markfranciscohen_ralphnader

CAPITAL STYLE
May 2000

SECTION: Pg. 36

LENGTH: 3638 words

HEADLINE: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING RALPH

BYLINE: Mark Francis Cohen

HIGHLIGHT: Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader Once Said He Would Never Become A Politician�Now He�s Running For President. MARK FRANCIS COHEN Peels Away The Warning Labels And Finds Out What He�s Really Up To.

BODY:

With a belly full of vegetarian black bean chili and tomato juice, Ralph Nader, the current presidential candidate and sometime national nanny, whips through the halls of the University of Virginia law school for what will be his best campaign event of the day. Trailing behind him, I ask if he�ll be giving his standard stump speech or something new. The Green Party candidate, who could siphon liberal votes away from Vice President Al Gore, tosses an absent look at me without uttering a word. �There is no standard stump speech!� an aide informs me with glee as if to say, This is Ralph Nader. Every speech is different.

Nader heads for the stage and positions himself behind a huge wooden podium. In almost no time he has 400 law students laughing. Nader never seems more comfortable than when he�s talking to people associated with the legal profession. Come to think of it, he�s even dressed like a court-appointed lawyer: blue suit, light blue shirt, checked tie and black shoes.

At 66, Ralph Nader is tall and lanky, with a gaunt face, golden skin that he inherited from his Lebanese parents and a thatch of dark gray hair that resembles an S.O.S. pad. His temples are silver, and his left eye is slightly smaller than his right. His long, bulbous nose makes him look something like Dick van Dyke. He has taut, thin lips and being around him means you rarely see his teeth.

A graduate of Princeton College and Harvard law school, Nader is a cerebral man with a sardonic sense of humor and a lawyer�s penchant for asking people questions he already knows the answers to. This wouldn�t be all that important if it weren�t for the fact that he�s running for president as a member of the Green Party, a collection of impassioned, express-yourself! altruists who often talk as if they�re part of a 12-step program.

Inside the law school, the amphitheater-style classroom is full, and the not-quite ripe students hang on Nader�s every word. He likes to talk with his long arms folded across his midsection. Warming up the audience, he makes a joke about the bar, which he believes law schools emphasize more than they should. �Did I tell you the bar exam is eminently crammable�in more than one way?� he says, and the crowd cracks up.

Soon enough, he moves onto more important things: trying to convince these future attorneys to use their education and expertise to advocate for the common good and not become shills for the business class. �How many of you�if money were not an issue, if you were paid exactly the same as a public interest lawyer as a corporate lawyer�would become a public interest lawyer?�

Immediately, you hear a shuffle as every single student raises a hand; even Nader is a bit taken aback. Encouraged by the show of support, he tries offering them a bunch of reasons why they should go into public interest law rather than corporate law despite the fact that they will be paid so much less. He describes the satisfaction of saving people�s lives, the guilt corporate lawyers must feel as they protect soulless executives and how once you go down the dark path of corporate law, it�s virtually impossible to get out of it.

�The almighty dollar is corrupting our profession like never before,� he intones with his deep, dark voice. �You can�t have equal justice under the law for you and General Motors, for you and Microsoft�You got to ask yourself: Are you going to represent perpetrators or victims?�

As Nader continues proselytizing, students start zipping up their backpacks and slipping out of the room. By the time he suggests to these would-be attorneys that doing time on his presidential campaign during this summer would be a great experience (�I�m sure any one of you�d find the FEC filings a challenge,� he says), one-third of the crowd has vanished. It�s certainly not a reaction that bodes well for Nader�s current effort, which is essentially three-fold: build a viable third and progressive political party, foment civic involvement and undermine the vast influence of corporations.

The class doesn�t walk out because Nader�s a boring speaker; actually he�s quite entertaining. It�s just that lots of people, including today�s crop of law school students, don�t have time for Nader�s the-sky-is-falling message.

Despite the audience fall-off, Nader�s wry sense of humor remains on display as he opens the floor to questions. The remaining students mostly want to hear about his affiliation with the Greens. �What is your and the Green Party�s take on the war on drugs?� a guy in the back row asks.

�Oh, there was a great page-one story the other day on that�I don�t know if you saw it, but Drexel Lambert finally shelved Rezulin, a diabetic drug that was attacking people�s livers and killing them. That was done by the Health Research Group. It took more than a year for the FDA to do something. But they did,� he exults.

Staring at the rest of the class and away from the student, Nader asks him: �Is that what you mean by the war on drugs?� The audience grins back, eating up Nader�s verbal jujitsu.

�Uh, no,� the questioner says from afar. �I mean illegal drugs.�

�It is an illegal drug,� Nader deadpans. �It kills people.�

IT may have taken 35 years, but on February 21 Ralph Nader finally became a bona fide political candidate. While he�s had many opportunities to run for elective office before, he�s always declined, describing it as a limited place for limited people. Instead, Nader has made a career out of being a model citizen, uncovering corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing through unrelenting probing, smart analysis and ceaseless lobbying.

Nader�s influence on laws and regulation has been immeasurable, spawning a number of nonprofit organizations, from Public Citizen to USPIRG, to muckrake for the average Joe and an army of Nader�s Raiders, the underpaid citizen advocates who work for them. Now, for the first time in his very public career, Nader is really campaigning for political office. He is amassing money, holding fund-raisers, hiring a staff, leasing headquarters, operating a web site, registering voters, gathering petitions and filing with the Federal Election Commission. He plans to raise at least $5 million and get on the ballot in at least 45 states.

This bid is entirely different from 1996, when Nader won less than one percent of the vote. Then he was the object of a recruiting drive by the Green Party, which put him on 22 state ballots. He allowed them to use his name so that they could build a new party, but Nader wouldn�t campaign for the Greens and he refused to spend more than $5,000 because he didn�t want to file with the FEC.

This time around, he�s for real, and some politicos believe he could cause trouble for Gore�maybe even cost him the presidency. The thinking goes like this: Since Gore will likely lose in the George W. Bush strongholds of Texas and Florida, the vice president has to take California, one of the few states where Greens hold elected office. To foil Gore�s effort, all Nader has to do is poach enough disaffected votes (some suggest 5 percent will be enough) away from the Democratic nominee to deliver the Golden State to Bush. A Zogby poll of 842 likely voters in April showed Nader, in a four-way matchup with Gore, Bush and aspiring Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan, pulling down 9 percent of the vote in the West. And given the recent fiery turnouts by Nader�s brethren at the World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle and the World Bank protests in Washington, it�s easy to imagine Nader getting a sizable vote.

There is something ironic about a bunch of fed-up environmentalists and Socialist Party dropouts threatening the candidacy of the author of Earth in the Balance.

NADER and I are having lunch in the nonsmoking section of the Moon Dance Caf� in Charlottesville, Va, where we are joined by four of Nader�s traveling companions: Tarek, Aaron, Michael and Dale. A perfect place to start to understand the kind of people that support Ralph Nader is with those whom immediately surround him. Tarek, the only paid campaign staffer who regularly goes on the road with Nader, wears a dark blue suit, which is fitting since he looks and acts like he could be a Secret Service agent. He uses my name too often when he talks to me, scribbles a lot in a notebook and never leaves Nader�s side.

Across the table sits Aaron, a Virginia Green Party leader with his own set of worries. During a local Green Party rally for Nader later in the day, a middle-aged man in overalls disrupts the event by standing up and accusing Aaron and a few others of elitism, which, to a Green is a major insult. He says he�s been excluded and thrown out of the Virginia Green Party even though he was one of the founding members.

Mr. Overalls asks Nader for help, and I start to think his predicament is believable and a little sad. That is, until later, when he suddenly accosts me outside the building and tells me he hopes Ralph Nader dies. Then he hands me a copy of a recent Nation article in which left-leaning columnist Katha Pollitt derides Nader�s candidacy and writes, �If working on Nader�s campaign is the best way progressives can spend the next eight months, it�s time to hire a hearse and lie down in it.�

As for Michael, he is a Naderhead, completely and blindly committed to Nader. He is not affiliated with the Green Party; he�s a Nader fan dating back to a speech he heard the consumer advocate give a few years ago. Now, Michael�s helping get Nader on the ballot in Virginia. His role, today, is to get people to sign petitions and buy Nader�s latest book, No Contest, which is about the corrupting influence of corporate lawyers. Thus, Michael is weighed down with a lot of paper and books.

Finally, there�s Dale, an out-of-work father whose wife, an anthropology professor at the University of Virginia, pays the bills. Dale chain-smokes, is wearing a linen suit, a backward beret of some sort, sunglasses and a goatee. He�s helping Nader, he says, only because Michael asked him to. Dale thinks our taxes are ridiculous. We should either be taxed more and be given more services or the IRS should be abolished.

Obviously, Dale doesn�t know much about the candidate. Besides smoking, he commits a major no-no around Nader. He orders a Coke during lunch. Nader is notorious for despising soft drinks. He doesn�t let people in his office drink them because he believes we�re overly dependent on sugar. I wait for Nader to scold Dale about the cigarettes or the Coke, but, as far as I can tell, he gets away with it.

So, with the four of them watching, I interview Nader who�s great at dishing a lot of fun sound-bites. In addition to dropping Thomas Jefferson quotes, popular in this part of Virginia, he tells me: �What they�re proposing is not tort reform. It�s tort de-form!�Bush and Gore are a duopoly. They�re two heads on the same body and the only difference is they�re wearing different make-up�No more corporate welfare! Make corporations pay their fair share of taxes�Gore�s is terrible environmentally�and it�s his signature issue�Will Rodgers said �We have the best Congress money can buy.� Well, I�ve added: It�s the best Congress money can buy�or rent� I never intended to run for office, but you�ve got to do it. If you don�t enter the political arena, the more corporations hold sway. That�s the boulder in the mountain pass to the cool green plains of justice below��

At that line, he pauses and gives me a small, knowing smile. It�s his wicked humor again. He�s making fun at his own repertoire�not because he doesn�t believe it, but because he�s not a performer. Here�s the little secret: Nader is not all that crazy about acting out this script fate has handed him.

How, I wonder, will he bear it for the next eight months?

NADER grew up the youngest of four children in Winsted, Conn. He lived five minutes away from the public library, which he visited habitually. He says he�d stand and stare at the stacks of books, sometimes picking one up and devouring it without ever sitting down because he was too engaged. �One of the most important things my parents accorded me was a great degree of solitude,� he explains. �When I was 12, I read The Jungle. I literally trembled with excitement as I read about the injustice.�

Nader also retreated to the library at Princeton; he was known for wandering through its rooms for hours. Nader is still a book worm today. At his office inside the Carnegie Institution in Washington, every week a new stack of 15 or so titles that he�s ordered arrives for him to read. Not surprisingly, among the many things he�d like to accomplish is getting children to watch less television.

After Harvard Law School, where Nader wrote a paper on auto safety, he came to Washington and looked into it some more. The result was his famous 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed, which made him a national hero. His public stature was boosted, of course, when it was discovered that General Motors had hired a private investigator to tail him. As a consequence, Congress passed, in 1966, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, creating an agency that would recall defective cars and set federal safety regulations.

Nader�s work on auto safety allowed him to establish a beachhead from which he designed the full-time job of consumer advocate. He encouraged in others a sense of duty to the public and hatched a set of groups where these sentinels would carry out the mission, beginning with the Center for the Study of Responsive Law. E.J. Dionne, James Fallows, and Michael Kinsley were some of the bright and energetic thousands who have passed through the Nader�s activist incubator.

Nader and his raiders were responsible for an untold number of laws and regulations. They investigated leads, interviewed whistleblowers, published studies and pressured Congress. In a rather short period, they helped bring about inspection of meat-packing houses, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Safe Water Drinking Act, the Consumer Product Safety Act, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Freedom of Information Act.

By 1972, Nader was a celebrity and his name was kicked around as a possible vice presidential running mate. Mark Green, New York City�s public advocate and a former Nader Raider, recalls his mentor getting a phone call from someone close to the Democratic nominee, George McGovern, informally asking Nader if he�d consider joining the ticket. After mulling it over for a day, Nader �called back and said, �No thanks.��

�That was at a different point in Ralph�s life,� says Joan Claybrook, the director of Public Citizen and a close friend of Nader�s. �Now no one can say he�s got personal political ambitions or that he�s doing this for his own political career. He�s at a different stage in his life now.�

Over the years, what�s drawn so many to Nader�besides the nobility of his crusades�is his walk-the-talk lifestyle. By all accounts, Nader, who rents an apartment in Dupont Circle, lives like a monk. He doesn�t drive a car. He doesn�t use pens or a computer�only pencils and a typewriter. He doesn�t have a love life and if he does, it�s top secret. But consumer activism has been good to Nader. Last year, he earned about $200,000 in speaking fees, he told The New York Times, but gave half of it to charity. Another $75,000 or so went to �projects,� and lives on the rest.

�No one outside of my family has had more of an impact on my values and my career than Ralph,� Green tells me. �One very important thing about Ralph is that he�s a deeply authentic person who is the same on a midnight phone call as he is at a congressional testimony. There�s no secret Ralph Nader.�

While he almost always makes the top twenty list of most influential people of the 20th Century, the Reagan and Clinton eras have not been high-times for Nader. Several of his we-generation reforms have been worn down or eliminated. Tellingly, before President Clinton signed the bill that erased Nader�s nationwide speed limit law, the president wouldn�t honor the consumer crusader�s request for a meeting. Meanwhile, contrary to Nader�s years of toil, corporations�not consumers�are more powerful than ever.

�I�ve seen in the last 20 years the increasing subordination of our democracy,� he says. �Today we could not achieve what we did in the sixties and seventies. Today you couldn�t even pass the brace of issues through one committee that would establish environmental standards and auto safety standards.�

It is because of these recent frustrations and setbacks that Nader says he is running for the presidency. His expressed hope is that a progressive political movement will render the kind of lasting reform that has evaded him. For Nader, the 2000 race also represents something of a personal transformation. It wasn�t that long ago that he called politicians �all opportunists� and trumpeted the watchdog approach as the single, greatest antidote to our troubled democracy.

SYMBOLS are very important to the Greens. This is evident at an afternoon rally for the state Virginia Green Party that is taking place inside a packed auditorium. For one, there is no podium, as that would suggest a hierarchy which shouldn�t exist between the speakers and the audience. Also, most of the 300 or so people are wearing pins. There�s the red cloth pin that stands for solidarity with factory textile workers. There�s the �$8� pin that stands for raising the minimum wage to eight dollars. And there�s green �Vote Nader� pins.

Before Nader is scheduled to speak, a few local activists make speeches. The only one Nader catches�because he arrives late to the event�is a woman who has problems with the presidential candidate. Claire, a plump, bespectacled woman approaches the Michael and yells: �Hello everybody. I�m the Lesbian in the room!�

After a round of whoops and applause, she declares: �With the Cold War over, the right wing has found a new enemy. Now instead of a commie, there�s a queer under every bed!� She then directs her comments at Nader. She wants more from him on equality for �gays, lesbians and the transgender community.� Claire apparently remembers Nader�s run in 1996 when he publicly demurred on �gonad� questions like abortion and sexual orientation. In fact, back then, he said he didn�t� endorse the party�s platform. �Speak to me my brothers and sisters,� she says before sitting down, �we are listening!�

Nader doesn�t really give Claire what she wants. Sandwiched somewhere in between the plight of coal miners and the extravagance of Bill Gates� personal fortune, Nader mumbles, �We have to demand equal treatment for people of all sexual orientations.�

Claire eventually leaves the auditorium early, disaffected. Still, with Ralph Nader, the Greens have a lot to be excited about. In 1996, Nader earned only 1 percent of the vote when he didn�t campaign. If Nader�s personal public offering earns 5 percent of the vote this year, which it just could, then the Greens will become a true national party because they will qualify for federal matching funds. But political strategizing isn�t always the Green Party�s strongest suit. In New York, the Greens keep on running �Grandpa� Al Lewis, the one-time star of the TV series The Munsters, just so they can get enough votes to earn a ballot line.

�Listen,� Nader says, �why did I do this after being a citizen advocate for 40 years? Because I go around the country and see total helplessness and total futility in the faces of people that have been trying to do something against injustices. That means our democracy is decaying.�

After Nader�s speech is over, people start shouting questions at him.

One guy asks: �Suppose it�s like a really close race and Bush wins because there�s a strong allegiance to you. Are the two so screwed up that it�s better to vote for you and let Bush win anyway?�

�They�re not identical twins, but they�re close,� Nader says. �If you give the least offensive candidate your vote, you�re saying the system is working. You�re saying I�m going to legitimize the system by giving one of them my vote. But the only vote they care about is the one they�re denied. It�s the perfect year to deny them the vote and create a third party.�

�There�s a reason why Gephardt is not displeased with my candidacy,� Nader adds. �By any measure of political calculation, people who come out to vote for me will vote for the Democrat running for Congress.�

�Why didn�t you run in the Democratic Primary?� another asks.

�There are limits to masochism,� he cracks, and the audience laughs. �You can�t really reform these parties. They�re too entrenched. I�d much rather start with a clean slate, with no debts to pay back and with no corrupt colleagues.�

By the end, many of the listeners are excited. One woman in her early twenties is aglow as she walks out of the room, as if she�s heard something divine.

�It was wonderful,� she says to a friend. �I�ve always considered myself a Democrat, but this is sooo much better!�

Mark Francis Cohen is a contributing writer at Capital Style.

(Copyright 2000 Mark Francis Cohen)

Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
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Ralph Nader
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Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
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Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader
Mark Francis Cohen
Ralph Nader

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