FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AUGUST 22, 2008
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
GREG KAFOURY 971/563-4139; greg@thepeaceparty.net

OREGON PEACE PARTY NOMINATES NADER/GONZALEZ

The Ralph Nader campaign announced today that the Secretary of State has recognized the creation of a new party in Oregon, the Peace Party, and party activists announced the nomination of Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez for President and Vice-President.

The party was created by the gathering of more than 24,000 valid signatures throughout the state.

"McCain is a virtual clone of President Bush on domestic policy, and on foreign policy he is even more of a warmonger," said Greg Kafoury, one of the leaders of the Nader campaign. "Obama has moved so far to the right since Hillary Clinton dropped out that the campaign has degenerated into trivia and personal attacks. Only Nader stands for full military and corporate withdrawal from Iraq, reductions in the bloated defense budget, single-payer health care, and a living wage for all Americans. Historically, small parties and independent candidacies have been the birthplace of progress. Third parties led the struggle against slavery, for women's suffrage, for Social Security and workers' rights. The job of the major parties is to adopt the best of these ideas. Ballot obstacles for small parties and their exclusion from the presidential debates has prevented the system from regenerating. The grip of the corporate media and the dominant corporate parties has kept the American people from solving a single major social problem in the last 40 years."

Nader is at 6% nationally in the latest CNN poll, and a recent Fox poll found that 14% of voters would support Nader if they felt he was competitive. "If Nader is included in the presidential debates, we could have a genuine three-way race," said Kafoury.

Nader will hold a major rally in Denver on August 27th during the Democratic convention, and a later rally during the Republican convention. The focus of the national campaign is to expand the debates to include Nader and perhaps former Congressman Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate.

Those interested in the campaign can contact the law office of Kafoury and McDougal at (503) 224-2647, or visit VoteNader.org.

This year's Peace Party signature drive avoided the type of ballot access sabotage that kept Nader off the Oregon ballot 4 years ago. Then, Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury (D) made the ballot a Nader-free zone by inventing and applying, retroactively and with no notice, a series of unwritten rules, never before applied to a candidate petition drive, and by giving the Nader campaign defective instructions on petition sheet numbering that his office later seized upon to disqualify more than 15% of all signatures Nader submitted for that "reason" alone. Petition circulators were confronted with letters from lawyers, threatening them with long prison terms and fines of $100,000 or more, and some circulators were even visited at their homes by persons carrying that message. The chief judge of the Marion County Circuit Court concluded that Bradbury had violated Oregon law, but the Oregon Supreme Court decided that he had acted within his authority in retroactively applying his unwritten rules. "The Nader signature drive in 2004 complied with every written rule," said attorney Dan Meek. "It is impossible to comply with unwritten rules made up after the signatures have been submitted." The 2004 experience is described in an article at Counterpunch, http://www.counterpunch.org/meek09282004.html.