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NADER INSIDE OUTSIDE

Santa Fe

In her April 30 "Subject to Debate" column, Katha Pollitt wrote, Ralph "Nader's assistant called me recently to say that he had been misquoted last summer in Outside, which had him hoping for a Bush win." Outside regrets that we were not given the opportunity to respond, since this assertion is wholly untrue. In an interview with Outside deputy editor Jay Heinrichs that ran in the August 2000 issue, Heinrichs asked Nader if someone put a gun to his head and told him to vote for either Gore or Bush, which he would choose. Nader replied, without hesitation, "Bush." Nader went on to explain, "If you want the parties to diverge from one another, have Bush win." Indeed, in a portion of Nader's reply that Outside did not publish, he said he favored a Bush win "because that would shake up the Democratic Party and make it revalue its future." Nader's words were reported accurately, and neither Nader nor his campaign contacted Outside to complain about the quotation after it was published.

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