PETITION CANDIDATE ROLLS STATE GREEN PARTY, SMOKES IT

For some odd reason, I was mistakenly under the belief that former Green Party activist Ralph Nader had given up his Independent bids for the White House after hurting Democrats in the last five presidential elections.

But I was quickly corrected this afternoon when WIS-TV reported that Nader, now running as a petition candidate, says he has enough signatures to get on the South Carolina ballot.

The campaign said Monday it was turning in 18,533 petitions gathered from South Carolina voters to the state Election Commission.

Nader petition organizer David Peyton said the campaign expects to be on the ballot in 45 states. Five other states’ ballot access laws will sideline Nader.

Nader isn’t affiliated with a political party and will appear on the ballot as a petition candidate. Peyton said Nader will keep presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama accountable for what they say during the campaign. [WIS]

It’s too bad that Nader is such a far left nutjob. If he were just somewhat sane, he could pick off the entire left flank of the Obama campaign and cost them a sizable number of votes.

Unfortunately, he was only worth less than a percentage point in South Carolina in 2004 — 5,520 of the 1.6 million votes cast.