The Hill News

Perennial third-party candidate Ralph Nader predicted on Wednesday that President Obama's tax deal with Republicans will earn him a primary challenge in 2012.

Though he wouldn't rule out another presidential campaign himself, Nader, 76, said he hoped that a new face would take up the progressive cause.

"I'm not foreclosing the possibility ... There are just other things to do," he said. "And it's time for someone else to continue. I've done it so many times. When I go around the country, I'm telling people to try to find somebody."

Nader, a consumer advocate, ran as a Green Party candidate in 1996 and 2000 and as an independent in 2004 and 2008. He went through what he called "incredible pressure" to appear on the ballot in every state, and earned less than three percent of the overall vote each time.

He said on Wednesday that Obama's decision to allow tax cut extensions for the wealthy in the compromise betrays the progressi! ves who supported his campaign in 2008.

"There will be a primary," Nader said. "Just a question of how prominent a person [will choose to run]. This deal is the last straw ... His [Obama's] position has been that the liberal, progressive wing has nowhere to go, therefore they can't turn their back on the administration. But a challenge will hold his feet to the fire and signal that we do have somewhere to go."

Nader described Obama's approach to politics in harsh terms. 

"He has no fixed principles. He's opportunistic â€" he goes for expedience, like Clinton. Some call him temperamentally conflict-averse. If you want to be harsher, you say he has no prlnciples and he's opportunistic."

"He's a con man. I have no use for him," Nader said.