Ralph Nader was “snubbed.” He was “rejected,” “rebuked,” “spurned,” “bypassed,”
“set adrift.” Plainly put, the legendary consumer advocate and perennial presidential
candidate “blew it.”
So read headlines across the country and around the
globe after the Green Party formally disowned the man who did the most to raise
its profile.
At their national convention, held June 23-28in
Milwaukee, the Greens voted to nominate their own presidential candidate rather
than endorse Nader, the party’s nominee in 1996 and 2000.
After heated debate, Greens narrowly selected David
Cobb, a native Texan and political unknown. Unlike Nader, Cobb vowed to avoid
campaigning in so-called swing states, where polls show a close race between
President George W. Bush and the Democrats’ likely nominee, U.S. Sen. John F.
Kerry, D-Mass.
After Cobb’s nomination, Nader berated the Green Party as “strange,” said
it was run by a “cabal,” and predicted that it would be a “big loser” in the
November election.
In an interview Monday with Illinois Times, Nader
continued to scold the party he once helped foster.
“Why should the Democrats listen to the Green Party
if it’s just going to contest Massachusetts?” Nader asked. “The Greens have
abandoned the only leverage that a third party can have, which is to deny the
major parties votes in close contests.”
Most Greens admit that Nader is right. By picking Cobb,
they have, in Nader’s words, “shrunk themselves.” They have “jettisoned themselves
out of any influence on the Democratic Party.”
And, for now, that’s just fine by them.
Most Greens are still smarting from the deluge of negative
publicity the party endured after the 2000 election, in which Nader won just
2.7 percent of the popular vote nationally but may have tipped the balance in
favor of Bush in key swing states.
In Florida, for instance, Nader received 97,488 votes.
Bush won the Sunshine State by a mere 537 votes, a slim margin that gave him
all of the state’s electoral votes. Democrats branded Nader and the Greens spoilers
for drawing votes from their nominee, Vice President Al Gore.
Cobb’s nomination this year indicates that the party
is eager to shed the spoiler label. Rather than chase the national spotlight,
the 41-year-old lawyer campaigned on a promise to “grow the Greens” by focusing
more on local elections — running candidates for seats on county boards and
in state legislatures.
“We, as a party, need some breathing space,” Cobb told
IT. “There’s nothing sexy about what we’re setting out to do, because
it’s really more slow and methodical.”
Green Party members take enormous pride in the freewheeling
format of their national convention.
They say the Democratic National Convention, set for
later this month in Boston, and Republican National Convention, which will be
held in New York City in September, will amount to sterile coronations of preordained
candidates.
The Greens, by contrast, came to Milwaukee without knowing
who would get the party’s nod, which permitted an open and at times contentious
process.
“It’s a real political convention rather than a staged
convention where the decisions are settled in advance,” says Marc Sanson, an
Illinois delegate from Springfield.
In a recent New York Times article, the Greens
were described as the “fringiest of the fringe,” and the party’s oddball constituency
of young idealists and aging bohemians was noted.
Indeed, there were enough silver-streaked ponytails,
tie-dyed T-shirts, open-toed sandals, and peace flags to cause most anyone to
mistake the Milwaukee convention for a Woodstock reunion.
Pamphlets calling for the legalization of industrial
hemp were circulated. A hackysack circle formed a few feet from the main stage
during the first voting round.
Despite the campyatmosphere, many delegates
said they were stunned by the extensive political maneuvering and finger-pointing,
hissing, and catcalling that punctuated many of the speeches and debates.
“It’s been high tensions the whole time,” said party
member Paul Proces, of Philadelphia, as the nearly 800 delegates, representing
44 states where the Greens are organized, began voting on a nominee.
The number of delegates assigned to each state was based
on a formula that factored in the level of Green Party activity in the state,
said party spokesman Scott McLarty.
California led all states with 132 delegates; Kansas
brought up the rear with just two. Illinois had 22 delegates from cities across
the state.
Acting out their role as America’s largest leftist opposition
party, most delegates lampooned their own states before announcing vote tallies.
The Indiana delegation’s representative described his
state as stretching “from the shores of polluted Lake Michigan in the north
to the clear-cut banks of the Ohio River in the south, with many other sins
in between.”
Illinois’ representative took a shot at Decatur-based
Archer Daniels Midland Co., which she described as “well-known corporate criminals,
price-fixers, and union-busters.”
In the weeks leading up to the convention, the Illinois
Green Party surveyed its members to gauge their preferences. The list included
Fahrenheit 9/11 filmmaker Michael Moore (with the addendum “even if he
doesn’t want it”) and former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio (“even if he’s
ineligible”).
In the first voting round, Minnesota delegates got a
huge ovation by nominating Eugene V. Debs, the legendary Socialist Party candidate
and union organizer. Debs died in 1926.
Delegates had several choices: They could vote for “no
nominee,” which would open the door to either a Nader endorsement or a decision
not to field a presidential candidate, or they could vote for one of a handful
of homegrown no-name candidates such as David Cobb.
To the surprise of many delegates — and most observers — Cobb won. It took several hours and two voting rounds, but in the moment
that Cobb’s victory became clear, the convention-hall lights went off, Creedence
Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” came roaring through the speakers, and
Cobb ascended the stage in a rumpled suit, his shirttail spilling from his pants.
“Without Ralph Nader, this nomination wouldn’t have
happened,” he said, flashing the crowd a V-for-victory sign. “Ralph, if you
are watching, thank you for what you have done, and thank you for what you will
continue to do.”
Nader’s absence loomed large at the Greens’ convention,
where, many delegates contended, he would have easily won the endorsement had
he simply shown up. Some supporters held crudely drawn signs that asked, “Where
is Ralph?”
Nader says it would have been “crass interference” to
actively court the Greens’ endorsement because he was not seeking the party’s
nomination.
“The press misunderstood it,” Nader told IT.
“They felt we were going all-out to contest the nomination, and we weren’t.”
Still, the nomination was seen as a significant setback
for the simple reason that a Green Party endorsement would have given Nader’s
independent campaign access to ballots in 22 states and the District of Columbia.
Getting his name on these ballots has already proved
difficult. Nader must now collect tens of thousands of voter signatures and
stave off legal challenges, filed mostly by Democrats, who hope to thwart his
candidacy.
“You cannot believe how expensive that is,” says Nader,
referring to an estimated $80,000 legal fee to defend his petitions in Oregon
last week. The tab proved too costly, he says, forcing him to withdraw.
In Illinois, a similar challenge to Nader’s nominating
petitions, also filed by Democrats, is pending (see sidebar, p. 12).
And, according to published reports, Nader has received
contributions from traditionally Republican donors, who hope he’ll siphon votes
from Kerry.
Nader has added to the strangeness by successfully courting
the endorsement of the Reform Party, the Ross Perot-created organization that
four years ago backed conservative commentator Pat Buchanan. The Reform Party’s
endorsement potentially puts Nader on seven state ballots, including the key
states of Florida, Colorado, and Michigan.
Although they largely agree with his views, many liberal-left
stalwarts, such as The Nation magazine, have urged Nader to drop his
presidential bid, lest he spoil Kerry’s chance of beating Bush.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who will debate Nader
on National Public Radio this week, has called Nader’s candidacy “the single
biggest danger” to Kerry’s campaign.
More than a dozen Congressional Black Caucus members,
all Democrats, met with Nader last month to request that he quit the race.
Even some formerly loyal supporters have turned against
Nader, calling him arrogant and egomaniacal.
John Rensenbrink, a founder of the Green Party and longtime
Nader ally, broke allegiance and cast his vote for Cobb at the Greens’ convention.
“Ralph Nader is in the business of making political
statements,” says Rensenbrink, “rather than creating a durable political party.”
Cobb was the only Green candidate to run a national
campaign for the party’s nomination.
A shoestring operation at best, the Cobb campaign raised
some $40,000 and made campaign stops in 41 states. During a press conference
in Springfield early last month, Cobb distinguished himself as perhaps the nation’s
lone presidential candidate to open his stump speech with a diatribe against
genetically modified foods.
“We’re not allowed to know what’s in the food we eat,”
he began.
For years, Cobb says, he voted for Democrats, volunteering
for Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988 and then for former
California Gov. Jerry Brown’s candidacy in 1992.
“I quit in disgust,” he often says, in a voice that
betrays a Southern drawl and a slight lisp, “realizing that the Democratic primary
process is where genuine progressive politics go to die.”
In 1996, Cobb joined the Green Party to volunteer for
Nader’s campaign, and he again helped rally the troops for Nader in 2000.
Indeed, Cobb promotes the same political platforms that
form the core of Nader’s campaign.
Both oppose the war in Iraq, the North American Free
Trade Agreement, and the federal government’s war on drugs. Both advocate publicly
financed elections, single-payer universal health care, and stricter environmental
laws.
Both Cobb and Nader want to scrap the Electoral College
(which ensured that Bush won the presidency despite the fact that Gore won the
popular vote). And both advocate instant run-off voting, which would allow voters
to rank candidates in their order of preference, thereby eliminating the possibility
of a spoiler candidate.
Directly after winning the nomination, when asked the
difference between his and Nader’s campaigns, Cobb responded, “We are a Green
Party campaign, and Nader’s is an independent campaign. Otherwise, there’s not
many distinctions.”
And yet, despite their ideological sameness, bad blood
between the two camps seems to boil close to the surface.
Peter Camejo, a respected Green activist who came in
fourth of 135 candidates in last year’s gubernatorial contest in California,
tried hard to convince Green delegates in Milwaukee to back Nader. Camejo, who
agreed just before the convention to run as Nader’s vice presidential candidate,
even suggested a dual-endorsement proposal that Cobb rejected as “vague” and
“unrealistic.”
Camejo was shocked and angered by the party’s response.
“No one thought David Cobb could get this kind of momentum,”
Camejo told IT. “Cobb wanted the division; he wanted to deal Nader a
blow.”
Cobb denies this, saying that Nader has only himself
to blame for failing to get the Greens’ endorsement.
“Ralph Nader was dismissive and was not willing to participate
in the Green Party process at all,” Cobb says. “He thought that my efforts were
irrelevant. It was certainly a miscalculation, in retrospect.”
Some party members say Cobb’s victory demonstrates that
the fledgling party has at last grown up.
At a post-victorypress conference, Cobb said,
“The Green Party, which Ralph Nader has done so much to nurture, has grown out
of [his] shadow.”
But where Cobb’s camp sees growth, the Nader-Camejo
camp sees betrayal, contending that Cobb’s candidacy has permanently fractured
the party.
“The anger is extreme,” says Camejo. “The Green Party
will never be what it was before. It is changed forever.”
Without Nader’s marquee name to lead it, some say the
Green Party is bound to shrivel up.
“It’s not plausible for them to become a nationally
competitive party,” says David Rhode, a political scientist and expert on presidential
politics at Michigan State University.
“They may have seen some growth at the local levels,”
Rhode continues, “but even at the local levels they’re distinctly not competitive
to the major parties.”
Cobb rejects this claim, noting that the Greens today
have 205 people in elected office, compared with just 40 a decade ago, and saying
that he expects the number to swell come November.
Although that remains to be seen, one thing is certain:
If Bush wins re-election, the Greens will be absolved of any blame. Nader alone
will have to stand as the spoiler, a role he seems to welcome.
“You can’t spoil a political system that the two established
parties have spoiled to the core,” Nader says.
“If you want to use that word, then we’re all spoilers
of each other because we’re all trying to get votes from each other.”
Cobb makes a prediction: “Ultimately we will force the
two-party system to change the voting system,” he says. “If they don’t, we will
spoil elections in the future.”
But not this year. The Greens are sitting this one out.
Challenging the challengers
ItÕs not easy being Green in Illinois
With no money, no political organization, no name recognition, and no media
coverage, it’s safe to say attorney Scott Summers has no chance.
“I have no illusions about winning,” says Summers, of Harvard, Ill., regarding
his campaign for the U.S. Senate on the Green Party ticket.
Indeed, Summers likely will never appear on the state ballot.
The Democratic Party of Illinois last week backed challenges to the nominating
petitions of several third-party candidates, including Summers.
John F. Tully Jr., a Democrat from Chicago, formally filed the objections.
Tully is represented by Michael Kasper, legal counsel to state Democratic Party.
Tully also formally filed an objection to Ralph Nader’s independent presidential
bid. In 2000 Nader garnered more than 103,000 votes, or 2.2 percent, in Illinois
as a Green.
Petition challenges have already knocked Nader off of ballots in Arizona and
Oregon.
“The public ought to demand that every party follow the law,” says Steve Brown,
spokesman for state Democratic Chairman Michael Madigan.
Marc Sanson, an Illinois Green Party member from Springfield, says the state’s
requirements for nominating petitions — 25,000 valid signatures — is overly
burdensome.
“It’s designed to be nearly insurmountable,” says Sanson, who expects several
Illinois Greens to have to fold their campaigns.
Still, there are a handful of Green candidates, for county and statewide offices,
whose names will appear on ballots in November.
Greens are running for such offices as state’s attorney, county clerk, and
coroner in Champaign, Union, and Fayette Counties.
Phil Huckelberry, of Normal, is running as a Green for state representative
in the 88th District, and Julie Samuels, of Oak Park, is running as a Green
in the 8th District.
In Carbondale, Green Party member Rich Whitney, an attorney, is mounting his
second challenge to incumbent Republican Rep. Mike Bost for a seat on the state
legislature.
Whitney collected more than 5 percent of the vote during his 2002 bid, giving
him established party status. That reduced the number of signatures he had to
file this year to just 5,000.
Since starting his campaign in December, Whitney said he now has $6,000 for
the race, much of which will go toward advertising costs. He hopes to raise
another $18,000 to compete in the election.
“We think we can win,” says Whitney. “There’s a very active local chapter
here.”
This article appears in Jul 8-14, 2004.
