American Politics Journal

Rose-Washing Ralph
An Open Letter to the Editor of Utne Reader
by Tamara Baker

Monday, April 23, 2001 -- St. Paul, MN (APJP)

Dear Mr. Walljasper:

I must take issue with your rose-colored view of Ralph Nader, as expressed in the May-June 2001 issue of the Utne Reader.

Ever since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called him on it in August of last year, Ralph Nader has denied heatedly that he wanted to see Bush win rather than Gore. But Joe Conason, in the October 24, 2000 issue of Salon, brings up something Ralph doesn't want his normally Democrat-voting supporters to see:

Several months ago, Nader indignantly denied a quote attributed to him by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmental advocate and Gore supporter, to the effect that the Green maverick would actually prefer a Bush victory. But the editors of Outside magazine cited a transcript of an interview with Nader showing he had said just that in an unguarded moment.

Still don't believe it? Here's a tidbit from Outside's August 2000 issue:

When asked if someone put a gun to his head and told him to vote for either Gore or Bush, which he would choose, Nader answered without hesitation: "Bush."

And why would Ralph want a Bush win? Is it just because he claims that would force the Dems to the left...

... or could it be, at least in part, that Nader himself is more conservative than he lets on?

Considering that Nader openly wooed Pat Buchanan's followers, one has to wonder. Here's some evidence for the latter view. Check it out: Bruce Bartlett, senior fellow at the far-right National Center for Policy Analysis, wrote an article on Nader's conservatism (and his attempts to woo conservative institutions such as Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard) that was published on the NCPA's website on September 20, 2000. To wit:

...It turns out that Nader has conservative roots and a not implausible argument that he is a conservative. ...the earliest piece I was able to find by Ralph Nader was published in the ultra-conservative American Mercury magazine in March 1960. (The American Mercury was a highly respected magazine in the 1920s and 1930s, but fell on hard times and was sold to some ultra- conservatives in the 1940s, who turned the magazine sharply to the right. Until the founding of National Review, it was the most prominent conservative publication in America). ...

Nader also wrote an anti-public-housing article that appeared in the October 1962 issue of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education, a venerable free market group. Wrote Nader, "A vicious circle begins to operate; as private property is undermined by public competition, private investment is discouraged by the threat of more public housing. As local property taxes increase, the prospects diminish for new or expanding industry."

Remember, these words came from the man who was supposed to be more liberal than Al Gore.

Of course, we all know by now how Nader, far from trying to "save" the Democratic Party by purifying it from without, as he kept reassuring his nervous converts, is in fact trying to destroy it, even though its destruction would leave a power vaccum that the GOP would occupy for decades to come.

How do we know this? He said so himself, back in an interview last summer with David Moberg for the magazine In These Times. As Jacob Weisberg noted in his Slate article on the subject,

...Nader made it clear that his real mission is to destroy and then replace the Democratic Party altogether. According to Moberg, Nader talked "about leading the Greens into a 'death struggle' with the Democratic Party to determine which will be the majority party." Nader further and shockingly explained that he hopes in the future to run Green Party candidates around the country, including against such progressive Democrats as Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, Sen. Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, and Rep. Henry Waxman of California. "I hate to use military analogies," Nader said, "but this is war on the two parties."

As if that wasn't enough, Nader has spent his post-election sucking up to George W. Bush, most notably in a Wall Street Journal article wherein Nader slobbered wet kisses all over Alcoa bigwig and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. But perhaps this is just a big thank-you from Ralph to Dubya for the Bush campaign's having shelled out big bucks to run Gore-bashing, pro- Nader TV ads in places like Wisconsin, Oregon and Washington.

As for the Nader apologists' "blame the victim" stance that "if Gore were a better candidate, Nader wouldn't have been a factor": Mr. Walljasper ignores the fact that Gore not only had to contend with Bush and Nader, but also with a corporate media that found no dirty Gore tale, true or otherwise, too foul not to print, yet swept all of George W. Bush's myriad flaws and crimes (AWOL, Funeralgate, UTIMCO, Harken, Enron, etc., etc., etc.) under the rug.

Al Gore had the full weight of America's corporate media against him, not to mention a Bush team that had far, far more cash than he could ever muster, plus a Bush-financed Nader peeling away millions of voters, yet he still beat Bush, both in the overall popular vote and, as it is becoming increasingly clear, in Florida as well.

It took Antonin Scalia, operating with all the subtlety of a Mob boss, to steal the election out from under Al Gore. But those Nader voters who made it possible for Scalia to steal the election have to own up to these two awful truths:

1) By voting for Nader, they voted for Bush.
2) Unless they recognize that Nader wants to destroy the Democratic Party, not "save" it, and act accordingly, they will repeat the same mistakes that made #1 possible.

Sincerely,

Tamara Baker

American Politics Journal



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