NADER DETERMINED TO MAKE SERIOUS PRESIDENTIAL BID

Consumer Activist Appears With Teamsters Leader

WASHINGTON - This time Ralph Nader is serious about running for U.S.
president, and his joint appearance yesterday with Teamsters President
James Hoffa suggests that some members of the U.S. labour movement are
taking him seriously.

The long-time consumer activist has twice before made half-hearted
runs at the presidency. In 1992, he was a write-in candidate and in
1996 he ran on the presidential ticket in 20 states, spending just
US$5,000 and getting 1% of the popular vote.

Mr. Nader, who is 66, is determined this time to make a full-fledged
run at rivals Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, and Republican George
W. Bush. He is serious enough to have submitted to a full financial
disclosure to the U.S. Federal Elections Commission in his bid to win
the nomination for the leftist Green Party, after steadfastly refusing
for years to reveal his financial position.

In fact, Mr. Nader is a millionaire-pauper. He lives on only $25,000
in a tiny Washington apartment despite making up to $300,000 a year in
speeches and having socked away $3.8-million in stocks, including
$1.2-million in Cisco Systems Inc., and money market funds. He gives
away 80% of his income.

Although he is more determined than ever to be a part of this
November's election campaign, his politics have not changed much from
the days in the 1960s when he attacked the meatpacking industry over
hotdog contents and General Motors over its unsafe Corvair.

"You've all heard Al Gore's description of what a great economy it
is," Mr. Nader said yesterday at a labour movement rally. "But in
spite of 10 years of our booming economy, a majority of workers are
making less and working 160 more hours a year."

He said that 47 million workers make under $10 an hour, many at
minimum wage, and that the two major parties are only fronts for
American corporations. "Look who is funding them," he said.

Mr. Hoffa stopped short of endorsing Mr. Nader, or the Green Party,
but instead is hoping to use the event to put pressure on Mr. Gore, a
Democratic candidate the labour unions see as unfriendly to their cause.

Mr. Hoffa called for Mr. Nader to be included in presidential debates
this fall, warning Mr. Gore can't count on unified support from
organized labour.

"We are not locked into one party or another," said Mr. Hoffa,
standing with Mr. Nader at a news conference. Mr. Gore's support for
giving China permanent access to U.S. markets and his appointment last
week of the chief White House lobbyist for that vote, Commerce
Secretary William Daley, as his campaign chairman have rankled the 1.4
million member union, Mr. Hoffa said.

"One of the problems with Gore is [he does] not listen to labour,"
said Mr. Hoffa.

Mr. Nader still must beat two other rivals in Denver this weekend to
win the nod of the Green Party: Jello Biafra, the 42-year-old former
vocalist for the Dead Kennedys and Stephen Gaskin, 65-year-old
founder of the Farm Community, once the largest hippie commune
in the United States.

Mr. Biafra has launched his own Naderesque campaign by essentially not
running. He grants no interviews and has done no stumping. About the
most exposure he has received was on the television program
Politically Incorrect where he was booed by both guests and the
audience when he announced his candidacy.

But he still has a platform, mostly based on his long association with
the Green Party.

"Let's be generous," Mr. Biafra said in one his few campaign letters.
"No taxes up to $100,000, after that it's payback time."

Taxes would be used for free health care, along with community radio
and television, farms for hemp and kanaf, a paper replacement, and
solar and windmill farms.

"Urban blight can be further eradicated by legalizing and subsidizing
squatters who fix up long-vacant buildings," he said.

For his part, Mr. Gaskin, a long-time social activist who helped build
homes and a water supply system in Guatemala, is also pushing for
universal health care, campaign finance reform, decriminalizing
marijuana and fighting globalization.

"The Sixties were one of this country's finest hours," he said, adding
he is going after nine million hippie voters in the U.S. "People like
us have wrought many of the changes that have been wrought in this
country."

Few expect that Mr. Nader, the guru of green, will not win the party's
nomination on Sunday and he plans to use better than expected coverage
from the weekend convention to raise serious campaign funding. Mr.
Nader's campaign workers expect to raise about $5-million from
grassroots supporters to make him eligible for matching federal funds.

"By all appearances, Mr. Nader is now serious," said Thomas Mann,
director of government studies at the Brookings Institute in Washington.

There is no chance, of course, that Mr. Nader has any hope of winning
the presidency, he said. Instead Mr. Nader needs to get just 5% of the
voters to be eligible to make the Green Party a recognized party and
get more matching funds for the 2004 election. Polls put Mr. Nader now
at 7%.

Mr. Mann said that Mr. Nader can also be a bit of a spoiler, stealing
voters away from Mr. Gore.

"But I think voters will remember that a vote for Mr. Nader is really
a vote for Mr. Bush," added Mr. Mann.