Nader and Green Party Campaign Still the Best Hope Despite Glitches

Betty H. Zisk is a political scientist and longtime Quaker and Green activist who serves on the Steering Committees of the Massachusetts Green Party and the Association of State Green Parties.

It was a beautiful early spring day in March when Ralph Nader came to Cambridge for the Nominating Convention of the Massachusetts Green Party. A diverse group of Greens--a fair number of veteran activists joined by an even larger contingent of younger folk from as far as the Berkshires, the Pioneer Valley, and the Cape--virtually filled the Cambridge Quaker meetinghouse. We listened attentively not only to Nader but to spokespeople for two competitors for the Green Party nomination for President, and in the end allotted eleven of Massachusetts' delegates to Nader and one to Jello Biafra, an activist and former rock star whose recent claim to fame was running a strong race for Mayor of San Francisco.

More to the point, because Greens indeed have become serious about electoral politics, one portion of the afternoon session was devoted to planning how to get enough signatures to place the Nader name on the state ballot. We broke into small geographic groups (with strong representation for all but the southeastern part of the state) and planned our three-month campaign to secure those signatures. (Ten thousand valid signatures from registered voters are required by law to qualify a candidate; this means collecting well over 15,000 since signatures are disqualified not only for illegibility but for stray marks or coffee spills on the petitions.) We went home feeling energized and empowered. Nader, equally energized, went from the Green Party press conference to Boston's Fenway Park (where he denounced the corporate greed of the Red Sox's owners in seeking to replace the Green Monster with a new and lavish stadium) and then on to the Conference on Biodevastation held, among other things, in opposition to genetically modified foods.

The story does not end here (indeed, we eagerly await the election in November), but it does not--so far--proceed altogether happily. There are signs of trouble in the Nader campaign--trouble due to inexperience, to a shortage of funds, and to a certain unease in the partnership between the Green Party and the former consumer activist. But first, for those unfamiliar with either or both partners, let me give some background.

Ralph Nader has been prominent (and is seen by many as a hero) ever since the publication of Unsafe at any Speed, his indictment of the auto industry. He went on to establish a host of public interest groups, the "PIRGs," that were devoted to environmentalism, consumer affairs, clean elections, and similar issues. He has been eloquent and controversial, as have the groups he founded, but they have also been responsible for progressive legislation, including passage of the bottle bill and of the so-called "lemon law" which protects those who purchase used cars.

Enter the Greens. Founded in 1984 (and modeled after the German Greens), the Greens represent the convergence of several movements. Most prominent among their values are economic sustainability, ecological wisdom, nonviolence, social justice, and a participatory, bottom-up model of democracy. For roughly five to six years, the Greens focused on movement-building activities in a modest way; a few ran for office (and won some heady victories at the local and state levels), but for the most part, the focus was on old forests, the problems of incinerators, support of local economies, opposition to nuclear power, and the like. In about 1992, however, Green electoral activity began to spring up assertively in a few scattered states: New Mexico, California, Hawaii, and Maine. The argument went (and it was hotly debated in Green circles) that movement activism should be supplemented by electoral work, aiming, if not for victory (except at the local level), at least at the educational value of campaigning. Thus many Greens were eager and ready when Nader became interested in testing the waters via a California-led effort to nominate him in 1996. He (with Native American activist Winona LaDuke as running mate) won 684,000 votes in 36 states. This relatively modest showing came from the fact that Nader ran a token campaign in 1996: he spent under $5000 to avoid having to file with the Federal Elections Commission; he urged others to be active, but in no sense was he an "official" candidate of a nationally recognized party.

This time, however, is different. Nader has promised to campaign in every state and has, as of mid-May, kept that promise in 35 of them. He is a more aggressive fundraiser than was the case in 1996. He not only has a paid staff in Washington, DC, but field organizers (currently concerned with signature collection) in key states, including Massachusetts. And, to the delight of Green Party activists, he has broadened his message beyond the issues of corporate power and environmentalism. His March 25 speech in Massachusetts indeed focused on those issues (plus clean elections) but recent interviews have indicated a willingness to speak out on abortion, gay rights, military spending, and a range of causes beyond those of the 1996 campaign. Nader has also persuaded Winona LaDuke, who he says is more of a specialist in social justice issues than he is, to run an active campaign in 2000; she has indeed ventured as far as Hampshire College (MA) in that quest.

Then why is there "trouble in paradise?"--and indeed there is, at least in Massachusetts, as witness a last minute cancellation of a Springfield appearance, a massively truncated Boston-area visit (three hours instead of a full day) in mid-May, and widespread complaints about scheduling difficulties and lack of consultation with Nader's Green Party partners elsewhere? In part, it is sheer lack of experience with a serious and substantial campaign. The candidate has had decades of experience, after all, in the public interest sector; and although he has hired a campaign staff, he surrounds himself with those who feel more comfortable about lobbying and litigation than they do about campaigning. He is also short of funds, in part because he delayed his announcement until February and thus lost valuable time. He is known to cancel Green Party-sponsored events when an opportunity for fundraising arises; this seeming caprice, or at the very least, lack of consideration for the exigencies of scheduling, has alienated some Greens--including this writer--to the point where a related strategy, that of attaining ballot access in forty states, seems to be threatened. Morale, and thus enthusiasm for standing on streetcorners to hawk the petitions, is bound to ebb in the wake of a last minute cancellation.

But a more serious point is the lack of sustained communications between Nader and the Green Party leadership. While the field staff has been in communication with Greens in some areas, the contact between, for example, the planners of the national convention (to be held in Denver, on June 24-25) and the Nader organization has been minimal. In part, this lack of communication is an offshoot of Nader's scrupulosity about adhering to FEC technicalities over fundraising, and the separation of pre-convention campaigning from party spending. Another problem is that Nader does not yet fully understand the Green Party structures in such a way as to take advantage of their strengths and advice. Steps have been taken recently (from the Green Party end) to talk frankly and fully about these issues. I have every hope that these talks will bear fruit before too many people become disaffected. We have, after all, six months (at this writing) until the election.

Why should you help in the Nader/Green Party effort? First and foremost is the fact that many American voters are dissatisfied with the choices before them. I have found an amazingly low turndown rate in my weekend efforts at signature collection in the Lexington, Bedford, and Concord areas of Massachusetts. There is strong name recognition and considerable anger around the very points Ralph Nader stresses: the abuse of corporate power, the demise of organized labor, the temporizing over clean elections, and the deterioration of the environment, despite one candidate's paying lip service to all of the above. Many people are hungry for a choice--a choice they believe is lacking in Gore v Bush. This of course leads me to my final point: the "Spoiler" argument.

What if, the argument runs, Nader takes so many votes from Gore that Bush wins? There is a counter-argument that says Nader draws his support from all parts of the political spectrum (especially from the young, the libertarian element in society, and to some degree from organized labor, who have never been solidly in the Clinton-Gore camp). I have not yet seen evidence to back up this argument, though we may well see it as the pollsters gear up at summer's end.

The more telling argument, in my view, is that people are opting out of the political system (witness, the abysmally low turn-out rate over the last several presidential elections) and that rather than spoiling the Democrats' chances, Nader is inviting a return to a vibrant and competitive electoral system--one we haven't had in years. Of course, the two-party system itself needs overhauling. Nader commented on this point at the Massachusetts Green Party convention: "You can't spoil what is already spoiled." He elaborated on that comment in a recent (May 7) "Meet the Press" session: "These two parties are so marinated in big business money they can't be internally reformed. There is a whole new independent streak among people. Young people especially are turned off. People are dropping out of democracy. That's a very dangerous trend."

This possibility of a real choice--echoed again and again among the good folk I see in my quest for signatures--is the one reason that I endure the mistakes and misunderstandings and frustrations of this campaign, so far. My option--and that of many people--is, after all, NOTA ("None of the Above"), because I cannot bear the shame I have felt, since the Lyndon Johnson years, about making the Lesser-of-Evils choice. And I assume that once the convention is over (which means a different set of rules and relations, via the FEC)--and with a little more effort by the Nader camp and the Greens to communicate--that the Nader/Green Party relationship will flourish. It is a cause worth working for--this choice, this revitalization of a moribund party system--even if we don't achieve it in a decade or two. We are in for the long haul, for the sake of our children and our grandchildren.

To reach the Nader campaign, <www.votenader.org> For information on how you can help with signature collection in Massachusetts, contact the Massachusetts Green Party, PO Box 1311, Lawrence, MA 01842; 978/688-2068; <massgreens@igc.org>