Well, every vote counts. But Nader had just finished a press conference at which he claimed more Republicans than Democrats supported him in New Hampshire, in 2000. (Bush beat Gore in the state by 7,211 votes, while Nader collected 22,198 votes.) That Nader would then point to a handful of apparent supporters in the Sun Belt -- the only examples he gave me -- will probably not convince Democrats about his theory. Which, in turn, is all the more reason Democrats should be interested in finding out more about Ralph Nader's supporters.

After all, Nader still sits at 4 percent in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll -- high enough to be a decisive factor in the race again, and higher than the 2.7 percent he drew in 2000. Somebody is backing Nader. Who are these people, and why do they support him?

Two distinct topics, actually, seem to matter most to Naderites: the war in Iraq, and the consolidation of power -- economic, political, cultural -- in the hands of large corporations. Again and again, when I asked people at Nader events why they supported him, those were the first issues to surface.

"Corporate control, and our foreign policy, which I think has gone terribly, terribly wrong," said Bill Grennon, a Nader supporter in Concord, N.H. "Between those two things, I think those are the most important issues." Grennon agreed with Nader's diagnosis of right-wing discontent: "Particularly here in New Hampshire, there are an awful lot of Republicans angry at the direction of the country." By chance, did he support Bush in 2000? "I did not. I ended up for Al Gore."

Indeed, Nader supporters almost unanimously express disgust at Bush -- and then lump Kerry in with Bush, because of Kerry's support for military action in Iraq. "The direction the country's gone in is appalling," said Sarah Bayer, a social worker from Cambridge, Mass. "But Kerry voted right along with the war." On the campaign trail, Nader also uses the Iraq war to link the major-party candidates. "That's the big issue that distinguishes Greens and Independents from Republicans and Democrats," Nader told an audience in the leafy bedroom community of Canton, Conn., near his hometown of Winsted.

To be sure, Nader attacks Bush more forcefully than he did in 2000, calling the president a "messianic militarist" who should be impeached. Nader has also mothballed his "Tweedledee and Tweedledum" line about Democrats and Republicans. He thinks Republican support will come from people "furious with [Bush] over the huge deficit, over corporate subsidies, the sovereignty of trade, NAFTA, the big-government Patriot Act, the federal regulation of schools."

Nonetheless, Nader also began a press conference at Suffolk University in Boston -- a few blocks from John Kerry's Beacon Hill townhouse -- with a short speech laying down two challenges for Kerry. First, Nader said, cutting corporate subsidies "should be a high priority for any presidential candidate, especially one such as Sen. Kerry, who has uttered the magic words, 'ending corporate welfare as we know it,'" then adding: "Senator Kerry has to have an exit strategy dealing with the war in Iraq." Nader barely mentioned Bush before taking questions. In this case, it seemed clear where, on the political spectrum, Nader was hunting for votes.

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