 December 2003 January 2004
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Sara Burke, Managing Editor Sam Diener, Editor Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
Nader Explains: I Won't Run Green in 2004 Ralph Nader sent the letter excerpted below to the Steering Committee of the Green Party on December 22, 2003. For the full text and several responses, see the Portside listserve on yahoogroups. I am writing to withdraw my name from consideration as a potential nominee for the Green Party presidential ticket in 2004. Although its growth has been slower than many of us would like, the Green Party at least remains poised to respond to the voters' desire for a third party. The failure of the two major parties both to engage 100 million nonvoters and to provide existing voters with choices over a broad range of important issues has been a continual reality for Greens. With this in mind, uncertainty expressed by the Party's leadership regarding the conditions under which the Party may or may not field Presidential and Vice-presidential candidates in 2004 can only be interpreted as a confused retreat. Specifically, the Steering Committee has declared in reference to whether "the Green Party will (or won't) run a high- (or low-) profile candidate for President in 2004, and that the candidate will (or won't) drop out in their (sic) run for the Presidency before Election day, possibly making some kind of accommodation (or not) with the Democrats and their candidate" that delegates "...will come together at our National Convention in the summer of 2004 to make a final, collective decision as to whether the Green Party will run a presidential candidate, and, if so, who that person will be." The occasion for this letter is not simply that there are robust contending views about whether to have a Presidential candidate and under which strategies and conditions, but that - should I decide to run - it is not feasible within the difficult parameters of state and federal election laws to wait and see what the Green Party will do in June 2004. Indeed, the framework and schedule you have chosen for making a decision seems itself tilted against anyone contemplating a serious run as your nominee. Many grassroots Greens who have views contrary to this procedure are not, nor are they going to be, in control of how this decision is going to be made or unmade. It has already been made. I cannot, nor could any serious potential candidate, embark on a committed campaign for President as a Green Party nominee when the Party will not even be certain whether or how it wishes to run a candidate until June 2004. Nor would it be tolerable (not to mention counter- productive for ballot lines, local candidates, party growth, and vote totals), for the Party to impose on its nominee varying geographical limits to campaigning. The deadlines for obtaining ballot access in many states come due prior to or around your convention's decision. Were I to become a candidate, I would not want to launch a campaign with such an uncertain compass regarding what should be a bedrock, genetic determination to run presidential and vice-presidential candidates all out - which is what, after all, national political parties - as opposed to movements - do. The Green Party has endless opportunities to field candidates, especially among the 2.5 million elective offices at the state and local levels, many of which offer no opposition to the incumbents by the other major party. I submit that 2004 might be the year that the Green Party makes a deeper commitment to building the party through state and local candidacies. I and many Greens concur that this is the Party's clearest present strength and will be the source of its important talent in the future. During the 2001, 2002, and 2003 elections, Greens won approximately twenty-five percent of the local offices they contested.
I still believe that Americans deserve more political parties
and better choices than the rhetoric and offerings of the two
major parties. I believe in giving people real power to achieve
solutions to the problems we have today and in the long-term potential
for a reorganized Green Party. In the event that I should still
decide to become a presidential candidate, any collaborative efforts
that are possible, especially at the state and local level, would
be welcome. 
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