Open Letter to Ralph Nader from Greg Bates, Publisher, Common Courage Press
Greg Bates
Common Courage Press
121 Red Barn Road, Monroe, ME 04951
November 19, 2003
Dear Ralph,
I am writing to tell you the obvious: you have to
run for president. Let me lay out a few of the
issues I am sure you are reviewing.
1. First, consider what happened when you ran in
2000. You changed the political landscape.
a. Along with Winona LaDuke, you and voters made
clear that the Democratic Party’s strategy of
moving to the right-secure in the knowledge those
on the left end couldn’t go anywhere and would
fall in line-was bankrupt. We had an alternative
and we went for it.
b. Your run helped elect many Democrats. Exit
polls in the 2000 election showed that 25% of
Nader voters would have voted for Bush, 38% would
have voted for Gore, and the rest wouldn’t have
voted. Therefore Nader brought more than 1
million new voters into the election. The Party
should be grateful for this.
c. You changed the debate. Remember how Gore
stole some of your rhetoric? You should view it
as an important accomplishment.
d. The spill over extended beyond electoral
politics. Your candidacy served as a huge
billboard for change in many arenas and helped
boost efforts in a variety of non-electoral
sectors (e.g. organizing against the war in
Iraq).
2. Second, consider what didn’t happen in 2000.
You didn’t help George Bush win. Gore won. Just
because the Supreme Court decided to appoint Bush
to the Presidency doesn’t mean you are
responsible for the action of those 5 Justices.
3. Consider what your run in 2000 has already
done to the contest in 2004:
a. Would Dean, Kucinich, and even Clark be
mouthing the rhetoric they do if you hadn’t run?
I’ll be kind to Kucinich and give him the nod,
but as for the rest, I don’t think so. They
understand how much they need the constituency
you helped define in 2000.
b. This effect is much broader than your impact
on the candidates. Regardless of how much heat
you are taking in the debate over your last run
and over the prospects of another one, I am
reminded of what this means: people of all
stripes understand the left is developing real
power. All of the debate about your past and
possible future candidacy, painful though I am
sure it is, is focused on this question: how
should progressives best use their power? That
wasn’t even a question 6 years ago.
4. Consider the outcome if you don’t run:
a. Your help to progressive Democrats that spills
over from your run will be diminished. This could
be devastating if it means the Republicans retain
control of Congress. In this you have a
responsibility here no other person can fulfill.
b. Not running sends the wrong message to voters:
Our democracy isn’t strong enough to support a
plurality of candidates running for the highest
office in the land. Dissent is only permissible
when the Democratic candidate is a shoo-in for
office. On the contrary-dissent and organizing
are important to carry out especially when the
stakes are high.
c. We send the wrong message to the Democratic
Party: we will fall in line because we really
don’t have anywhere else to go-precisely the
opposite message you worked so hard to send in
2000.
5. Consider the outcome if you do run:
a. There is a small chance that the Democratic
nominee could turn out to be someone of your
political stripe, making the same criticisms as
you do of the corporate backers of the Democrats,
and seriously challenging their choke hold from
within. In that case, you might consider stepping
aside. But I don’t see that candidacy as very
likely. However unlikely it is, the rise of such
a candidate might be more likely if you did
declare initially than if you didn’t. A response
by the Democrats designed to protect their left
flank against you would be a good thing.
b. It is a well-understood political principle
that those who articulate the clearest vision of
what needs to happen don’t always succeed, but
they make it more acceptable to work toward those
goals. They create a shift in the political
spectrum. As you did last time, your run would
provide a tremendous boost to 3rd party efforts
at the state and local level.
c. Take as examples the legacy of those whose
shoulders you stand on. I think of the
abolitionists, the suffragettes, the union
organizers, those fighting against racism,
sexism, etc. They acted in the face of constant
criticism that they move too fast, they rock the
boat, they make “real change” impossible. But
time and again they have proven that the arc of
change bends toward those who demand what is
right, not what is reasonable.
6. We need to stop debating strategy and get out
there.
a. Recall the words of actor Richard Dreyfuss who
in 2000 made a last minute speaking tour against
your candidacy. He said, we need to send a
message to the Democratic Party, but now is not
the time because too much is at stake. Excuse me?
I beg to differ-the time to send a message is the
time when the Party is most likely to listen,
during an election, when it can feel the pain of
ignoring the message. We cannot let our
convictions and our organizing be subject to
fickle whims-is the president a nasty guy; did
the Democratic candidate say something nice
today?
b. Besides, the message isn’t directed to the
Democratic Party-it’s a message of hope to the
electorate, the only constituency that really
counts.
c. Today’s guess might be: Dean could win; let’s
rally around him. But what if the Party or the
nominee stumbles in the next 12 months and there
is no alternative to Bush? What happens if both
Bush and the Democrats stumble and, had you been
running, you would have won? Unforeseen stumbles
by presidents and nominees are part of our
history and likely to take place this time as
well. From Ed Muskie to George McGovern, from
Richard Nixon to George Bush Sr., the outcomes of
elections have been surprisingly unpredictable.
7. A run for the presidency should communicate:
a. That the Democratic Party is structurally
incapable of delivering what the people need, and
that the electorate is not going to stand for
palliative rhetoric as a substitute for real
change. Those who run for president under the
Democratic Party ticket are essentially conceding
the status quo: corporations decide our fate. We
disagree.
b. It should teach people to discern the
difference between what the Democrats sometimes
say they are offering and what is really needed.
If that were all that got accomplished, it would
be invaluable.
c. We will stand for nothing less than a REAL
political debate regardless of the efforts by the
Democratic and Republican controlled Commission
on Presidential Debates to limit the spectrum of
issues presented to the American people.
8. I think the long term view beyond the election
is vital. The real issue is what contribution you
make to the forces that are building for change.
Are we going to have a society in which a critic
of corporate power runs for office every 4 years
or not? We need the answer to be yes. Do we need
to build toward the day when you or someone like
you can be president? Absolutely. Can that be
done best by running only when a Democrat is
already in office? We know the answer: We can’t
build an movement that will win the White House
by putting forth a candidate every once in a
while. We need to persistently field a real
alternative at every opportunity.
9. Finally, to those who say the stakes are too
high, I would simply agree-at no other time in
our history has it been more imperative to have
the real McCoy take office. Martin Luther King
once articulated why we can’t wait. Surely we
have less time now. We need you to win.
Best,
Greg Bates
Publisher, Common Courage Press
