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The Rice Thresher
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The emperor wears no clothes On Nov. 7, Americans will proudly perform a modern ritual: After months of cursing our government, our politics, and most of all, our politicians, half of us will stay home to stroke our benevolent egos and the other half will grow up, march off to the nearest polling station and vote for a half-loved Lesser Evil with our eyes shut and our collective breath held. Those who use electoral excitement to measure political health have reason to rejoice this year because of Ralph Nader. Perhaps no candidate of the past 50 years has inspired so much enthusiastic loyalty. Nader supporters, unlike more sober-minded Americans, actually believe in their candidate, and the phrase "I'm voting for Nader!" is never uttered without an air of righteous challenge and a dollop of self-sacrificial pride. The political scholars rise with supporting evidence: Nader's Green Party candidacy widens the electorate, brings unschooled populism back to the policy debate and for some, makes voting a cherished privilege instead of democracy's chore. The Nader campaign, it would seem, is a cure-all. But let's not kid ourselves: Ralph Nader's real attraction as a political candidate is that he's different, an outsider, someone who'll shake up Washington and give its denizens of corrupt power-mongers a good talking-to. Fortunately, the man is intent on not winning the presidency. He's admitted as much to friends and allies who have called to question his intentions. We should get one thing straight: Nader's pro-consumer, anti-corporate legal career has benefited all Americans. He deserves our respect. And all the more so because he knows he shouldn't be president. First, there's the not-so-minor fact that he's never been elected to or held government office. Additionally, he's spent his entire public life making enemies. He knows that he has neither the background nor the temperament do the job and that he's more able to advance his positions right now than he would be as president. A vote for Nader, therefore, amounts to a vote for an ideological position, a way of saying things that need to be said, or, in more political terms, a way of expressing a mandate to whoever does win. The problem, at least for the few of us who are still desperately clinging to our last reserves of common sense, is the content of that statement. Nader's main offense is his tendency to be downright gloomy. The poor don't have health care. American society is too violent. The environment's going to hell. Our military is out of control. We don't own the country - corporations do. Most Americans don't want to know these things. In fact, we would much rather that someone consistently lie about them while telling us how wonderful we are. This tactic scored Reagan and Clinton eight years of employment each. Apparently, Nader can't be convinced. But if he's going to try and scare us into showing up at the polls, he might at least offer up some fresh solutions. Nader has argued that there is no real difference between Bush and Gore, but so far he's done a rather poor job of showing real differences between himself and Gore. Nader's only real policy disagreement with Gore is on the issue of free trade. As worthy as his motives may be, a refusal to participate in the global marketplace won't do anything to advance democracy or human rights, the ideals he claims to serve. Instead of abandoning our trade relationships, Nader might try supporting better management of them. Moreover, this difference highlights the other key distinction between Nader and Gore: Gore is willing to make friends, play ball and compromise; and Nader is not. Indeed, most of Nader's public life has depended on his willingness to place blame and fit everything into a neat us-versus-them view of the world. Ultimately, however, Nader's impatience has kept him from seeking support from his two main groups of potential backers. The first is the Christian Right. Despite this constituency's markedly conservative social views, Nader's stance on free trade and emphasis on personal accountability might have attracted many of its voters. The other group consists of traditional leftist liberals. As Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne recently noted, "There is a potential progressive majority in the country, but it will come into being only by uniting the forces Nader leads with the more moderate reformers who drive Nader crazy." Still, Nader refuses to court them, mostly because his public persona depends on his divisiveness. He has as large a slice of the electorate as he wants and is unwilling to dilute his positions for so questionable a goal as electoral success. This is the type of nonsense that happens when a public figure runs for the presidency without intending to get elected. A word to the wise: Ralph Nader will keep exposing corrupt automakers and blasting HMOs for as long as he's alive, no matter how many votes he gets this election cycle. But this November, we have to elect someone president. He's the guy that, y'know, gets to run the whole damn country. Why not give your vote to someone who actually wants the job?
James Dallal is a Lovett College junior.
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