Reproaching Ralph

David Corn

October 13, 2004

Ralph Nader has done so much good for the United States, but his latest stubborn run for president will secure him a place as either a spoiler or an almost-spoiler. And political reporter David Corn—who broke into independent journalism 24 years ago working for Nader—is in the unenviable position of trying to reconcile his respect for what Ralph has done as a consumer advocate with his disappointment at Ralph's utterly futile bid for the presidency.

David Corn writes the Loyal Opposition twice a month for TomPaine.com. Corn is also the Washington editor of The Nation and is the author of The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers).

I have not written about Ralph Nader’s campaign for the presidency—until now—for three reasons. First, I worked for Ralph (who has reached first-name stature) 24 years ago. Not even out of college yet, I spent a year as a writer for various publications and books produced by Ralph and his public interest groups. In this position, I gathered the connections and learned what I needed to start a career in independent journalism. Ralph gave me my start, and I am forever grateful for that and, more importantly, for the fine public interest work he has done for decades. It is a cliché—because it is true—that Ralph has achieved more for Americans than most members of Congress. It has saddened me to watch him destroy his legacy (which is shared by the many who have toiled with him) by mounting a fool’s errand of a campaign. Thus, I have avoided this painful topic. There is, after all, much else to write and think about.

Reason No. 2: Nothing I could write would change anything. That is, it would not persuade Ralph to abandon his bid. Earlier in the year, I watched—and kibitzed—as his closest and most loyal friends and colleagues attempted to convince Ralph it would be a huge mistake to launch another presidential campaign. None thought that whatever benefits might be derived from such a campaign would be worth the potential cost: being a factor in a Bush victory. None found Ralph’s logic…well, logical. He insisted that he could help John Kerry by making a strong case against Bush, that he would draw conservative voters from Bush, that he would place important issues neglected by the two main candidates in the spotlight, that he would help break the corporate-funded duopoly that controls power in Washington. But it was fanciful for Ralph to believe that he could cause Bush voters to jump the GOP ship because he provided an alternative other than Kerry. Or that he could coax the media to focus on his issues rather than his role as a possible spoiler. Or that another 3 percent or less finish would do much to improve the prospects of multi-party democracy in America. He hasn’t even been running this year to boost the Green Party.

Yet run, he thought, he must. Imagine a scenario in which practically all of your pals and supporters tell you an idea you have is absolutely foolish and self-destructive and still you pursue it. No, there was nothing I could do to stop this one-man runaway train. It even seemed that the more opposition he received from his own crowd, the more defiant he became. (And I don’t relish the phone call from Ralph this column might spur.)

My third reason: I thought the odds were low that Ralph could affect the 2004 outcome. There are lefty voters out there totally alienated from the Democratic Party. These people sincerely—if wrongly—believe there is little difference between the Ds and the Rs. They will vote for Ralph, and no one can count their votes as votes swiped from Kerry. But after the fiasco of 2000, it seemed fair to assume that not many of those few swing-state voters who do find themselves on the Kerry-Nader fence would opt for Ralph. I’ve been traveling to college campuses for speaking gigs this fall, however, and I have encountered students who say they have friends—I suspect they mean themselves—who are considering voting for Ralph over Kerry. And Ralph has been drawing enthusiastic crowds while stumping (though nothing like his super-rallies, MCed by Michael Moore in 2000).  In a tight contest in a key state or two, maybe, just maybe, Ralph might make an unfortunate difference. Political observers in Minnesota—where Ralph bagged 5.2 percent of the vote in 2000—wonder if he might tilt the balance there this year.

What to say now? It is absolutely pointless to urge Ralph to change course. Stubbornness was one of the assets that helped him survive—and surmount—the difficult times of his life. Tragically, it has become his downfall. So why write about Ralph’s errant campaign? Just to register profound disappointment. Not just with his continued obstinacy but also with how he has campaigned. He has accepted more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from Republican funders and consultants, including people who have financed the political action committee run by the anti-Kerry Swift Vets. This places Ralph in the same bed with supporters of the policies he despises and with the big-money fat cats who have underwritten one of the sleaziest political smears in years. And he has been willfully blind to the ugliness of this alliance. His spokesperson Kevin Zeese dismissed the news of the Swift Vet-linked contributions: “It proves nothing….These are individuals, these are not contributions from the Swift Boat PAC.” Ralph is understandably pissed off at the Democratic Party apparatus that has tried to keep him of ballots and has aired ads attacking him. But what did he expect? Pointing to the bare-knuckled tactics of a foe does not excuse Ralph for his own strategic miscalculations and for forging momentarily useful relationships with the forces he has opposed his whole career. Does Ralph, who argues his campaign does not pose more of a threat to Kerry than to Bush, really believe that he knows better than his GOP partners who obviously believe the Nader campaign is mainly a problem for Kerry?

And Ralph has not played it straight. When he entered the race, he maintained that his presence could help Kerry. Yet he now actively seeks to undermine Kerry. He has been campaigning in swing states. He recently proclaimed “a vote for John Kerry is a vote for war.”  And how many important issues has he been able to raise? This month, he took his campaign to the headquarters of Skull and Bones at Yale University to protest that secret society. Much of his campaign seems to be about his right to have a campaign. When challenged by pro-Kerry voters on the stump, Ralph says he is expressing his right to free speech by running: “We should never say to each other not to run because that means do not speak, do not petition, do not assemble.” He is dead wrong. Telling someone not to run for office because his or her candidacy might be tactically unwise is not denying that person his or her political rights. Ralph could have spent the year speaking out—as a non-candidate—and have reached larger audiences more effectively. In fact, when some of his colleagues and supporters were desperately trying to dissuade Ralph from entering the race, they floated the idea of establishing an outfit or road show that would enable Ralph to travel the country and assail Bush. But he was not interested. A presidential campaign was hardly the only avenue for Ralph to express his views. 

Has he been able to have an impact on the national discourse? No. That has been predictable. It’s not Ralph’s fault that the mainstream media are not eager to devote much attention to the policy pronouncements of an independent candidates who draws 1 to 3 percent support in the polls. But Ralph had to know this would be the reality he would encounter. Any responsible political actor has an obligation to recognize what opportunities truly exist. In some years, paying no attention to reality in order to challenge the dominant paradigm might make sense. (I wrote neither in favor nor in opposition to his run in 2000.) But in a non-parliamentarian, winner-takes-all system, one cannot ignore the oppressive rules that render it so difficult for an independent or third-party candidate to have a positive impact on the campaign and the final outcome.

At first, I thought that the Dems overreacted in their response to Ralph, and I told people that perhaps it would be best to ignore him. But like many other past admirers of Ralph—whom he now bitterly derides—I worry that the election might be close enough for Ralph to end up in the same place as 2000: either as the actual spoiler or as the widely accused spoiler. In either case, Ralph will be remembered more for this misguided campaign than the decades of his public do-gooding. I wish he saw it this way—for both his own sake and for the sake of the country he has cared so much about.