Ralph Nader embraced Senator Mike Gravel Tuesday morning.

Nader actually introduced Gravel at the Take Back America conference in D.C., and lavished praise upon him almost as if Gravel were a Nader stand-in.

“Mike Gravel understands what very few candidates are willing to understand,” said Nader, who came on stage to a scattering of clapping and booing. “If we do not have a shift in power in this country from the few to the many, if we do not make the domination of just about everything by giant corporations a major issue in the campaign, we will be engaging in rhetorical charades, slogans, clichés, and self-censorship.”

Nader said Gravel is unlike the other candidates. “They don’t tell you what they think,” he said. “They tell you what their antennas tell them to think.”

Nader drew applause when he praised Gravel for opposing Bush’s Iraq War, which Nader called “that criminal endeavor.” Nader also said that Gravel “understands the inequities in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.”

Nader noted that the mainstream media is preoccupied with how much funding the candidates get. They view candidates “like a corporation,” obsessing about the next quarterly report.

“If money is the index of electoral politics, our democracy is gone,” Nader said.

Nader also hailed Gravel’s national initiative process.

Nader ended his intro by reciting one of his favorite quotes from Cicero: “Freedom is participation in power.”

And he urged everyone to “stand up to the dominant power of our era, corporate power.”

Gravel then came on stage to the song, “Power to the People,” a slogan he uttered, albeit awkwardly, when he got to the podium.

“We’ve had the power since January,” he said, referring to the Democratic control of Congress. “I’m a little distressed by our inability to use that power.” If Democrats don’t use it well, “we may not deserve to have the White House,” he said.

He denounced the Democrats for not doing anything serious to end the Iraq War. “That’s appalling,” he said. “You have to be tough.”

And he urged passage of a law that would make Bush and Cheney criminally liable if they continued to wage the war.

“People are dying,” Gravel said, “and we are doing nothing about it.”