BY KERA ABRAHAM
A
Nader’s fading crusade.
R
alph Nader is late.
So was Teresa Heinz Kerry when
she came to the McDonald Theater
on Oct. 7, but for her it was fashionable.
While Heinz Kerry’s plane taxied in Eugene,
nubile college women sang a Joni Mitchell
song a capella to a packed audience. Star-
spangled Kerry banners and Kerry-Edwards
T-shirts colored the theater. Media people
scribbled and flashed. The air was optimistic.
But with Nader, it’s different.
It’s a chilly Sunday evening, Oct. 10, and
Nader, too, is coming to Eugene’s McDonald
Theater. About 400 people sit on folding
chairs, waiting. Press photographers yawn in
the aisles. A couple of hand-scrawled signs
are taped to the stage: “Kerry for War Lord.”
“Democrats Betray Public Trust.”
Travis Diskin, Nader’s frazzled Oregon
campaign coordinator, says that Nader is
“just past Salem” in his volunteer Greg
Kafoury’s car. To fill time, Diskin rants about
John Kerry’s support of big entrees on Bush’s
neoconservative menu: NAFTA, Plan
Colombia, the Iraq War, right-wing Supreme
Court judges. Nader alone, says Diskin,
stands up for true liberal values.
“Ralph is in this for life,” he says. “He
hardly has a life. He reads these law briefs.
He doesn’t have a wife. He doesn’t even have
a girlfriend.” Diskin’s voice heaves with ad-
miration.
Instead of enjoying the fruits of his retire-
ment, 70-year-old Nader is still on the cru-
sade. He’s founded 40 organizations and he’s
launching more. He’s running for president
for the fourth time. He keeps on the
Democrats like a fly on shit.
Finally, at 9 pm, Nader’s crew arrives.
Kafoury takes the podium and says that the
man everyone’s been waiting for will be right
up. “Ralph’s suit is being pressed,” says
Kafoury, “with him still in it.”
N
ader’s decision to run for president in
2004 has made adversaries of many
of his former allies. Michael Moore,
who stumped for Nader in 2000, went down
on his knees with Bill Maher to beg him not to
run for president this year. And a new organi-
zation called Repentant Nader Voters calls for
people who voted for Nader in 2000 to go for
Kerry this time.
In open letter to Nader published as an
L.A. Times op-ed on Jul. 6, Repentant Nader
Voter founder Jason Salzman wrote, “as time
has passed, it is clear to us — as people who
voted for you — that your campaign was a
mistake and it’s time to switch from being
‘unrepentant’ Nader voters to being ‘repen-
tant’ ones. Why? Tweedle Dee is still
Tweedle Dee, but Tweedle Dum has turned
into a global tyrant. In other words, you were
right about Tweedle Dee but wrong about
Tweedle Dum.”
Although his support today is only a
shadow of what it was in the 2000 presidential
race, Nader clings to the outskirts of the lime-
light. He regularly appears on television and
radio talk shows. His campaign tour has taken
him through all 50 states. No matter how many
people criticize him, plead with him, heckle
him and laugh at him, Nader refuses to bow
out.
14 OCTOBER 21, 2004
H
e stands alone at the podium behind a
solitary sign: “Nader/Camejo 2004.
VoteNader.org.” The lights are dim
and the stage is bare. His suit is nicely pressed.
Nader seems to be in good health, sharp and
logical, but irate. Much of his anger is directed
at Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury,
who kept him off the state ballot on a technical-
ity. Nader calls Bradbury a “political crook”
and demands his immediate resignation.
He then directs his wrath against John Kerry
and the liberal Democrats who support him.
“Who’s pulling Kerry-Edwards in the progres-
sive direction?” he asks. “Just Nader-Camejo.
It’s not the liberals. The liberals have basically
proceeded on the following mantra for Nov. 2:
‘Anybody but Bush. Leave Kerry alone. Make
no demands on him.’ That means Kerry can
take for granted the entire liberal wing of the
Democratic party and move to the right.”
Nader lists the many ways in which
Kerry’s platform mirrors Bush’s. Both want a
bigger military budget; both support the Iraq
War. “John Kerry, in the first debate, out-
hawked George W. Bush!” Nader seethes. “He
should be landsliding this giant corporation
masquerading as a human being in the White
House. He should be landsliding the messianic
militarists who think that the invasion of Iraq
was fulfilling the Providence’s will. Instead,
he’s in a tight race.”
Issues off the table in the race between
Kerry and Bush, says Nader, include the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the drug war and
corporate crime. “There is no end to the cow-
ardliness of these two parties,” he says. “It’s
like they’re in a race to the bottom, and they’re
dragging our country down with them, and the
Republicans are a little bit closer to Hades, and
the Democrats are just behind them saying to
the liberals, ‘Come on! Come on! You got no
choice! We haven’t reached the Republican
party yet!’” Nader’s voice is clowny, dripping
with sarcasm and frustration.
He segues from criticizing Kerry to blast-
ing environmental groups, the AFL-CIO and
Howard Dean. He says that America is under
complete commercial control.
“It’s now a corporate government,” says
Nader grimly. “It is now a government of the
Exxons by the General Motors for the
DuPonts. And that alone. The surrender of our
elections to big corporate money, the surren-
der of our politicians and government institu-
tions to corporate power, that alone provides
the rationale for resistance against both par-
ties. Or shall we call them one corporate party
with two heads wearing different makeup.”
Nader is personally offended. “Our gov-
ernment is fooling us under their corporate
control, and the corporations are laughing at
us!” he says. “Most people want health care
for all. Who says no? The HMOs, the drug
companies and the health insurance compa-
nies. And who do the politicians obey? They
obey the corporations’.”
Nader lowers his chin and levels with the
audience. “Don’t let yourself be trivialized,”
he says. “It’s very easy to be trivialized. It’s
very easy to be trivialized. It’s very easy to be
trivialized.”
A sympathetic laugh ripples through the
crowd. “It’s very easy to be trivialized,” Nader
says again. The crowd falls silent. “It’s very
easy to be trivialized,” he says a fifth time.
It’s either a joke or a nervous breakdown.
fter Nader’s speech, Kafoury returns
to the stage to pump the crowd for
money. “There is nothing in the
world that is more fulfilling than giving Ralph
Nader more than you can afford,” says
Kafoury, whose law firm donated $31,000 —
the biggest contribution to the Nader-Camejo
campaign. “Who can give $1,000?”
Meanwhile, Diskin paces backstage. He
tells me that his work for Nader has become a
part of his spiritual journey. “I eat breakfast
with him sometimes, and I see him mechani-
cally shoving in energy,” says Diskin, pan-
tomiming Nader wolfing down food. “I get the
idea that he’s a vessel channeling a higher
spirit. It takes a toll on the vessel, but he’s sac-
rificed his life to fight for what he believes in.
That’s what we call a patriot.”
It’s nearly midnight by the time Nader
wraps up the question-and-answer session. He
plans to drive back to Portland, sleep, and then
get to UC Berkeley in the morning — but he
still makes time for an interview.
He tells me that he’s running not to win,
but to “affect the content and the tone of the
conversation between the candidates” and to
“encourage and give heart” to progressive vot-
ers. Despite records showing that he’s re-
ceived several tens of thousands of dollars
from Republican donors, Nader insists that
none of his $3.5-million campaign funding
comes from Republicans.
I ask him why the Green Party broke with
him. “To be charitable, they have low expecta-
tion levels,” he replies. “They don’t represent
the underdogs.”
I ask him why former allies like Michael
Moore and Howard Dean have come out
against his 2004 presidential campaign. “They
don’t understand that the corporations are al-
ready in,” he says.
An aide signals that time is
up. Nader nods and stands to
leave. It’s late. He’s got
work to do.
Just days before, Teresa Heinz Kerry stood
onstage in Eugene and offered answers in her
charming South African accent. She promised
that under her husband’s presidency, children
will learn the arts in well-funded public
schools. A reformed health care system will
lower premiums, and Oregon’s depressed
economy will recover. The government will
support the development of alternative energy
sources, recognizing the vital connection be-
tween a clean planet and human health. The
scheme to pay for it all while halving the debt,
said Heinz Kerry, is outlined in Our Plan for
America, available free through the Kerry-
Edwards website.
Heinz Kerry is so confident, her husband
so presidential, that I want to believe her.
But something makes me wonder if the
state of the nation is really hopeful or easy to
fix, or if Kerry is corrupt like the rest. And I re-
ally do believe what Ralph Nader says about
America. I believe it deeply, in that shuddering
doomful part of me that only sees absolutes:
the blackness of reality, the bright light of ide-
alism. I believe Ralph, because he’s still
courageous and alone after all these years –
unrelenting, unrepentant, making so much dis-
mal sense. Insisting that “surrender is not an
option.”
And it reminds me of George W. Bush.
Nader is the uncompromising, bullheaded
believer of the left, even if the left thinks he’s
right.
And although Heinz Kerry’s smile is just a
bit forced when she promises that her husband
will bring health care and free education and
fabulous hair to all Americans, one thing she
says rings sincere:
“Enjoy complexity. It is a treat. We need a
president who enjoys complexity and em-
braces it.”
ew
I
n all his idealism and
sincerity, Nader strikes
a refreshing contrast to
Bush and Kerry. But he is no
longer the powerful third-
party crusader he was in the
2000 presidential race. Now,
Nader seems frustrated and di-
minished — an alienated
progressive victim com-
plaining to other alien-
ated progressive vic-
tims.
KERA ABRAHAM
Ralph Alone