Forums

[Not Me]

http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?act...rticle_id=5316

• The American Indian activist that ran as Ralph Nader’s running mate in the last presidential election has endorsed John Kerry.
  
  Winona LaDuke, an Anishinabe from the Makwa Dodaem of the Mississippi Band of the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, says Kerry earned her vote through his stand on issues important to Native Americans. A Harvard gradate, LaDuke first appeared in the public eye when she filed a lawsuit to recover lands originally held by the Anishinabe people and taken by the federal government. After exhausting the legal system, she founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project in order to raise funds to purchase original White Earth land holdings.
  
  “I am voting for John Kerry this November. I love this land, and I know that we need to make drastic changes in Washington if we are going to protect our land and our communities,” La Duke said in a statement. “I'm voting my conscience on Nov. 2; I'm voting for John Kerry. He wants to move federal policies to support Native communities, whether Native farmers, businesspeople or tribal governments. We are on his radar; this is a beginning. Kerry offers other reasons for hope. He opposes converting Yucca Mountain into a nuclear waste dump. By Nov. 2, 2004, John Kerry will have earned my vote."
  
  She does not mention the fact that many Democrat believe the reason that Bush is in office in the first place is because of Nader’s failed bid to win the presidency last time around, siphoning crucial votes in key battleground states like Florida where Nader won 1.6 per cent of the vote. Sounds like small potatoes, but that accounted for 97,488 votes, and Bush beat Gore there by just 537 votes. In 2000, Mr Nader won 2.7 per cent of the vote nationally. Pollsters say that this year his national support has dwindled from a peak of five per cent in May to about 1.5 per cent now, but in some states it is higher.