Seven months after the presidential election, Ralph Nader's effigy continues to hang from the rafters of the Democratic party's pantheon of heretics. The party faithful show no signs of forgiving him for his presidential candidacy that probably cost Al Gore the election and the Democrats the White House.
The current edition of the liberal bi-monthly magazine Mother Jones chronicles the charges against the 67-year-old Green Party candidate. The consequences for the George W. Bush record, including the rejection of the Kyoto global warming agreement, plans to mine the federally owned Alaskan tundra for oil, the relaxation of carbon dioxide emissions, the scaling back of some social programs, among other things, are placed squarely on Nader's shoulders.
The case against Nader is made most loudly by the liberal wing of the Democratic party, the very constituency from which Nader himself came and from which the candidate expected to find the most support: environmental groups, labor unions, consumer advocacy groups, reproductive and women's rights organizations.
In the Mother Jones article, the leaders of several of these groups turn viciously on Nader, accusing him of sending their causes back to the dark ages and inflicting lasting damage to their designs for progressive government.
The protests of Democratic party insiders are understandable. They have been thrown ass-over-teakettle out the palace front door, replaced by their hated rivals. Their howls, however, have little to do with what is best for the country and much more to do with bruised posteriors and wounded pride. What is harder to understand is that those outside the ranks of party lapdogs, including many of those lodging the strongest charges against Nader, have bought the argument that Nader's candidacy has dealt a deadly blow to the fortunes of liberal causes. One would expect more common sense from the group.
Nader has argued correctly that the differences between Bush and Gore were minor. The record backs him up. Gore was evasive during the campaign on questions concerning the Kyoto agreement and showed no disagreement with Clinton's timid approach toward making the issue public. The Clinton-Gore administration never worked to gain broad support for the agreement and refused the advice of advisors to send it to Capital Hill for ratification. Many of the policies that Bush has reversed were, under Clinton-Gore, more lip service than substance. It is difficult to imagine someone who can read and write detecting substantive policy differences between Gore and Bush during the debates. A number of Nader's accusers admit that they supported Gene McCarthy's maverick presidential campaign a generation ago.
They even concede that their support of McCarthy helped defeat Hubert Humphrey. It would have been an outrage to them then for someone to suggest that a voter pick the lesser of evils instead of voting his or her conscience. Yet these same liberals, under the banner of practicality, have become relativists and sell-outs. Like generations of leaders before them, their focus is on protecting their organizations and making sure their budgets are funded.
Nader's chief sin, of course, is that he actually believes that the democratic process can produce fairness and justice for average citizens. Such earnestness - some would call it sentimentality -- has always been viewed with fear and suspicion by political operatives and, to some degree, by rank and file citizens. Because he refuses to play by politics' cynical rules, Nader is cast in the role of the family bastard who refuses to recognize his place. So long as he advocated for safer cars, cleaner smokestacks and a ban on clear-cutting, he was everyone's darling. As soon he set his sights on the presidency, however, he became a dangerous man.
Political rhetoric at the national level has rarely been anything other than bad poetry, the kind you find in greeting cards with roses and script type on the cover. There is always the promise of glorious, sun-dappled days ahead and a nod to the poignant days of the past. Policy and action, of course, are something else entirely.
Until Nader comes to appreciate the finer points of cynicism and masters the uses of irony he will continue to bedevil the timid and the entrenched.
David Morrill is a Florida journalist and a native of Northern California.
By David Morrill
