As Ralph Nader gears up another run for president, some characterize his campaign as funded mainly by Republicans. Most of the current claims are based on reports to that effect from the 2004 election season. But what about now? Is Ralph Nader’s campaign mainly funded by Republicans in 2008?
According to FEC records for 2007 and 2008, Ralph Nader has a fair number of donors, and rather than slog through them all, I’ve taken a sample: donors with last names starting with the letters A, B and C (if you’d like to replicate with other letters, be my guest). To whom else did Nader contributors give money? Here’s the distribution:
A methodological aside: while I only look at Nader donors in the years of 2007 and 2008, I look at those donors’ donations going as far back as the 1990s to ferret out any possible past Republican connections.
Only 5 percent of the donors to Nader I looked at also gave money to Republicans — and even that figure is a bit misleading if you’re a conspiracy theorist, because a third of that 5% took the form of donations to Ron Paul. Now, Ron Paul and Ralph Nader have a lot of differences between them, but they have a lot of similarities, too: they’re both running against party establishments, they both oppose the Iraq war, they’re both curmudgeons who express “only I possess virtue” sentiments. I can see how someone who appreciates Ralph Nader might also appreciate Ron Paul.
Meanwhile, 25 percent of donors to Ralph Nader also gave money to the Democratic Party, Democratic candidates (Dennis Kucinich, John Edwards and Barack Obama being the most common), progressive independent groups (mainly MoveOn.org), or both. 6 percent of Nader donors also gave money to the Green Party or to Green Party candidates. And 64 percent of donors to Ralph Nader gave money to no one else. The Nader-only group consists of a lot of different sorts of people, but writers, artists, university professors, environmental engineers and other intellectual workers are common.
Bottom line: the notion that Ralph Nader is being mainly propped up by Republicans doesn’t seem to be borne out.
