The 2004 presidential campaign of Ralph Nader, political activist, author, lecturer and attorney began on February 23, 2004. This was Nader's third presidential campaign, having run in 1996 and 2000 campaign as the candidate for the Green Party; in 2004 he ran as an independent candidate. Nader won the 2002 endorsement of the Reform Party USA, and thus appeared on the ballot as the Reform Party candidate in several states. In some states, Nader was on the ballot as an independent candidate, while in other states, Nader was deemed not to have met the requirements for ballot access. Background In April 2003, Salon reported that Ralph Nader was weighing whether to run for president in 2004, and that he was leaning towards doing so; he also met with several Green Party officials to discuss the possibility. In December 2003, he announced that he would not seek the Green Party's presidential nomination the following year. Announcement Nader announced his intention to run for president during a February 22, 2004, appearance on the NBC's Meet the Press. He stated, in part, that "After careful thought and my desire to retire our supremely elected president, I've decided to run as an independent candidate for president." During the appearance, he also expressed his support for impeaching George W. Bush, deemed the Democratic Party a "captive of corporate interests", criticized the "two-party duopoly", and called Washington, DC, "corporate occupied territory". During his appearance on the show, there were more than one dozen protestors outside the NBC studio, objecting to his decision to run, in addition to another dozen supporting his candidacy. Later that morning, Democratic National Committee chair Terry McAuliffe appeared on CBS's Face the Nation and was asked for his reaction to Nader's announcement; McAuliffe deemed it "very unfortunate" but also predicted that Nader's disassociation from the Green Party would hinder him and that the national Green Party would recognize that "the stakes are so big this time" compared to 2000. New Mexico governor Bill Richardson claimed that Nader's campaign was "about him. It's about his ego. It's about his vanity and not about a movement." Candidates running in the Democratic primary were generally dismissive of Nader's announcement as well, with John Kerry announcing that he planned to "appeal to everybody in this race, and we'll make it unnecessary in the end for an alternative" and John Edwards responding that his goal was to