Almost 400 people gave write-in presidential candidate Ralph Nader a standing ovation as he began a campaign stop at the McDonald Theatre Sunday.
The address came just a week and a half after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Nader’s appeal of an Oregon Supreme Court decision that cast him off the ballot in this state.
“When are we going to realize we’ve lost our government,” Nader said. The candidate spent the first part of his speech blasting Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury for declaring about 3,000 signatures on Nader’s nominating petition invalid.
“It’s with regret that we have to confront the politically exclusionary bigotry of Bill Bradbury — your secretary of state,” Nader said.
Nader accused Bradbury of committing a “constitutional crime” by invalidating the signatures.
“Instead of confronting with us, competing with us and debating with us, what do they do? They kick us off the ballot,” he said.
In addition to his claims that signatures were invalidated because of “unwritten rules,” Nader said that at least 30 of his signature gatherers were intimated by persons “directly traceable to the Democratic Party here in Oregon.”
Nader also leveled attacks against Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry for supporting many Bush administration policies instead of working harder to reach out to progressive voters.
“If the Republicans are as bad as you say they are — and they’re worse — why aren’t the Democrats landsliding them?” Nader asked. “The only place where democracy comes before work is in the dictionary.”
Nader went on to say that voters are unable to distinguish between the two candidates.
“John Kerry in the first debate out-hawked George Bush,” he said.
Much of the rest of Nader’s speech was spent criticizing the role of corporate money in the political process.
“Kerry/Edwards are being pulled everyday by the corporate interests,” he said. “What’s pulling Kerry/Edwards in the liberal, progressive direction? Just Nader/Camejo, that’s all.”
The event, organized with four days notice according to Oregon Campaign Director Travis Driskin, was open to the public with a suggested donation of $10 or $5 for students.
Eugene resident Zachary Vishanoff arrived early and ended up volunteering with the event.
“I feel that the country really stopped being free when they started opting him out of the debates,” Vishanoff said. “We’re losing honesty about the debate because they’re so heavily scripted — they’ve got this big rule book — and they exclude people that aren’t mainstream. Pretty soon it’s no debate at all.”
Vishanoff praised Nader’s communication of the issues, saying he spoke clearly and with “no spin.” He also condemned the role corporate money has played in the major political campaigns.
“When you have deep pockets and but you don’t have ethics, it’s a terrible problem,” he said.
The opposition
About a dozen Kerry supporters were protesting Nader’s appearance, including the so-called Billionaires for Bush.
“He’s never done anything but take votes from Democrats,” Eugene resident Jeff Sears said. “He works hand in hand with Republican money to take Democratic votes.”
Though Sears was not part of an organized protest, there is strong organized opposition to the Nader campaign on the national level.
“I think it’s wrong for Nader to say that there’s no difference between John Kerry and George Bush because four more years of George Bush and four years of John Kerry would be a very different experience,” Greens for Kerry founder Sarah Newman said in a phone interview from Santa Monica, Calif.
“We are composed of registered Greens — former Nader voters — in swing states,” Newman said. “We are asking voters in swing states to vote for Kerry.”
Greens for Kerry encourages voters to network with each other in support of John Kerry over George Bush through Vote Pairing in which a Kerry voter in a “safe state” can swap votes with a Nader voter in a swing state.
“The vote pairing is allowing people who are going to write in Nader in Oregon to participate now,” Newman said.
Newman claims it is possible to advance the progressive movement while supporting John Kerry.
“I think that a progressive movement is really growing as a result
of people coming across party lines and uniting to defeat Bush,”
she said.
