Abstract

Nader, Unbowed

The article discusses the political campaign of Ralph Nader for the 2004 United States presidential election. The thing that really galls Nader is not that so many of his prominent 2000 campaign supporters are now actively campaigning for Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry. What gets him so fevered is his belief that they have given their support to the Kerry campaign without asking anything in return. During late September visits to cities that in 2000 were hotbeds of Nader activism--San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis and college towns like Madison, Wisconsin, and Iowa City, Iowa--I was struck by a complete absence of the street-level campaigning that was such a vibrant characteristic of Nader's last campaign. In 2000, when Nader portrayed his Green Party run as an effort to build a genuine alternative to the two major parties, it was impossible to set foot in any of those communities without encountering undergraduates tabling for Nader, older lefties arguing fervently that the time had come to build a Green alternative, and mainstream liberals raising the ubiquitous "Let Ralph Debate" call. Nader's campaign, ill prepared for the intensity of the struggle and desperate to leap the ballot-access hurdles, accepted contributions from major Republican givers such as billionaire Richard Egan, the former ambassador to Ireland, and his wife, Pamela, who have raised more than $600,000 for Bush, and on-the-ground assistance from conservative groups like the Oregon Family Council and Oregon Citizens for a Sound Economy, which urged Bush backers to help Nader get on the ballot in that state. When they got Nader tossed off the ballots in noncompetitive states such as Illinois and Texas--where he would have spent most of his time banging Bush--they in effect guided him into states where polls show the Bush/Kerry race so close that even a marginal Nader vote could do damage.