You say you didn't have a credibility gap with Ventura, but you certainly had a take-him-seriously gap. Is that easier to overcome?

It's a different kind of credibility; it's a legitimacy issue more than anything else.

The way to overcome that is to just get your candidate in front of the public?

Yeah, I think so. With Nader the legitimacy gap has nothing to do with Nader as a person, or whether voters will trust what he has to say. I think voters will find him to be extremely credible, but I think the type of campaign he ran in 1996 is the question mark there, from a legitimacy standpoint. Are they really in it, or not?

Well, Nader wasnt really in it in 96. He threw his hat in the ring, but he spent less than $5,000 and didnt spend much time campaigning.

I think they burned a big bridge with the press in '96. You can't exactly go to the press as Nader 2000 and say, "No, this time we're really doing it." You can say, "Well look, he's driving all over the country, and he never got out from behind his desk in '96, so that's good." But they won't necessarily consider that to be demonstrative evidence.

You say there's a credibility gap among most candidates. Is that because people are cynical when it comes to politics?

Absolutely.

Do you think that's a bad thing?

No. People aren't stupid. If they buy a product the first time and it doesn't work or do what it's supposed to do, they don't go back and buy it a second time.

Are you attracted to long-shot candidates because they're long-shot candidates, or is it because your personal political beliefs line up with these guys?

The reality of the situation is they are less risk-averse, and they are more willing to listen.

So they give you more opportunity for professional fulfillment?

I don't think it's professional fulfillment. I think we know what we're doing in this industry, and we've proven that time and time again. But we are still practicing political communications in an extremely different manner from the way it's practiced by most people in Washington. Consequently, if you're talking to an incumbent candidate, why would he want me to go work for him or her when the old system's worked just fine? [But] if I thought they were the types of hopeless long shots that the press usually thinks they are, I probably wouldn't go work for them.

Nader himself has admitted he doesn't expect to win; he only hopes to get 5 percent so the Green Party can qualify for federal matching funds in the next election. So would it be strange working for a candidate who doesn't expect to win?

It's a lot more doable [than people think]. Look at the opportunities here: There's not an incumbent president. There's two guys who are relatively equal that don't seem to ... they don't generate a lot of enthusiasm, let's put it that way, certainly not among the public at large, and you've got another presence in the race that's going to help fracture the vote. All of a sudden you're looking at the potential of being competitive with poll numbers in the lower 20s. So I think there's a lot of possibility.

So what would your plan be?

I think the Nader campaign has a job to do before it gets to square one, and that's [to] be a legitimate candidate. First of all, very few people in America know that he's running, which is quite a problem. They know the name but they don't remember what he's done, or all the things that he's done. And you've got to legitimize it somehow with the press.

The Green Party had only raised about $200,000 at the beginning of May. Is that enough money to run a national advertising campaign?

No, it's not enough to run a campaign on, but given the first two things we talked about it would be silly to believe that he would have a lot of money at this point.

You've worked with both Democrats and independents in the past. What attracts you to Nader?

I think he's the only real candidate if you're in favor of reform. I also believe that consumers are voters, and there's probably not a person in America who's done more for consumers in terms of product safety reform than Ralph Nader.

A reform message -- both campaign finance reform and disgust with the system in general -- worked for Ventura in 1998, and almost worked for McCain as well this year. Can it work for Nader?

Oh yeah. We know that that voting population exists. I don't think George [W.] Bush has those voters. I don't think he has those voters when John McCain comes out and says, "Vote for George Bush"; that's not the kind voters they are. I don't think Al Gore has those voters. I don't think Pat Buchanan has those voters.

I think there are two things that worked in the McCain phenomenon. One was personal integrity and character, and the other was reform. And reform, if we were having this discussion in August back in Washington last year, everybody would tell you that reform is not an issue, nothing turns on it, voters don't really care about it.

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