PORTLAND, Ore. -- Back in 2000, 10,000 enthusiastic supporters packed Memorial Coliseum to hear presidential candidate Ralph Nader speak. They even paid $7 to get in.

KGW file photo

Presidential hopeful Ralph Nader speaks at a past signature-gathering event in Portland.

Later that year, Nader won 5 percent of the Oregon vote -- not enough to keep Al Gore from the winning the state, but enough to scare Democrats into hoping he wouldn't make the 2004 ballot. He didn't.

Nader is again running for president and next week he makes his first 2008 campaign visit to Portland as part of a six-city West Coast tour.

After eight years of having a Republican in the White House, it's unlikely that many Democrats will vote for Nader if he makes the ballot this time around. Nader understands the odds, but says he had to run because the other candidates don't support his basic agenda, which includes a government-paid universal health care system, a major slashing of the military budget and a reduction in the "corporate control over our lives." He said Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have "mediocre" records in Congress.

In an interview with The Oregonian newspaper, Nader said the conventional view is that only candidates with a legitimate shot at winning should bother running for office. But he said the more important function for third parties "is to put social justice agendas on the table and eventually they will prevail. ...You lose and you lose until eventually somebody somewhere prevails."

Nader, 74, failed in three separate attempts to make the Oregon ballot in 2004, and he later filed a lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee that blamed the party for sabotaging his candidacy in the state. The lawsuit is still pending.

Nader said his campaign is figuring out how to qualify for Oregon's 2008 ballot.