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The Nader challenge
BLACKED OUT OF the corporate media, barred from the
debates, and facing an electoral system rigged to favour the two
big-business parties, Ralph Nader’s campaign for president persevered to
reach millions of voters with a genuine pro-worker, anti-war
alternative. Despite the difficulties, Nader achieved ballot status in
45 states, more than in 2000 or 2004, overcoming arcane and undemocratic
ballot access restrictions. He raised over $4 million, opened campaign
offices in 22 states, hired 40 paid field organisers, and built up an
impressive web presence, demonstrating the potential for building a
national left electoral challenge in the years ahead.
Nader’s poll numbers reached as high as 10% in
several states and 3-6% nationally in the run-up to the election, even
though the corporate media never afforded him a similar percentage of
coverage. This shows that an important minority of workers and youth
were not contented with the Democrats’ hollow rhetoric, and wanted a
left-wing, pro-worker alternative.
By election day, however, fears of fraud, and
illusions in Obama, squeezed Nader’s vote. His tally [to November 17,
with counting still not completed – see box] had reached 678,544
(0.54%). Former Georgia congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney, running on the
Green Party ticket, received 146,000 votes (0.1%). So, in total, over
800,000 votes were cast for the two main left-wing, independent
candidates.
Nader’s campaign this year faced a particularly
difficult climate. The massive tidal wave of support for Obama and his
message of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ swept up most of the left. Together with
voters’ desire to punish the Republicans after eight years of corrupt
rule by the Bush administration, these factors shrank the space for a
left-wing alternative.
As an anti-corporate candidate refusing any big
business donations, Nader was able to raise $4 million. But these days
it costs at least half a billion to run a ‘credible’ campaign for
president, something only a corporate-sponsored politician can achieve.
Americans were bombarded with coverage of Obama's and McCain’s every
move, while most voters were kept in the dark that Nader was even
running!
Nader’s results this year are less than the 2.8
million votes he received in 2000, when he was able to capture the
mantle of change and build up tremendous grassroots’ support from the
rising anti-globalisation movement after eight years of Clinton/Gore
betrayals.
Nevertheless, he won more votes than his 2004 total
of 465,000, when his vote was squeezed by the enormous ‘anybody but
Bush’ pressure. This was coupled with a coordinated, multi-million
dollar campaign by the Democratic Party and its allies to challenge
Nader’s ballot access and blame him for Gore’s defeat in 2000.
Fighting the two-party system
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF Nader’s campaign cannot be
measured mainly by the number of votes he received. He again helped to
popularise radical, anti-corporate demands among the several million he
reached, and to expose the subservience of the Democratic and Republican
parties to corporate interests, along with promoting the idea of a
left-wing break from the two-party system.
The Ralph Nader/Matt Gonzalez ticket provided a
sharp contrast to that of Obama and McCain. Nader opposed the bipartisan
Wall Street bailout, even organising a rally on Wall Street in
opposition. He also proposed a massive public works programme to put
millions to work with green, living-wage jobs.
While both Obama and McCain supported an expansion
of the military by nearly 100,000 troops and an escalation of the war in
Afghanistan, Nader called for slashing the military budget and spoke out
in favour of complete US corporate and military withdrawal from Iraq,
for an end to military aid to Israel, and in opposition to the surge in
Afghanistan.
All of these policies put forward by Nader are
supported by tens of millions of Americans. He could have received
millions more votes had the corporate media given him even 4-6% percent
coverage (equivalent to his early support in the polls) or had he been
allowed into the debates.
Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party candidate, also
ran an anti-war, anti-corporate campaign that helped popularise the need
to break from the Democrats, particularly among a section of left-wing
African Americans activated by the Katrina disaster and racist voter
suppression issues.
Unfortunately, McKinney relied too heavily on the
Green Party leadership, which failed to mobilise any serious resources
for the campaign. Tensions developed when it failed to raise federal
matching funds, which requires just $5,000 each in at least 20 states.
As in 2004, when they refused to support Nader, many
Green Party leaders did not want a serious candidacy in order to avoid
ruffling Democratic feathers. Ultimately, McKinney finished with around
a fifth of Nader’s total, and only slightly more than the 120,000 votes
the Green’s David Cobb won in 2004.
While setting an important and positive historical
marker, Nader’s campaigns have fallen short in a number of ways. Most
importantly, Nader has failed to use them as a serious launching pad for
a new mass political party that will be an enduring political voice for
workers, young people, and people of color beyond the elections.
By failing to build a party, his campaigns for
president every four years lack continuity. The only way to defeat the
corporate media blackout is to build ongoing mass organisations with a
powerful army of activists to go door-to-door to organise support in the
community.
After the elections, Nader is urging the formation
of watchdog groups of 1,000 citizens in each congressional district to
push for policies like single-payer national healthcare, a national
living wage, and an end to the war in Iraq. It is imperative that this
effort is linked with the goal of directly challenging big-business
politicians in elections. Only when they fear a loss of power will the
major parties give concessions.
Most importantly, Nader’s campaign gave a sharp
warning about the pro-corporate character of Obama and his party: As he
told The Nation: "The working class, most of whom do not vote, watch
Democratic candidate after Democratic candidate run for office promising
to support labor and protect jobs and then, once elected, trot off to
Washington to pass the corporate-friendly legislation drawn up by the
35,000 lobbyists who work for our shadow government". (25 October)
Since 2000, Nader’s campaigns, alongside McKinney
and others, have helped plant the seeds of political independence among
several million workers and youth, including many who did not vote for
him, which will blossom into future bold challenges to the two-party
corporate prison.
Teddy Shibabaw and Dan DiMaggio
Nader voters
RALPH NADER ran an independent 45-state
presidential campaign and won at least 700,283 votes on 45 state
ballots and the District of Columbia. Not included in this total are
semi-disenfranchised write-in Nader voters in Texas (3,053), Georgia
(1,091), Indiana (300). There were 13,942 write-in voters in North
Carolina, but these were not divided by candidate. Oklahoma does not
allow write-ins. (Figures from Mapping Nader Voters: Where is Nader
Country 2008? Steve Conn,
http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com)
Nader won more votes than any other third party or
independent in these 45 states, except in Montana where Ron Paul
(Libertarian Republican) beat him. In the aggregate numbers available
to date, he got something over 700,000 votes in all (more than the
population of Alaska).
In the 45 states where the Nader/Gonzalez ticket
appeared on the ballot, he averaged about 0.63%. But he took at least
1% in Maine (1.5), North Dakota (1.3), Arkansas (1.2), Alaska (1.16),
South Dakota (1.1), Connecticut (1.1), Idaho (1.1), and 1% in Wyoming,
Minnesota, Vermont, Oregon, West Virginia, and Rhode Island
(Associated Press).
Within the states of Arkansas, South Dakota, North
Dakota, Maine and West Virginia, a number of counties registered 2% or
more for Nader, with the best results being in Lawrence, Arkansas
(3.3), Jackson, Arkansas (2.9), and Towner, North Dakota (2.8).
Cindy Sheehan’s campaign
THE ANTI-WAR campaigner Cindy Sheehan won an
impressive 43,653 votes (16.2%) in the congressional elections in San
Francisco, California. Sheehan was up against the House Speaker, Nancy
Pelosi, of the Democratic Party, who won with 199,030 votes (71.9%).
What is remarkable about the result is that Sheehan came second,
beating the Republican, Dana Walsh (26,960 votes, 9.7%), and
Libertarian, Philip Z Berg (6,272 votes, 2.2%). The turnout was 67%.
(All figures from the California secretary of state website:
http://vote.sos.ca.gov)
In contrast to the nationally known, high-profile
incumbent, Sheehan’s campaign faced a media blackout. Pelosi refused
repeated calls to debate with her. But supported by dedicated
volunteers, Sheehan became just the sixth independent candidate in
Californian history to overcome the restrictive ballot access laws.
She raised over $500,000.
Sheehan initially came to national prominence with
her August 2005 protest outside George W Bush’s ranch in Crawford,
Texas, after her son, Casey, was killed while serving as a soldier in
Iraq. Sheehan supported the Democratic Party in 2006 when they won a
sweeping victory in the mid-term congressional elections on promises
to end the war and reverse Bush’s corporate agenda. When in 2007 the
Democratic majority voted to expand funding for the Iraq war, Sheehan
broke from the party.
In a speech launching her independent campaign
against Pelosi, Sheehan said: "An electorate disgusted with the
policies of the Bush regime put the Democrats in the majority in
Congress in November 2006. We voted for change. However, Congress,
under the speakership of Ms Pelosi, has done nothing but protect the
status quo of the corporate elite and, in fact, since she has been the
Speaker, the situation in the Middle East has grown far worse, with
Congress’ help... That is not what we elected them to do!"
Sheehan has given vocal support to the idea of
helping towards setting up an alternative party to the big-business
duo of the Republicans and Democrats. There is great potential if the
trade unions, anti-war groups, civil rights and community
organisations, the environmental movement, etc, broke from the
Democrats and dedicated their resources to building a new party for
working people.
Cindy Sheehan’s campaign has already announced
plans to challenge Pelosi again in 2010.
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