate. He’s half African-American. Whether that will make any difference, I don’t know. I
haven’t heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday
loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What’s keeping him from doing that? Is it because he
wants to talk white? He doesn’t want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We’ll see all that play out in
the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards. I think his main problem is that he
censors himself. He knows exactly who has power, who has too much, who has too little, what
needs to be done right down to the community level. But he has bought the advice that if you
want to win the election, you better take it easy on the corporate abuses and do X, Y, Z. When I
hear that I say, Oh, I see. So he’s doing all this to win the election, and then he’ll be different.
Well let’s see if it worked. Did it work for Mondale? Did it work for Dukakis? Did it work for
Clinton? Yes, but only because of Perot? Did it work for Gore? Did it work for Kerry ...?
Q: Do you think he’s trying to, what was your term, ‘talk white?’
NADER: Of course. I mean, first of all, the number one thing that a black American politician
aspiring to the presidency should be is to candidly describe the plight of the poor, especially in
the inner cities and the rural areas, and have a very detailed platform about how the poor are
going to be defended by the law, is going to be protected by the law, and is going to be liberated
by the law. Haven’t heard a thing. I mean, the amount of economic exploitation in the ghettos is
shocking. You’d think he’d propose a task force to at least study it. I mean, these people are
eroded every day. The kids, bodies are asbestos and lead, municipal services discriminate
against them because it’s the poor area, including fire and police protection and building code
enforcement. And then the lenders, the loan sharks get at them, and the dirty food ends up in the
ghettos, like the contaminated meat. It’s a dumping ground for shoddy merchandise. You don’t
see many credit unions there. You don’t see many libraries there. You don’t see many health
clinics there. This is, we’re talking 40-50 million Americans who are predominantly African-
Americans and Latinos. Anybody see that kind of campaigning? Have you seen him campaign
in real poor areas of the city very frequently? No, he doesn’t campaign there.
Q: What do you think the purpose of that is?
NADER: He wants to show that he is not a threatening, a political threatening, another
politically-threatening African-American politician. He wants to appeal to white guilt. You
appeal to white guilt not by coming on as a black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically he’s
coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it’s
corporate or whether it’s simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up.^184
The Obama cultists howled, but Nader’s points were well taken as far as they went. Libertarian
presidential candidate Bob Barr attacked Obama for his cowardly capitulation on the renewal of the
totalitarian FISA law. Barr promised that he would not betray his supporters in the same way that
Obama had. It was a miserable time to be a Democrat.