In a June interview with the Washington Post about his millionaire earnings -- much of which he has donated to his public interest groups -- Nader said the stocks he chose were "the most neutral-type companies ... No. 1, they're not monopolists and No. 2, they don't produce land mines, napalm, weapons."

But this is not true. The Fidelity Magellan fund owns 777,080 shares of Raytheon, a major missile manufacturer. And this isn't the only example of his rhetoric not matching up with his financial investments.

"I'm quite aware of how the arms race is driven by corporate demands for contracts, whether it's General Dynamics or Lockheed Martin," Nader told the Progressive in April. "They drive it through Congress. They drive it by hiring Pentagon officials in the Washington military industrial complex, as Eisenhower phrased it." The Fidelity Magellan fund owns 2,041,800 shares of General Dynamics.

"Both parties are terrible on antitrust," Nader told CNN in August. "Look, we have Boeing now, one aircraft company, manufacturer after the McDonnell Douglas merger." In a June press release, Nader expressed disappointment in the Clinton administration's Justice Department to challenge the merger of British Petroleum with Amoco, or Exxon's merger with Mobil. The Fidelity Magellan fund owns 2,908,600 shares of Boeing, 24,753,870 shares of British Petroleum-Amoco and 28,751,268 shares of Exxon-Mobil. The fund also owns stock in Shell, Sunoco, Texaco and Chevron -- on whose board Bush advisor Condoleezza Rice serves.

Nader has slammed Gore for being too cautious in his healthcare proposals, and for deferring to big pharmaceuticals. Before the House Budget Committee in June 1999, Nader testified that "Bristol-Myers Squibb markets taxol at a wholesale price that is nearly 20 times its manufacturing cost. A single injection of taxol can cost patients considerably more than $2,000 and treatment requires multiple injections." The Fidelity Magellan fund owns 15,266,900 shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Does this bother an activist like Reinsborough? "Sure," he says. "Absolutely." He lauds Nader for engaging in "shareholder activism," but says that such activities "aren't democracy. It's one dollar, one vote."

Corporate-bashing is in vogue on the American left, and Gore is certainly doing his fair share of it on the stump, railing against HMOs, insurance companies and big pharmaceuticals. Some have seen this as Gore trying to shore up support on the left, mimicking Nader disingenuously and unconvincingly.

After all, as Nader said to the Washington Post in June, "The corporations are planning our future. They are making sure [our children] grow up corporate. The kids are overmedicated, militarized, cosmetized, corporatized. They are raised by Kindercare, fed by McDonald's, educated by Channel One."

There is a difference between Gore and Nader on this point, at the very least: Nader has hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in a fund that owns 15,694,800 shares of McDonald's stock. Gore does not.

With additional reporting by Alicia Montgomery.

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