ON THE STUMP

	September 21, 2000
	Excerpts from recent campaign speeches by third party presidential candidates Ralph Nader of the Green Party and Patrick Buchanan of the Reform Party. Watch Nader's speech in streaming video. Watch Buchanan's speech in streaming video.

JIM LEHRER: Two more in our ongoing series of Presidential campaign speeches. Tonight, the leading third party presidential candidates. First, Ralph Nader of the Green Party. He spoke yesterday at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. RALPH NADER: We have seen the emergence now of two societies; the society of the rich and well-to- do-- who are doing spectacularly well-- and the rest of America. The majority of the workers still are making less in real dollars and working 160 hours more a year than they made in 1979 under Carter, or 1973 under Nixon, in spite of economic growth. So who's getting the gains from all this economic growth? It's the top 10% of the people, mostly. The net wealth of the top 1% of the richest people in this country is equal to the combined wealth of the bottom 95% -- never had that kind of disparity. The saying goes that when you have economic growth in America, it's a tide that lifts all boats. But what it is now, it is a tide that lifts all yachts. (Laughter) The Green Party stands for a major democratic movement against the extremism of concentrated power and abuse. So this is what it stands for. One, our country is now in a position where 40 years after Western European countries provided the following for their people, our country is at least now in a position to do the following: One, universal accessible health insurance for everybody. (Cheers and applause) Every other western country provides it, and they did it in the 50's and 60's, some of them out of war-torn Europe in World War II. What's our excuse? Too much power to the HMO's, to the drug companies, to the corruption of money in politics -- they're always saying, "no." "No." We have the situation in schools, right? You go to college, you pay tuition. Every student at a public university or a college in the United States can get free tuition for a total bill of $32 billion. $32 billion is half of what we're spending defending Western Europe and East Asia against nonexistent enemies, when they're able to defend themselves. So why aren't we moving for free public tuition in public universities and public colleges? (Applause) The Green Party stands for tough law enforcement against corporate crime, fraud, and abuse -- the kind that's reported on by the major newspapers almost every week. You know, Clinton and Gore talk about putting 100,000 more police in the streets, but they don't put enough prosecutors at all in the corporate suites whose behavior kills, injures, and makes people far more sick, and steals far more property, than all the street crime combined, bad as the latter is. We are pushing for campaign finance reform, not only by urging it-- public funding and public campaigns-- but by behaving in the proper way. We are the only party, the only candidacy that does not take corporate interest money, does not take political action committee money, and doesn't come close to the corrupt soft money that's going into the two- party coffers in the tens of millions of dollars from the corporate lobbyists. So we are practicing... (Applause) we are... we are practicing what we preach, so we can preach what we practice. And we are also succeeding, and that after November, the millions of people who vote for this ticket, and there will be millions of people voting for this ticket... After November, we will emerge as a significant progressive third party that will be a burgeoning watchdog against the two-party system. (Cheers and applause) JIM LEHRER: Now, Pat Buchanan of the Reform Party. He spoke earlier this week in Warren, Michigan. PAT BUCHANAN: This party... New party we're building, new party we're creating is the only one in America that offers a real difference on the great issues of our day, and let me just name a few of those issues that involve us. One is the character and the composition of the United States Supreme Court... (Applause) ...the justices. We are supposed to be a republic, a democratic republic, that decides by elections, legislators, and executives, how we shall be ruled. But we have been living under a judicial dictatorship for years, and years, and years, and years, and we have taken it. Look at the decisions they have imposed upon America which have overthrown our traditional code of morality. They have driven God out of the public schools. They have made abortion, which was a felony in 50 states, a so- called "constitutional right." (Boos) Since "Roe V. Wade"-- in this country we call God's country-- 38 million unborn children have been done to death, and neither of these other two parties will talk about that. And a new issue has risen and the Supreme Court is moving to support the idea that homosexuality is a commendable lifestyle on an equal with marriage. (Boos) And now the Supreme Court, by one vote-- just by one vote-- almost ordered the Boy Scouts to admit active homosexuals as scoutmasters for Cub Scout troops and Boy Scout troops. (Boos) now that's where America... now that's where America is headed, and that is downhill. This is a revolution that's been imposed upon you and me, not because we voted for it, or we wanted it, or we demanded it, it's been imposed from above by a Supreme Court, which has become a judicial dictatorship in America. And Mr. Gore says he will appoint Justices who will provide that next vote to go after the Boy Scouts. He says he will appoint justices like Ruth Bader- Ginsburg who will guarantee... Who will guarantee that "Roe V. Wade" is never overturned. Mr. Bush, he doesn't know. He doesn't have... Has no litmus test for his justices. Down in Texas, he appointed three judges to the Supreme Court that overturned his own parental notification law. I don't think Mr. Bush can be trusted. He won't talk about this issue, but I will. I do have a litmus test, friends. In my administration, in my White House, only pro-life constitutionalists and conservatives will be elevated to the Supreme Court, and no liberal judicial activists need apply. (Applause) There's another are they won't talk about, and that's the steady assault upon the sovereignty and the independence and the liberate of this country we love. I've watched this U.N. grow bloated, expand its power. I've seen their reach for more and more. It is trying to be something it was never intended to be. And that is why, if I'm elected President-- you've got my word-- I will call in Kofi Annan and say, Sir, your lease has run out. We want you out of the United States by year's end. (Applause) I will tell him, we want you out of the United States by year's end, and if you're too dilatory about it, we'll send up 10,000 Marines to help you pack. (Applause) I still dream that one day I will be up there, and I will take that oath of office, and I'll give my inaugural address, and then you take the oath, and then I will turn to Bill Clinton, and I will say to him, "sir, you have the right to remain silent." Thank you very much.