“It's better to vote for what you want and not get it, than to vote for what you don't want, and get it.”-Norman ThomasEvery presidential election I've ever voted in (this'll be my sixth) has offered me an unpalatable choice between dumb and dumber, nasty and nastier, crooked and crookeder. Unlike the millions of my fellow citizens who are so disgusted they don't even bother to vote, I've held my nose and voted against the nastier of the two.
It wasn't always thus. As a rookie voter, faced with the unappetizing choice between Ford and Carter in 1976, I opted for the Socialist Workers Party candidate, a gentleman named Peter Camejo. I had heard Camejo give a speech that made so much sense that I was happy to vote for him. Carter took it in a squeaker; Camejo got less than 1%.
Four years later, I took in a speech by the wonderful Dr. Barry Commoner, who made so much sense that I was happy to vote for him. In fact, my friend Bruce and I volunteered our time to canvass for him. We were assigned to canvass the slums of East Palo Alto, the most impoverished part of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Every household we visited told us that we were crazy, that they were voting for Carter, otherwise Reagan would get elected. We told them that Big Business would run the show no matter who was elected, and that it was important to show that there were voters who would stand up for the ideals that Dr. Commoner professed. They told us we were crazy. I later came to believe they were right.
It's true that a re-elected Carter would have pursued many of the same policies that Reagan did: massive military buildup, spiraling deficits, deregulation. But Reagan was so much nastier than Carter, even on Jimmy's meanest day, that I never again made the mistake of actually voting for a candidate. I didn't feel I had that luxury. Even though Commoner was not the spoiler in 1980 (John Anderson, a rightwinger posing as a centrist, was) I henceforth held my nose and voted for the woeful Mondale and Dukakis in a vain attempt to block Reagan, then Bush.
In late 1991, I told my friends that I could probably support any of the Democrats running for the nomination, except for Bill Clinton. Naturally, he turned out to be the nominee and once again I held my nose and voted for him to block Bush, this time successfully.
As president, he's pursued many of the same policies as Bush: GATT and NAFTA, draconian welfare “reform,” continued high levels of military spending, sacrificing the environment to business interests. He's also done some decent things that no Republican ever would, and for which he deserves credit: protecting women's right to choose, holding the line against even nastier welfare cuts, at least so far, and, um, it'll come to me.
And you know, I may actually end up holding my nose and voting for him again, particularly if he has a snowball's chance of taking the Grand Canyon State, which seems unlikely but not impossible. I definitely don't want to do anything that'd help put Bob Dole in the White House, however remote a possibility that seems in June.
Still. I'm so sick of having to vote for one shameless lackey of corporate interests in order to block another. I wish, once again, that I could find a candidate I could vote for, instead of against.
People have been urging Ralph Nader to run for president for over thirty years, because they know he can't be bought. His integrity and leadership are incomparable, and he's probably been responsible for more good legislation than any current member of Congress.
Without Nader, we wouldn't have the Freedom of Information Act, OSHA, the EPA, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Safe Water Drinking Act, the Meat and Poultry Inspection Laws-or airbags in new cars. He has founded non-profit public interest groups like Public Citizen, the Center for Responsive Law, the Public Interest Research Groups, and many others.
No other candidate-not Perot or Buchanan, and not Dole or Clinton in a month of Sundays-will raise the issue of the shameful welfare for the rich that distorts our budgetary policies. No one has done a better job of spotlighting these injustices to begin with, and Nader has been at it since long before I started voting.
The entire thrust of Nader's campaign-toward greater democracy, toward campaign finance reform, toward reclaiming the public arena from, as FDR put it, the “malefactors of great wealth”-is desperately needed in our country, and now more than ever.
Just as vital is the vehicle that Nader has chosen for his presidential bid: the Green Party. Green parties have achieved significant reforms in Europe, and without a strong progressive party here that can compete and win elections, environmental concerns will continue to be given short shrift until it is too late. Clinton has felt free to ignore progressive voters because, as one White House aide put it, “they have nowhere else to go.” It's time to put the fear of God into the Democratic Party.
The idea that I have to vote for Clinton to block Dole keeps wearing thinner as Clinton moves closer and closer to Dole's positions. On the issue that is one of the strongest arguments for another Clinton term, judicial appointments, he has given little reason for optimism. It's likely that two or more seats on the Supreme Court could open up in the next four years. And yet Clinton has appointed more millionaires to the federal bench than either Reagan or Bush, his minority appointments have dropped precipitously since the first year, and he brags (correctly) that his appointees are more likely to favor prosecutors over defense than those of the last two GOP presidents. Also, he has already elevated the anti-environmental Stephen Breyer to the Supreme Court. No doubt Bob Dole could find somebody nastier, but this leaves little room for enthusiasm.
Arguably more important than who is elected president this year is to try and get the House of Representatives away from the GOP. In this regard, a Nader candidacy may well be helpful, by helping to energize progressive voters. Many of those voters who the White House thought had “nowhere to go” didn't go anywhere in 1994. Clinton's strategy of pandering to the right is likely to produce more of the same unless he is faced with a credible challenge from the left.
Ralph Nader is under no illusions that he can win the Presidency in 1996. His stated aim is to energize the left and help to build a strong Green Party for the next election cycle. He says that the ten key principles of the Greens (ecology, social justice, grassroots democracy, non-violence, decentralization, community-based economics, feminism, respect for diversity, personal/global responsibility, and sustainability) resonate with his core principles.
There is no better time than the present for advancing these principles. We will always be faced with the choice between the lesser of two evils, each lavishly financed by Big Business. If not Clinton and Dole, we'll get another pair of crooked and crookeder next time around, along with the same arguments that we can't advance an agenda that will reverse the plunder of the planet because we have to block the nastier candidate.
With the consequences of our abuse of the environment becoming more apparent, and more deadly, we can't afford to wait for Bill Clinton to muster up his courage. We have a candidate who was displaying courageous leadership long before Clinton was supporting the contras and the Gulf War, executing retarded prisoners, and looking the other way while sewage flooded the rivers of Arkansas.
I don't expect a president with whom I will agree on every issue-even if that president is Ralph Nader. But I'm sure tired of settling for crumbs when so much is at stake. Any candidate that wants our votes ought to be obliged to earn them. I urge you to support Ralph Nader, who has earned your vote many times over.
Even if you end up supporting Bill Clinton-or someone else-you may want to help Nader get on the ballot, as a check against the organized power of the right. And here in Arizona, you may also be outraged by the anti-democratic obstacles to ballot status that have been enacted since Ross Perot's candidacy. To get Nader on the ballot, 7000 valid signatures are needed by June 27. But to sign these petitions, you cannot belong to one of the parties already enjoying ballot status: Democrat, Republican or Libertarian. Only independents or Greens can sign.
If you would like to reregister as Green or independent, and then switch back in order to vote in the September 10th primary for local offices, be forewarned that Larry Bahill, the head of voter registration for Pima County, has threatened to discount your signature-though there would seem to be no legal basis for doing so.
This same political appointee has a history of hostility to leftist causes and to the Greens in particular. In 1992 he ruled that two or more voters wearing green at the same time would be considered to be electioneering and would not be allowed to vote, causing one irate Republican to raise a considerable stink. Bahill has also failed to send out reminder cards to Green voters telling them where their polling places are.
To my mind, the Green Party and Ralph Nader are worthy of your support. To find out more about the Greens or the Nader campaign, call 792-3454, or write PO Box 40271, Tucson AZ 85717, or email green96@rtd.com.