Major party campaigns and political analysts cast a skeptical eye toward consumer activist and the political dark horse Ralph Nader, who — despite not having the influential backing of the Green Party — could once again be a deciding factor in a close election.

In the 2000 election, Nader captured 2.7 percent of the vote nationally. In this election, he is only polling at just 1 percent nationally.

To have the opportunity to make a difference, Nader has had to fight through a series of legal battles across the nation just to get on the ballot.

“That’s basically political bigotry,” Nader said in a telephone interview with the Daily on Friday.

“Trying to deny our voters the opportunity to vote for Nader/Camejo by keeping us off the ballot. It’s a serious constitutional crime and a violation of our civil liberties, and some day, the ACLU and others will recognize that.”

The independent candidate is officially on the ballot in 34 states now, including Iowa.

During the weekend, supreme courts in two key swing states, Ohio and Pennsylvania, ruled that Nader would not be allowed to have official ballot access, although he still has write-in status.

Recently, members of MoveOn.org and actor Tim Robbins revealed an ad campaign that would try to convince Nader supporters to “strategically vote” Kerry.

Colin Van Ostern, spokesman for John Kerry, said the Democratic campaign isn’t worried about the so-called “Nader effect.”

“Many voters who voted for Nader in 2000 are voting for John Kerry,” Van Ostern said.

Nader said one of his main focuses is to help promote social justice and fight the influence of big business in politics.

“Politics is corrupt and broken in this country and surrenders itself to big business,” he said.

“It gives itself over to big business and then turns its back on the necessities of the people.”

He said younger generations are suffering because their issues — such as health care, outsourcing, tuition costs or the possibility of a military draft — aren’t being talked about.

Nader will be stopping in Ames on Wednesday as part of a 16-state, 30-city tour to promote what he called a platform of social justice.

“We’re the only country who has such obstacles to getting on the ballot,” he said.

“In other countries, it’s a joke to get on the ballot. In our country, we have 50 different state standards for federal elections, instead of one federal standard for ballot access.”

Nader said the current system for access discriminates against third-party or small-party candidates because the thresholds for states vary greatly and create a rigmarole for them to go through. Candidates like himself, he said, are relegated to trying to push issues into mainstream politics instead of hoping to win.

“In a rigged two-party system, that’s rigged from the ballot access to access to debates, that’s what third parties do,” he said.

“We’re all prisoners of this 200-year-old Electoral College and the winner-take-all political system. It’s time to break out of prison.”

Even if someone would want to vote for him, he said, they would want to vote for a winner. This causes them to change their minds at the polls and vote for either a Democrat or a Republican, since they know those are the only two parties who can win.

“That deprives people of all kinds of solutions in this country — of more voices, more choices,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons half the people don’t vote.”