Nader LIVES

 

            Let’s set the wayback machine for about a year and a half ago.  October of 2000 – a time that seems decades in the past, when there were debates taking place to elect the forty-third president of these United States. 

As some of you may recall, a tremendous scandal unfolded when Green Party candidate Ralph Nader attempted to gain admission (for which he had a ticket) to his ‘special viewing area’ (read: not inside the auditorium) for the Gore-Bush debate at the University of Massachusetts.  He was denied admission to the building entirely by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), as they used the Massachusetts State police and their own security to block his entry because of his outspoken criticism of the CPD, among what I’m sure are many other reasons.  This was wholly illegal.  For one thing, the debate was taking place on the grounds of a public university.  And, the CPD is not a governmental agency, so it had no executive privilege. 

The CPD is a private corporation founded by the Republican and Democratic parties in 1987, and it controls every aspect of the presidential debates, including location, format, the questioners, and most importantly, participation.  It has the financial power to secure exclusive rights to network coverage, and requires a candidate to poll at least fifteen percent in five major polls to be included in their reindeer games.  With all of the CPD’s might and influence, however, they had no grounds on which to exclude Nader, who certainly would not have resorted to an armed takeover of the debates.  It’s just not his style. 

What the media never adequately covered in the time following was the progression of those events of October 3rd.  After the incident, Nader was livid and he demanded an apology from the CPD, and a donation of $25,000 to the nonprofit Appleseed Center for Electoral Reform at Harvard Law School.  The CPD refused, and spent the next 18 months and half a million dollars in legal fees to have the case dismissed.  When those attempts failed, the CPD chose to settle out of court anyway just before the trial, for the mere $25,000 that Nader had requested in the first place.

So finally, just this April, that gangly portion of the 2000 election came to a close, with an apparent slight victory for Nader.  Obviously not a complete victory – the CPD still reigns supreme and likely will continue to rule presidential debates with an iron fist for many elections to come.  But Nader, god bless his haggard, upstanding citizen activist self, relentlessly pursued his objective of embarrassing the CPD and won.

Not everyone saw it that way.  A particularly scathing article by Thomas Oliphant of the Boston Globe (possibly a result of spin by the CPD) emerged shortly thereafter, dismissing Nader’s attempts at taking on the establishment as “silly games,” and describing his settlement as “chump change.”  The amount of his settlement was irrelevant -- the truth is that Nader accomplished mountains more on principle than he did monetarily.  H. Ross Perot and Nader both have been unsuccessful at dismantling the CPD and its exclusionary practices, but that doesn’t mean that they weren’t right.  All candidates who are worthy to be on the ballot should have a chance to be heard by a national audience on network television.

In mainstream circles, Nader remains a nuisance to the corporate and political establishment and retains the onus of “spoiler” for Gore’s missed victory in the 2000 election.  The very mention of his name in congress solicits boos from the Democratic side of the aisle.

But for those who still believe in him and his causes, he has far from dropped off the radar.  He has established a new website called CitizenWorks, and is organizing a much greater movement in America to reclaim democracy, to hold the corporate matrix accountable for its continued disregard for workers and the environment, and to fight for inclusion of alternate parties and opinions in the political process.  He continues to tour the country, organizing rallies to motivate people at the grassroots level.  His ideals and conviction remain a powerful force in bringing about the reckoning of justice that this country deserves.   Nader has been a bastion of goodness, a champion of human rights, and he has not faltered in that position.  He’s one of the figures in politics that genuinely cares, who provides tireless service above self.

Nader expects the Green Party to run as many as 80 candidates nationwide this year for congressional seats.  Even if he didn’t come out as the top dog in a presidential election, his movement can help challenge the two major parties to address the truly important issues that they have been dodging.  And at last, true progressive liberals have a place to go other than being part of the cash cow Democratic Party by default, which feeds from the same trough as the Republicans.