Nader: 'A choice of the terrible or the horrible'

Unlike the two major party candidates, Ralph Nader was taking election day at a gentler pace, as befits an outsider who will do well to gain even 1 per cent of the popular vote.

Unlike the two major party candidates, Ralph Nader was taking election day at a gentler pace, as befits an outsider who will do well to gain even 1 per cent of the popular vote.

Mr Nader voted here in his home city of Washington, which will go for John Kerry in a landslide. He held a news conference to attack the lack of supermarkets in the poor Anacostia section of the city, then went to the National Press Club, two blocks from the White House, for his election night party.

Amid the frenzy of the final days, the "spoiler" of 2000 has been little in evidence. On Monday he went back to Wall Street, symbol of corporate America, Mr Nader's old foe, to denounce the choice facing the country, between "the terrible" and "the horrible". He had to make his voice heard over hecklers denouncing him for throwing the last election to George Bush.

In the days beforehand, Mr Nader confined himself mainly to the east coast, including the swing state of New Hampshire, where his 22,188 votes may have denied Al Gore victory in the state (and in the overall race) four years ago. But he did make a foray to Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan, the three mid-western and Great Lakes states which could decide the outcome. But no one expects him to come close to the 2.7 per cent of the vote he captured in 2000. And unlike then, Mr Nader now draws his few votes from Republicans and Democrats in equal measure. A Nader supporter now, pollsters say, resembles the disaffected independents who backed the billionaire Texas businessman Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996.