Rethinking Ralph

Posted 11:55 p.m., July 8, 2004

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A couple of months ago, I wrote up a Kevblog column that got picked up by the St. Paul Pioneer Press, "Run, Ralph Run (But I Won't Vote For You)."

In it, I defended the presidential run of Ralph Nader on the grounds that he is the only high-profile alternative to the two-party duopoly now in play in the presidential campaign, and that some alternative--even one that I can't personally support--needs to remain in the public view, to remind the electorate that the current political system is busted.

I am not prepared to retract that position, but I am growing increasingly troubled by the Nader campaign.

Now, I admit I have gotten some grief from my more partisan Democratic friends, most of them venting the familiar entreaty: "Nader got Bush elected!"

But I don't buy that, and it is not why I am rethinking Ralph. I won't concede at all that Nader cost Al Gore the election, or that Bush won because of him.

As Nader is quick to point out, what about the 250,000 Democrats in Florida who voted for Bush in 2000? What about the Miami mayor who could have handed Gore thousands of votes, but made no attempt to help Gore because of his own personal tiff with the Democrats? What about the fact that Gore probably, in reality, won Florida; that's it's been shown a full-state recount of the vote would have given Florida to Gore--but Gore wasn't seeking that?

But after sitting through a recent presentation given by the adman Bill Hillsman, whose company put together the "Priceless" ad campaign for Nader in 2000, I've come to see the Nader campaign in a slightly new light than when I wrote my first column.

Hillsman told the attendees gathered at the Humphrey Center at the University of Minnesota that he has declined to work for Nader this year. That's not really because he thinks Ralph has no right to run. It's not because Bill is a full-fledged partisan Democrat--he's not, though he's worked for Democrats, including Paul Wellstone. In fact, Bill is an advocate of third-party alternatives.

It's because there is no real end game in Nader's current campaign. He isn't building anything. Or even attempting to build anything that can have any genuine lasting impact on the political system against which he rails so compellingly.

Perhaps it really is all about Nader.

What's It All About, Ralphie?

On Sunday's "Meet the Press," guest host Andrea Mitchell asked Nader what is the rationale for his campaign. His answer still resonates:

Politics is broken in this country, I think most people believe that. It's for sale. The corporations and their executives fund so much of politics they put a for sale sign on many offices in Congress and government departments. As a result, the necessities of the people are not being met.

We have 47 million workers working full-time--the cleaners, the people who harvest our food who don't make a living wage, they make Wal-Mart wages. We have 45 million, I think, now who don't have health insurance. The environment is still being devastated. They can't even count the votes accurately on Election Day. And giant corporations just have turned Washington into corporate-occupied territory.

-- Ralph Nader,
"Meet the Press," July 3, 2004

I even agree with this Nader comment:

You know what these people are all afraid of, the Democrats? Democracy. That's what they're afraid of; they're afraid of competition, they're afraid of the tradition of third parties in the 19th and early 20th centuries pushing the two parties to pay attention to the needs of the people, instead of their own careerism. Instead of their own dialing for the same corporate dollars.

-- Ralph Nader,
"Meet the Press," July 3, 2004

But balance that against the spectacle of a Dick Armey-led Republican organization actually working to help Nader get on ballots in states like Oregon, in order to suck votes away from Nader's Democratic opponents. We have one of George W. Bush's star fund-raisers, Richard J. Egan, contributing thousands to the Nader campaign, along with other Egan family members, all in an effort to divert votes to the advantage of the right.

All's fair in love and politics, surely, and Republicans will be Republicans. But the fact is that Nader is making no efforts to repudiate such grimy GOP tactics, and that positions him in opposition to his own lofty pronouncements.

True, maybe he shouldn't be faulted for that, donors often give to candidates of both major parties. But this is pretty transparent. And he has invented the character of Ralph Nader, now he must live in that skin: You can't rail against the political game so venomously, then play that very game yourself.

Lone Ranger

So now the Green Party has backed away from Nader, naming another candidate for president. In fact, Nader is running with no party, as a lone independent. It truly is a movement of one.

And that's what bothers me. That's what makes me begin to feel hesitant about my earlier enthusiasm for keeping Nader in the race.

If this is not about building anything durable, if it's not to create a genuine alternative that can lead to real solutions, if it's really just about insisting that Nader should be the one to hold the bullhorn simply because he thinks he is the only one worthy of it, that's not good enough. There has to be more to it.

All politics is local, they say. But it shouldn't be personal. That's why Ross Perot imploded. And I begin to believe that, for Ralph Nader, this really isn't about building a third-party movement that can forge solutions to some of the most pressing problems the country faces, problems the two major parties haven't the courage to tackle themselves. It's not about any of that.

It's all about Ralph.

-- Kevin Featherly

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