Interesting article. Mentions that his Cambridge audience was mainly young people.
Portion below; whole thing here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/24/AR2008062401619.html?hpid=artslot
Nader likes to describe his independent candidacy as a tugboat. He's nudging the major candidates toward his issues, he says, on the strength of the movement he's building. Implicit is the admission that he has no hope of winning. No matter: "Every reform movement starts small," he says. " 'Don't vote for the [abolitionist] Liberty Party, it's never going to win.' 'Don't vote for the [suffragist National Woman's Party], it's never going to win.' 'Don't vote for the Farmer-Labor parties, they're never going to win.' " Yet votes for these parties, he says, eventually made profound social reforms politically tolerable.
Nader says he'll need about 5 percent of the vote in November for his movement to be taken seriously. He's encouraged by a recent Associated Press poll that showed him drawing 6 percent in a nationwide race. Six percent, he repeats. A real difference. He suggests that even 15 percent is conceivable.
Conceivable. But achievable is another question.
* * *
The odd thing about Nader is how a man who has been in and out of the public eye for so long -- making headlines since Lyndon Johnson was president -- can remain an enigma. Even people who've known and worked with him for years don't know much about him beyond his prodigious capacity for work.
For decades, media accounts have depicted Nader as an ascetic policy wonk, a man married to his many crusades. For the most part, that seems accurate. Michael Richardson, who has worked on Nader's campaigns, says Nader works "12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year." Nader says he occasionally sees a movie (a recent selection, "Michael Clayton," is about a compromised corporate lawyer) and likes watching sports. But "downtime" is an alien concept to him; Nader rarely is seen at social events or anything unrelated to his work.
Outside of a fleeting rumor, Nader -- a lifelong bachelor -- has never been romantically linked to anyone. Justin Martin, a Nader biographer, says in the 2006 documentary "An Unreasonable Man" that he searched for evidence of Nader's personal life and came up with nothing. Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist, called Nader "a rebel without a life."
Even close associates were surprised in 2000 when Nader filed financial disclosure forms revealing that he conservatively estimated his net worth at $3.9 million, thanks primarily to savvy investments in tech stocks. He also disclosed that he had made $512,000 in speaking fees during the preceding 16 months.
Nader deflects questions about his finances today by saying he donates much of his income to advocacy groups and charities. He says he receives speaking fees -- charging $1,000 to $15,000, depending on the group -- although he adds that the invitations don't come "all that often anymore."
Matthew Zawisky, a campaign aide who has traveled with Nader since 2001, says he's never seen him drive a car or use a computer (aides print out relevant documents for him). "He's purely an Underwood typewriter guy," says Zawisky, a bit amused. Nader makes copies of his work using carbon paper. "I think he foresaw the computer revolution and stocked up on it," Zawisky says.
Joan Claybrook, who has known Nader since 1966 and worked with him on his pioneering auto-safety crusade against General Motors, says he reads 10 books a week and speaks seven languages (Chinese, Portuguese, Italian and Arabic among them) well enough to converse with native speakers.
Nader seems able to talk about anything and at length. Before sitting for a newspaper interview at his sparsely furnished campaign offices on the riverfront in Georgetown, he had to finish a radio interview. His subject: the NBA refereeing scandal.
"Ralph is really a charming guy," says Claybrook, who heads the advocacy group Public Citizen. "He has a great sense of humor. If the public knew him really well, they would be enthralled with him."
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