Nader spoke to a crowd of about 300 people about his plan to cut military spending, completely withdraw from Iraq, reform health care and replace coal and nuclear power with solar and wind energies.

Nader also advocated increases in federal spending for public programs, infrastructure and education. He said the nation’s military budget, which accounts for about half of federal government spending, should be cut to pay for the programs.

“Once we reduce the bloated military budget there will be plenty of money to be put back into our communities,” he said.

After Nader’s unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2000, he was criticized for spoiling the election by garnering votes that would otherwise have gone to Democratic candidate Al Gore. Nader will be on the ballot in 45 states this November, up from 34 in 2004.

International relations senior Chris Silva, who is a regional coordinator for Nader’s Michigan campaign, said the possibility of taking votes away from a major party candidate should not stop voters from supporting a third party candidate.

“This two-party system has kind of gotten us away from the fact that politics is about helping people and not winning a horse race,” he said. “Your responsibility as a voter isn’t to pick the person who’s going to win the election. It’s to pick the person you feel most comfortable running the country.”

Sneha Goud, a supply chain management senior, said she went into the rally not knowing who she would vote for. By the end of the rally, she had decided on Nader.

Goud said she had hesitated to support Nader because she didn’t want to spoil the election.

“I’m not really enthusiastic about Barack Obama, but I figured he was the lesser of two evils,” she said. “But just listening to Nader talk I finally feel like I’ve made a decision.”

Nader urged audience members to put pressure on the Commission on Presidential Debates to open the debates to all candidates. Currently, a candidate must have support of at least 15 percent of the national electorate to participate. Nader has support from about 6 percent, he said.

According to a recent poll by Lansing research firm EPIC-MRA, 10 percent of Michigan voters favor Nader, who is running on the Natural Law Party ticket in Michigan. The party’s only other candidate in the state is party chairman Doug Dern, who is running for U.S. Senate.

“In Wimbledon, the 60th seed gets a chance to center court,” Nader said. “But in our corrupted American politics, run by two corrupted parties we don’t have a chance to debate.”