What Ralph Nader lacks in TV magnetism, he makes up for in candor.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush, Nader said, "is beyond satire. How do you satirize satire? This guy is straight from central casting."

Vice President Al Gore is a "hypocrite" and "a plastic person," Nader said.

His latest target: Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who contends Gore is a better supporter of civil rights than Nader.

"Sometimes he talks faster than his mind operates."

Nader, who launched the modern consumer movement and is running for president on the Green Party ticket, may lack the scripted, sculpted qualities of other candidates. But his outspokenness on everything from his opponents to public financing of campaigns has helped him garner as much as 7 percent in some national polls. Some political analysts say he threatens to siphon votes from Gore, possibly ruining his chances of winning.

"He's doing so well that he's turning what would otherwise be an extremely close race into one with a decidedly good advantage for Bush," said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political analyst. "For the time being, Nader has terrified the Gore campaign and is making the difference in at least half a dozen states. This should be a slam dunk for the Democrats."

Polls in Connecticut, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin show Nader chipping away at Gore's numbers.

He's on the ballot in 19 states from Florida to Alaska. In other states, including Virginia, he is scrambling to gather enough signatures to get there.

Nader is not on the ballot in Michigan, but a recent poll shows him stealing some of Gore's support. The EPIC/MRA poll showed Bush with a 5-point lead over Gore, 45 percent to 40 percent. But in a hypothetical four-way race with Nader and likely Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan, the poll found that Gore got 34 percent to Bush's 46 percent with Nader capturing 8 percent and Buchanan 3 percent. The margin of error was 4 percentage points.

"He's violating the old rule of third parties, and the old rule was in times of peace and prosperity, third parties didn't have a chance," Sabato said.

Will Marshall, director of the Public Policy Institute, the think tank for the Democratic Leadership Council, said, "The biggest threat Nader poses is not that he will win enough votes to throw the election to Bush, but that his challenge will induce Democrats to shift left. That would be an enormous mistake, but there is still fear in party circles about consolidating the base."

Nader knows he's got about as much a chance at taking the presidency as getting behind the wheel of a Corvair, the car he slammed in his 1965 best-seller "Unsafe at Any Speed." But he wants to shake up the two-party system and establish what he calls a "deep democracy."

His platform -- based on what he said are "normal old-fashioned traditions" -- includes public financing of campaigns, abolishing child poverty, providing universal health insurance, making it easier for workers to form trade unions and emphasizing civics in schools.

Nader's biggest goal is to create a significant third party in a two- party political system that he characterizes as increasingly convergent.

If he can capture at least 5 percent of the vote in November, he'll do for the Green Party what Ross Perot did for the Reform Party. By garnering 8.4 percent of the vote in 1996, Perot made the party eligible for public financing in this year's election. That means the party's leading candidate, Pat Buchanan, is eligible for $12.6 million in public money for his campaign. (Bush and Gore each get $67.5 million.) Nader's lack of money - he's raised just more than $1 million and has his sights set on $5 million - dilutes his strengths, said Thomas Mann, an independent political analyst with the Brookings Institution.

"If Nader had the Reform Party's $12.5 million that might make a bit of a difference," he said.

© 2000, Media General News Service

###