For months, the major parties ignored Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader as a well-meaning but quirky also-ran, a virtual asterisk on the ballot. But with just a week left, Nader suddenly finds himself with a spot at the center of the major parties’ battle for the White House.
Questions over how Nader, the anti-corporate, pro-environment, longtime consumer activist, could tip the numbers in key states like Wisconsin have sent the Democrats and Republicans into a dizzying rush of seemingly topsy-turvy warfare.
Democrats and some key leaders of America’s progressive movements are touring the country this week, pleading that voters not cast their ballots for Nader, who has long been considered a hero in some of the same progressive circles. Republicans, meanwhile, are broadcasting advertisements that, oddly enough, showcase Nader.
Both sides make the same assumption: A voter who picks Nader would otherwise have voted for Democrat Al Gore and is, in essence, helping Republican George W. Bush.
The Nader factor has emerged in states from Maine to California, but party leaders are especially focused on four states where the margins between the vice president and the Texas governor are exceedingly slim, and where polls suggest Nader could capture between 5 percent and 10 percent of the vote. The four, Washington, Oregon, Minnesota and Wisconsin, were carried by President Clinton in the last two elections, but now Gore supporters contend the third-party candidate is skimming away a small but crucial slice of voters.
Nader is unapologetic about his newfound spot in the race. Urged by some to step aside in hard-fought states, Nader has defiantly pressed on, advising: “Vote your conscience. Vote your dreams.”
His supporters seem mildly pleased, if a bit puzzled, by the notion that they’re finally being listened to, after months of fighting without success for a place in the presidential debates.
The broader struggle for the votes of people who like Nader is playing out this week in liberal-leaning pockets across the country, on the streets of Eugene, Ore.; Burlington, Vt.; Santa Fe; and here in Madison.
From the Nader headquarters in Madison leaflets were being distributed Monday afternoon with a decidedly down-to-earth, Nader-style message: “Rock the state Capitol building … No tickets, no lines, no Secret Service…”
Nader, the leaflets promised, will speak to this college town Wednesday. But not before a group of abortion-rights advocates, environmental activists, and gay and lesbian rights leaders holds a rally here Tuesday featuring feminist Gloria Steinem and musician Stephen Stills to urge Nader supporters to vote for Gore instead. The group’s five-state tour of the country is being paid for by the Democratic National Committee.
“It’s with a lot of reluctance that I do this; I respect Nader,” said Robert Cox, a Sierra Club leader who is traveling to Madison to ask Nader supporters to pick Gore. “But the reality is that Bush or Gore will occupy the White House. We can either help progressive issues or we cannot.”
Cox said he feared Bush’s record on the environment. A Bush presidency might doom precious resources like old-growth and ancient-growth forests, he warned. “It’s one thing to say that you want to be a watchdog, but we really don’t need a watchdog when the fox is in the chicken coop.”
Abortion-rights advocates and gay-rights activists said they have similar fears about a Bush presidency: Would he appoint justices who oppose abortion rights to the Supreme Court? Would he diminish rights for gay and lesbian couples and for gay or lesbian workers?
Such efforts to stop potential damage from Nader have surfaced at a swift pace in recent weeks. Someone has even created a Web site that encourages people to “trade” Nader votes in states where Gore could be in danger of losing, with similar-thinking people in states where Gore already is considered certain to lose.
Ben Manski, Nader’s Wisconsin coordinator, dismissed the effects of pressure from such groups to switch over now to Gore. “It’s going to take more than throwing around a bunch of liberals to get us to vote for a candidate who frankly has been no friend to progressive politics,” he said.
Both Nader and Gore supporters hope to reach people like Bob Jacobson, a 37-year-old policy analyst for a non-profit group, who wandered into the Madison Nader offices on Monday. Jacobson once voted for President Clinton but favors Nader this time.
His 2nd-grade daughter noticed political signs for Gore and Bush in her public school classroom, Jacobson said, and she wondered why Nader didn’t have a spot on the wall. “It just really offended my sensibilities,” Jacobson said. Nader’s small staff couldn’t find a photo-style sign of their candidate. They suggested Jacobson look on the Internet, and print out a picture.
Jacobson seems unlikely to change his mind about Nader. Gore and Nader, to him, are not interchangeable. He calls Democrats’ efforts to persuade people to switch to Gore a “scare tactic.” The notion that a vote for Nader amounts to a vote for Bush is “stupid,” Jacobson said. “It’s a vote for Nader.”
Still, Jacobson acknowledges that Nader will not win the presidency. He says he sees a broader political landscape, a long-term progressive movement for which the Democratic Party seems not to have room, a chance to create a real, publicly funded third party.
Others, though, may prove more malleable in this final week.
On the other side of the country, Dazzia Lord, a 25-year-old waitress at Out of the Fog restaurant in Eugene, Ore., said she wants to support Nader but she’ll probably wait until the final few minutes on Election Day to decide. “I would much rather vote for Nader,” Lord said.
The diverse emotions of Nader’s supporters have spawned new questions on which political experts disagree. Would Nader supporters even vote in an election without Nader? Is it too late, so close to the election, to change their minds about Nader? And will they really vote for him in large numbers when it comes to Election Day?
