CHEYENNE -- No other democracy in the world erects as many obstructions to voters and third-party candidates as the United States, including independent candidates for president such as himself, long-time social critic, consumer advocate, lawyer and author Ralph Nader said Thursday.

During a news conference in the Capitol rotunda, Nader said that despite lack of national coverage by the television networks, his campaign has 6 percent of the vote nationally.

This makes his campaign the No. 3 party in the presidential race, he said.

The Republican and Democratic parties control the gateways to the tens of million of viewers who will watch the three presidential debates this fall.

This system "has allowed the government of the United States to be hijacked by giant corporations, department by department," he said.

Nader, 74, has been certified as an independent candidate for president by the Wyoming Secretary of State's Office. His ticket-mate is Matt Gonzalez, a San Francisco lawyer.

A second independent candidate for president whose name will be on Wyoming's general election ballot is Chuck Baldwin, a Baptist minister from Florida and a member of the Constitution Party

Nader's campaign, he said, agrees with the majority of the American people who believe the nation is going in the wrong direction and that the two major parties are failing them.

"That's what we're working very hard to provide, to give people of this country a sense of their power, which can only be exercised if they have a wide array of agendas and candidates," he said.

Nader's goal in this, his fourth campaign for president, is to raise critical issues the major party candidates are not talking about, including a single-payer, Canadian-style, private-delivery, free-choice public health insurance system for everyone, a living wage, and an end to corporate welfare and corporate crime.

He said he urged Jackson attorney Gerry Spence to run for federal office several years ago and again this year against Republican Sen. Mike Enzi, but Spence declined both times.

"It's really part of the Democratic Party's problems in that they cannot get very attractive candidates to take on, in the mountain states, the incumbent Republicans," Nader said.

As a result, the Democrats forfeited about six to eight senate seats in the region, a situation that Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, tried to turn around.

Nader turned to Wyoming's "substantial" coal deposits and the hazards to the environment of burning coal.

"I think someday burning coal for electrical power will be a crime against humanity," Nader said. "It's always been a crime against coal miners."

Despite high coal prices, the coal industry is pushing for federal and state loan guarantees to build large coal burning plants.

Basin Electric Power Co. is building the Dry Forks coal fired plant near Gillette, he said, which lacks the technology to capture carbon emissions and will emit millions of tons of carbon dioxide over the years.

He said the two major presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, can be called "coal senators" for their votes in favor of loan guarantees to the coal industry.

Instead of burning more coal the nation should be producing and consuming less energy, Nader said, adding that he agrees with oilman T. Boone Pickens about the potential for wind energy.

Contact Joan Barron at (307) 632-1244 or joan.barron@trib.com.