>From the Daily Kos
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/6/21/25738/3079
AZ Nader ballot update
by kos
Mon Jun 21st, 2004 at 02:57:38 EDT
They're still counting in Arizona, and it looks like the Democrats have anough invalid signatures to knock Nader off the ballot. So I've already reported that over 90 percent of petitions were from registered Republicans. But, as it turns out, many of those petitioners probably didn't even know they were signing on behalf of Nader!
This is how it shook out:
The petition collectors were working for a GOP outfit, and were collecting signatures for two high-profile ballot initiatives. One is the "Protect Arizona Now" initiative, which is an anti-immigrant effort. The other is an attempt to repeal Arizona's landmark Clean Elections Bill which provides for public financing of political campaigns.
The actual Nader petition did its best to fudge its purpose. The petitioners only said they were collecting signatures for an "independent candidate". The words "RALPH NADER" were buried in the petition page in 9pt font.
So to make this perfectly clear -- Nader's petition effort piggybacked on both a xenophobic anti-immigrant effort, and an effort to roll back the state's public financing of elections. This is how low Nader has sunk. Is it any wonder his negatives are in the 70s and 80s?
As for the Republicans who signed it -- most probably didn't even know they were signing on behalf of Nader. They were just too disinterested to read the fine print, and all too happy to sign the other two decidedly non-progressive ballot petitions. "