Obama 'Wants to Talk White': Nader

Ralph Nader says Barack Obama "wants to talk white" and "appeal to white guilt" while ignoring poverty, the third-party presidential candidate told the Rocky Mountain News yesterday. The consumer advocate said the only thing that separated Obama from past Democrats is that he’s “half African-American," charging Obama was betraying his background by not prioritizing the defense of the poor.

"He wants to show that he is not … another politically threatening African-American politician," Nader said. "Basically he's coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it's corporate or whether it's simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up." An Obama rep dismissed the comments as "reprehensible" and "downright delusional." (More Ralph Nader stories.)