Nader in the House

by Keith Wright

The nations presidential primaries are fast approaching their typical anticlimactic outcome: the incumbent Vice President challenges the guy from the other party who raised the most money from corporate donors and fat cats. Nearly half the electorate stays home, relieved that election day marks the end of annoying sound-bite studded commercials that detract from civic debate. And what happens when the winner assumes the Oval Office? Promises are betrayed, one by one, as the corporate donors line up for the spoils. Now would be the ideal time for a white knight to rescue us from the presidential doldrums and tell it like it is, preferably someone who has stared into the mouths of the corporate beast and neither flinched nor begged for a campaign contribution. Some Oxford residents believe that Ralph Nader, who last month announced his candidacy for the Green Party nomination, is ripe for the task.

Many people in Oxford recognize the name Ralph Nader. Some college-aged people recognize him for his outspoken criticism of the World Trade Organization. People who grew up in the sixties remember Nader's Raiders, a group of young activists he inspired to fight injustice by conducting research and advocating policy changes. Their first big case dealt with the controllability of the Chevrolet Corvair, a car they labeled "unsafe at any speed." Gary Gaston, a professor in marine biology at Ole Miss, remembers hearing him speak. "He pointed out that Chevy was promoting how fast the Corvair would go from zero to sixty miles per hour," he recalled. "Nader wanted to know how fast the thing would take to get from sixty to zero."

While he conducted research for his book, Nader was amazed at the reluctance and fear by people who knew the details of the manufacturers neglect of safety. "The price paid for an environment that requires an act of courage for a statement of truth has been needless death, injury, and inestimable sorrow," he noted. Since then, he has devoted a lifetime to gathering evidence and alerting the public, Congress, and the media to issues related to health, safety, economics, environmental pollution, worker rights, and excessive corporate influence. In his career as a consumer advocate, he founded many organizations, including the Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG), Public Citizen, and Multinational Monitor, a monthly magazine that tracks the environmental, political, and human rights abuses of multinational corporations. Now he's hit the campaign trail.

"There is an inexorable logic pushing Nader into the electoral arena," wrote political analyst Micah L. Sifry last December in The Nation. "Thirty-five years after he essentially invented public-interest activism, his non-electoral endeavors are frequently blocked by corporate lobbying and trumped by big moneys domination of politics. It makes sense for him, as he reaches the pinnacle of his career, to appeal directly to the same natural majority that he has indirectly championed for so long." Nader's website (www.votenader.com) is a cornucopia of accomplishments and campaigns.

Nader faces some challenging obstacles. In some states, the game is rigged. The two major parties have written laws with signature thresholds in the tens of thousands, which prevent people from other parties from getting on the ballot unless they can afford to hire paid signature gatherers to collect the necessary signatures. Mississippi's threshold of 1,000 registered signatures is the lowest in the country. The Presidential Debates are controlled by the two major parties, whose millions in corporate campaign cash also guarantee that Nader will be outspent everywhere. Still, the Greens hope that Nader's credentials and name recognition, combined with a vibrant grassroots-focused campaign, will create a real choice in November. Local folk are up for the challenge. "He holds the reputation for being an incredible person who is able to live by his principles," notes College Hill resident Toni Stevens. "I seem to recall that for a long time he didn't even own a car for fear that such ownership would imply an endorsement."

But can he win? According to Sifry, "polls show that anywhere between a third and a half of the public would like to see more choices on the ballot than just George W. Bush and Al Gore." The election of Jesse Ventura to the governorship of Michigan dramatically displayed that people are ready for new political parties. A serious campaign could energize new voters, especially young voters and those tired of choosing between the two corporate parties. Greens in Oxford and Jackson have already begun to sign up volunteers and register voters.

"It is easy and true to say that this deep democracy campaign will be uphill," Nader said in his announcement speech in Washington. "It is also true, however, that widespread reform will not flourish without a fairer distribution of power for the key roles of voter, citizen, worker, taxpayer, and consumer. Comprehensive reform proposals from the corporate suites to the nations streets, from the schools to the hospitals, from the preservation of small farm economies to the protection of privacies, from livable wages to sustainable environments, from more time for children to less time for commercialism, form waging peace and health to averting war and violence, from foreseeing and forestalling future troubles to journeying toward brighter horizons, will all wither while power inequalities loom over us."

It is almost a contradiction in terms that the Greens, whose focus is on grassroots empowerment and problem-solving, would run a presidential candidate. Even Nader notes that "truly progressive political movements enable a flowering of progressive citizen movements to effectively advance the quality of our neighborhoods and communities outside of politics." Still, organizing and advancing ideas requires a forum for their expression, as well as money.

A presidential campaign provides both, in addition to providing a chance to run the executive branch. If he gets at least five percent of the vote nationwide, the ensuing millions of dollars from federal matching funds in the future will catapult yet another institution helped by Nader: the Green Party that empowers people to take on the corporate beast while promoting life-affirming policy alternatives. In the next few months a group of inspired citizens, with clipboards in hand, will be working in Oxford and around the state to raise the 1,000 signatures needed to get Nader on the ballot. A citizen activist with impeccable credentials and name recognition is running for president; the chance to elect a person who is not for sale is a rare one. Lets not pass it by.