Published on Tuesday, March 9, 2004 by Knight-Ridder
Green, Reform Parties May Both Tap Nader
by Maria Recio
WASHINGTON - Q: Ralph Nader, who is running for president as an
independent, will be listed on the ballot in November as:
a) the Reform Party candidate
b) the Green Party candidate
c) an independent
d) all of the above.
The answer is likely to be "d." Nader has made it clear that he will
use whatever tactic helps him get on state ballots, and he has lots of
options.
In 2000, Nader was the Green Party candidate and won 2.7 percent of
the popular vote while on the ballot in only 43 states. In Florida and
New Hampshire, if only a small number of Nader voters had gone to
Democrat Al Gore, he would have defeated Republican George W. Bush.
Democrats fear a repeat this year.
An Associated Press poll released Friday put Nader's support at 6
percent nationally, with Democratic candidate John Kerry in a virtual
tie with Bush. The poll, taken March 1-3, was of 771 registered voters
and had an error margin of 3.5 percentage points.
Nader's independent, anti-corporate, populist campaign starts its
uphill effort to get on the ballot in all 50 states this week in
Texas. And there are signs that he may end up as the nominee of both
the Reform Party and the Green Party, which are strange bedfellows
ideologically.
Texas has one of the toughest standards for ballot qualification in
the nation. Starting Wednesday, any minor candidate has 60 days to get
more than 60,000 signatures. Complicating the task is that anyone who
votes in Tuesday's Texas primary can't sign the petition.
But it's easier for a third party to get listed on the Texas ballot
than an individual; a third party needs only 40,000 voter signatures
collected in a 75-day period starting Wednesday. As a result, Nader is
engaged in an unlikely flirtation with the Reform Party.
The Reform Party, founded by Dallas billionaire Ross Perot in the
fiery spirit of his anti-deficit, anti-free-trade 1992 presidential
candidacy, all but disappeared after the 2000 campaign, when it split
between followers of Perot and conservative commentator Pat Buchanan,
the party's nominee four years ago.
Nader met with Reform Party officials recently during a three-day
Texas swing. The party has voted to collect the signatures needed to
put Nader's name on the ballot as its candidate in Texas.
"Everybody's thrilled to death to have Nader run on our line," said
Beverly Kennedy, the Reform Party's Dallas County chair.
The Nader campaign also plans to get him on the Texas ballot as an
independent. "We're gearing up for an independent run," said Nader
spokesman Kevin Zeese. The campaign Web site is seeking $20,000 to
help.
The national Reform Party has maintained ballot lines in seven states
that are pretty much Nader's for the asking.
Meanwhile, the pro-environment Green Party, which backed Nader in
2000, has a vigorous Draft Nader movement under way, with Nader
stand-ins running for delegates to the party's June convention.
In California, Nader ally Peter Camejo won the Green Party's
presidential nomination in last week's state primary, collecting 74
percent support. But Camejo says he won't run for president. "I think
it's very important for Greens to endorse Ralph Nader. Nader's
campaign is a factor in the election now," Camejo said.
Greens are trying to determine if Nader would accept a draft and have
asked him to make his intentions clear. Nader declared in December
that he wouldn't seek the Green Party's nomination because he didn't
want his candidacy to be constrained by Green Party rules, but that's
not the same as renouncing Green Party support.
Zeese said Nader would soon issue a "statement of intent" regarding
the Green Party. It has ballot lines in 21 states and is organizing to
get on ballots in about 20 more.
Would Nader accept a Green Party draft? "We'll see," said Zeese. "We
get a lot of calls from Greens who want him to run. The Reform Party
is also calling. He's not seeking the Reform Party nomination,
either."
Zeese noted that in 2000, Nader's name was on the ballot in 13
different incarnations, including as the nominee of the Progressive
Party in Vermont and the Mountain Party in West Virginia. Nader was
clear when announcing that he would run again this year that he would
be on ballots under different party names.
"Fifty states - that's definitely what the goal is," said Zeese.
For more info, go to www.VoteNader.org
Copyright © 2004, Knight-Ridder
Published on Tuesday, March 9, 2004 by the Newark Star-Ledger (New Jersey)
Forget Don Quixote, Believers See a Nader vs. Goliath Battle
by Miles Benson
Ralph Nader is finding out who his friends are.
The 70-year-old consumer advocate has attracted a legion of admirers
in his four decades as a scold and gadfly. Not all of them are happy
about his independent run for the presidency, but many are preparing
to march behind him once more.
Followers see Nader as a crusading romantic hero, a modern Robin Hood
organizing citizen bands to combat corporate interests in the Sherwood
Forest of American politics. They are a small but loyal group in every
hue of the political rainbow, including folks who have voted for Bill
Clinton, Ross Perot and Patrick Buchanan.
Some are sure Nader never will be president, but don't care. Others
believe lightning could strike and his effort succeed. Some say they
might abandon Nader later if it would help defeat President Bush.
In the 2000 election, 2.9 million Americans, or 2.7 percent of those
voting, cast their ballots for Nader, then the Green Party's nominee.
Democratic strategists say Nader will get only a fraction of that
support this year.
But they dread the thought that he might do better. And an Associated
Press poll of 771 voters March 1-3 held out that possibility: 6
percent supported Nader, with the rest almost evenly split between
Republican Bush and Democrat Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.
The notion that most voters who backed Nader in 2000 were chagrined
after helping Bush to a thin Electoral College win, and would not
behave likewise again, may be overdrawn.
Nader's most committed supporters share his conviction that Kerry and
Bush, never mind their differences, would both preserve an entrenched
American power structure that often victimizes ordinary citizens.
They want to shake up the system.
"Nader is honest, principled and he takes the right stands on issues
that matter to people," said Howie Hawkins, 51, a Teamsters union
member who loads trucks for United Parcel Service in Syracuse, N.Y.
"Bush and Kerry might disagree on cultural issues, but when it comes
to substantive economic class issues they are in the same camp," said
Hawkins, a former Marine who recalls his father, a lawyer, telling him
about Nader when he was a teenager. "Dad said Nader was keeping
business honest."
When auto giant Daimler-Chrysler wanted to build a new Jeep plant in
Toledo,Ohio, in 1998, the city agreed to make room for the company by
buying out 83 homeowners and small businesses. But the people didn't
want to move, and Nader intervened on their behalf.
"Ralph came to Toledo three times and sent lawyers who slept on our
floors and couches and helped us at no cost," said Julie Coyle, 50, a
leader of the embattled group that now calls itself Nader's Neighbors.
"He said you can find injustice anywhere; stay and fight and I'll
stand with you," recalled Coyle, a registered Democrat, social worker,
teacher and grant manager for Bowling Green State University. ("I'm
one of those people who needs several jobs to stay afloat," she said.)
She has been a Nader fan ever since.
"If you give him your card, sometime in the next 20 years he'll call
you and ask for your help," Coyle said. "Say 'yes,' and it's the most
interesting intellectual journey you'll ever have."
Greg Kafoury, 57, a Portland, Ore., attorney, and his son, Jason, 25,
say both their lives have been shaped by contact with Nader.
"I'm a leftist," said the elder Kafoury, who was a 20-year-old
political science student when he first heard Nader speak at the
University of Oregon.
"I was blown away. He was unique. The year before he'd written a book
about General Motors, 'Unsafe at Any Speed,' and they tried to destroy
him for it. He turned the tables on them.
"Ralph taught Americans both the magnitude of the threat of corporate
power and the power of one man to stand up to them. I went to law
school because of Ralph Nader, and now I've been an activist for 30
years. My son will be going to law school next year and he'll be doing
the same thing."
Jason Kafoury works full time in Nader's Washington, D.C.,
headquarters, the precise location of which the Nader campaign keeps
secret for security reasons.
"He has worked tirelessly around the clock to make America safer, more
environmentally friendly, and to promote a civic culture," the younger
Kafoury said of Nader. "We are people who believe both major parties
are indentured to the same corporate interests and believe that we
have to build a movement within the electoral arena to regain our
democracy and put people back in charge."
Pat Choate, a Washington-based political economist and author who
backed Pat Buchanan in 2000, is supporting Nader this year.
"He's a person of great integrity, and he's focused on the issues that
matter -- the budget deficit, trade, and Iraq," said Choate, 63. "He's
a courageous man and very good for America. A good number of
independent voters are going to be for him, and I think a lot of the
old white-shoe conservative Republicans are going to be interested,
along with the more traditional liberals of the Democratic Party."
Russell Verney, 57, who helped organize the Reform Party that launched
Ross Perot's presidential campaign in 1992, is now advising Nader.
"I want desperately to see him in the presidential debates," Verney
said. "Without that independent voice, the Republicans and Democrats
will avoid the most pressing issues."
Terence Courtney, 32, a black community organizer in Atlanta, said he
supports Nader because he wants "a shift in the way we allocate our
resources so it goes mostly to working people, people of color, women
and children and less on building weapons and bombs."
Unlike the Democrats, Courtney said, Nader "is telling the truth about
the relationships between the government, the military and the
corporations."
Jerry Kann, 43, a copy editor and proof reader in the Astoria section
of New York City, also is a Nader man.
"I don't think the Democratic Party really stands for anything
anymore," Kann said. "Government is there to serve the majority. It's
not -- it's serving a tiny, overprivileged elite.
"I'm tired of voting for the lesser of two evils," he said. "That's
not acceptable."
