In the end, their waiting was in vain. In the city considered to be ground zero of his support base, consumer advocate and third-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader turned out to be incapable of drawing the 1,000 registered voters he needed to place his name on the Oregon ballot. Nader had hoped to take advantage of an obscure tenet of Oregon election law, last utilized in 1980, whereby candidates can gain access to the state's presidential ballot by holding an assembly of at least 1,000 supporters. By 8:00 p.m., with only 741 people on hand, organizers threw in the towel, and said they would revert to the more traditional method of collecting 15,306 valid signatures by August 24.
It was in all likelihood the most unusual "nominating convention" in modern political history. It was also an embarrassing--and perhaps meaningful--setback to Nader's seemingly quixotic quest for continued political relevance in an election year shaping up as an apocalyptic, scorched-earth showdown between two major parties determined to accentuate their differences by playing to the sharply divergent ideological predilections of their respective bases.
Nader put a brave face on the failure after walking onstage in a shower of red, white, and blue confetti. "We always start in Oregon," he told his applauding supporters, before rebranding the meeting as "a good beginning" in his effort to make the ballot. He then launched into a lengthy stump speech, in which he blasted the Bush administration for lying its way into an imperialist war of choice in Iraq and for its subservience to corporate interests, blasted Bush himself as a liar and a dim-witted tool of corporate interests--at one point he described the president as "a giant corporation disguised as a human being"--and also blasted the Democratic Party for its failure to champion progressive causes (and, yes, for its subservience to corporate interests).
In an interview before his Monday midday appearance at Town Hall in Seattle, where he drew a smallish crowd of perhaps 400 supporters, Nader said he has no doubt he will ultimately make the ballot in all, or almost all, of the 50 states. He added that while differences exist between the Republican and Democratic parties, the parties remain too similar in core respects, and that his candidacy is in part an effort to push the Democrats in a more progressive, reform-minded direction. He also flatly rejected the notion that he had played the spoiler in 2000, siphoning enough support from Al Gore in Florida and New Hampshire to throw the election to Bush, saying that it was the Democrats' own failure to articulate a compelling message that was responsible for their defeat.
However, the low turnout in Portland later that day appears to indicate that at least some of the progressive and liberal voters drawn to Nader in 2000 do now see him as a potential spoiler, and will not back him again for fear of enabling a second Bush term. While a plethora of early polls show Nader's support hovering around 5 percent--conceivably enough to impact the election--that support is likely soft, and the low turnouts in the progressive-heavy Northwest imply that real enthusiasm for a Nader candidacy may be more tepid than the polls imply.
With anti-Bush sentiment running at a fever pitch, many prominent progressives, including Noam Chomsky, Jim Hightower, Bernie Sanders, and Jimmy Carter, have expressed objections to the Nader bid. Howard Dean, who pushed an anti- Washington-insider, anti-special-interests message similar to Nader's in his abortive bid for the Democratic nomination, on Monday morning called on Oregonians to reject Nader, reiterating previous statements that voting for Nader is tantamount to voting for Bush.
Outside the Roseland, a small but highly visible group of protesters waved signs urging Nader supporters to switch their allegiance to presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry. Among them was Carmen Doerge, 51, who said she blamed Nader for the fact that her son was now risking his life by serving in Iraq. "He would not be there if Nader had not run in 2000," she said.
In Washington State, Democratic Party officials, while expressing anger at Nader, say they do not expect him to impact the outcome of the November election. State party chair Paul Berendt predicts that because "people are so anxious to defeat Bush, they aren't going to take a chance with Nader in 2004." Asked for his thoughts on Nader's decision to run, King County Democratic Central Committee chair Greg Rodriguez delivered a one-word response: "Whatever." Political consultant Cathy Allen says that Nader's impact this year will be "zilch."
Still, it is far too soon to dismiss Nader as irrelevant. His supporters, while perhaps diminished in number, remain deeply committed. And while Washington is considered a second-tier swing state, which leans Democratic but could conceivably be won by Bush, states like Oregon are much closer to being true tossups where the loss by the Democrats of even a few thousand votes could make the difference.
Despite Monday's setback, it is almost certain that Nader will eventually make it onto the ballot there (as well as in Washington State, where ballot requirements are even lower), and perhaps in all 48 others as well. "Nader has a base in the Northwest. We know that he has the potential to be a spoiler," Oregon Democratic Party chair Jim Edmundson said on Friday. Also speaking several days before the failed nominating convention, Neel Pender, executive director of the Oregon Dems, said, "The message for Monday is that Ralph Nader is unsafe on any ballot."
