The Presidential campaign of Ralph Nader and the Green Party has without a doubt sent a powerful message to the leaders of the Democrat Party that they cannot continue to move to the right, hugging the left fringe of the Republican Party, and still take the votes of Greens,liberals, environmentalists, and working class voters for granted. Thanks to Ralph and the hard-working Green Party volunteers and activists in his campaign for presenting voters with an inspiring alternative.
It is without question that Ralph Nader is the superior candidate running in this election. Nader is correct on all of the major domestic and policy issues: environmental protection, education, gun control, housing, health care, and prescription drug cost control, etc. A year ago, when I assumed that by this time Al Gore would have a comfortable lead in the voter polls, a committment to vote for Nader did not seem to include much of a downside. Enter Geo. W. Bush; what a difference a year makes.
As I listened to Bush during the third Presidential debate on the radio, I thought I was having a deja vu experience and it was 1980, and Ronald Reagan was telling voters he was a plain-speaking, common-sense guy, who could run the country even though he didn't know anything more than the average man on the street. Voters loved it - and we spent eight years under an Altzheimers patient whose surrogates (including Geo. Bush senior) deregulated banking (the Savings & Loan collapse cost a trillion dollars), tripled the national debt (a trillion in tax cuts for the rich plus a trillion for unnecessary military increases and imperialist proxy wars), and were responsible for a host of other major blunders including disasterous appointments to the Supreme Court.
I think Nader's claim that there is no difference between Gore and Bush is an exaggeration. The charge is based on the obvious fact that both candidates and both parties are financially dependent upon big corporations and special interests. However, this is one central problem for which the Nader/Green platform does not offer a satisfactory solution either: how to keep special interest money out of our political process. The issue is ultimately basic; failure to adequately address this problem undermines progressive policies on all the rest.
The problem with campaign finance reform is that it won't work under the US Constitution. All the tinkering around the edges, McCain/Feingold, volunteer limits, disclosure regulations, etc., are just cosmetic. Uncontrolled campaign spending, "soft-money" advertising, as well as the enormous power of special-interest lobbying are protected as free speech under the Bill of Rights. In our capitalist society, money is pervasive. Money is central in the practice of medicine, law, religion, art, sports, and of particular importance to the democratic process, journalism. We can't hope to create a money-free sphere, in which politics can operate free of the influence of money, without fundamental changes in our political and economic systems, changes which go far beyond anything being advocated by Ralph Nader. Nader surely isn't campaigning for amending the First Amendment to allow restrictions on campaign spending (such as requiring Oregon Initiative petition signature-gatherers to be volunteers) and requiring the media to provide free access to all.
One of the main purposes of the Green campaign is to reach 5% of the popular vote in order to qualify for public campaign financing. The struggle of minor parties to clear this initial hurdle is all about money. This necessity to obtain financing to pay for media coverage represents a fundamental compromise of democracy, a compromise which is inevitable under the rule that says money is speech. On this basic issue, Ralph's run for the 5% is not so different from the campaigns of Bush and Go
A second reason for my renouncing committment to vote for Nader is the reflection that, had he run seriously in 1996, a campaign year when Bill Clinton was substantially ahead in all the polls, it would have been an easy decision to support the national Green Party ticket. There would have been no issue of contributing to a return to the Reagan era government-by-wink-and-nod, by the Donald Regans, Ollie Norths, and James Watts. Now, in this 2000 campaign, Ralph Nader has gotten serious, but the best opportunity to boost the Green-progressive movement from the top of the election ladder passed by in 1996. The next four years will be spent in the trenches, paying some dues for bad timing, but, with a significant boost from the 2000 Campaign, building the Green Party from the grassroots, from the bottom up.
In conclusion, I am convinced W is dumb as a post and is a Reagan clone. His court appointments will be Scalia and Thomas clones. His Regans and Ollies and Watts will run everything. Gore at least is a smart hack, hack though he be. Poor timing means Nader can't realize the full potential of his candidacy, but his run has placed the progressive movement in a position of real political power for the first time in a long time. Swing state voters: think Nader, hold your nose, vote for Gore, and work for progressive government in your communities.