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What's really at stake in Seattle
Economists speak out on the issues behind the World Trade Organization summit and the street protests.
By Alicia Montgomery, Daryl Lindsey and Fiona Morgan
[12/02/99]

A no-win situation
Nonviolent protesters get hit from both sides at the WTO conference in Seattle.
By L.A. Kauffman
[12/02/99]

"Tear gas sucks"
I was minding my own business when the Seattle cops gassed me.
By Zach Works
[12/02/99]

WTO protesters go to the Web
Guerrilla journalists and webcams bring you all the tear-gassed excitement of Seattle's street protests.
By Fiona Morgan
[12/01/99]

Bare breasts, green condoms and rubber bullets
The WTO has united labor and the radical, countercultural left in a way the anti-war movement never could.
By David Moberg
[12/01/99]

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Nader's goal next year will be to get at least 5 percent of the vote: the threshold that third parties have to reach in order to receive a proportional share of public funding for the next presidential campaign. The $12.6 million in federal funds coming to the Reform Party's presidential candidate for the 2000 general election was triggered by Ross Perot's 8 percent showing in 1996.

If Nader and the Greens succeed, it would guarantee the Green Party millions in public funds for 2004, which would in turn be a huge boost for lower-level Green candidates. It would also lift the party up to the same level as the Reform Party in the national eye, at the least. And it's not an unrealistic goal: Nader got just under 1 percent of the vote in 1996, when only one out seven voters was even aware that he was running.

Well in advance of Nader's formal announcement, a core group is actively laying the groundwork for Nader's campaign. Members include Carol Miller, co-chair of the New Mexico Green Party and recent congressional candidate; Ronnie Dugger, founder of the Alliance for Democracy; and Mike Feinstein, a Green member of the Santa Monica City Council. They've set up a National Committee to Draft Ralph Nader for President, opened a bank account and set up a Web site to attract volunteers and raise money.

"What I want is to build a Green Party," says Miller. "I don't think we can guarantee that he is going to win a four-way race," she adds with a laugh, "but if Bush implodes, anything is possible. I want someone who knows how to build a movement -- people's movements, citizens' movements, bringing in young people. That's worth a lot to me, to have something after the election."

Does a Nader run make any sense? Of course. Nader is one of the few progressives with enough public standing to enter the celebrity sweepstakes of presidential politics. He is to backbone what most politicians are to waffles. His message cuts across the simple labels of left and right, capable of reaching conservative home-schoolers anxious about rampant commercialism, small business people angry about special privileges for big corporations, unionists upset about jobs disappearing overseas, and anybody who knows someone who's life was saved by an airbag -- as well as hardcore enviros, consumer activists and other progressives. He retains a strong following among seniors who have followed his whole career, and still draws a respectable showing at his many campus speaking gigs.

Two months ago, I saw Nader speak to an active group of ex-Perotistas, at the American Reform Party's national convention in Washington. At the end, they gave him a standing ovation, with several people chanting, "Run, Ralph, Run!"

The time for an independent progressive-populist campaign certainly seems as ripe as ever. Three converging forces -- the public's continuing dissatisfaction with the major parties, the growing power of disaffected citizens to band together quickly via of the Internet and our tabloidized media system's 24-hour-a-day need for fresh stories to tell -- have combined to boost third-party politics closer to the political mainstream.

That, plus the unexpected election of Jesse Ventura last fall, has made the impossible suddenly seem possible. Polls show anywhere between a third and a half of the public would like to see more choices on the ballot than just George W. Bush and Al Gore. And if all the reporting on Pat Buchanan's and Donald Trump's Reform Party machinations is any indication, Nader is certain to draw a good deal of free media attention as well.

In addition, Buchanan's decision to seek the Reform Party's nomination may shake up the presidential election in unexpected ways. "The Reform Party's nomination of Buchanan would open up more space for a polar opposite, like Ralph, to get engaged," says Steve Cobble, the former political director of the Rainbow Coalition.

If Buchanan is indeed the Reform nominee, siphoning hard-right votes away from the Republican candidate, it takes some of the edge off the argument that Nader would merely "spoil" the Democrats' presidential hopes. Also, an aggressive Nader campaign could offer a clearheaded alternative to Buchanan's xenophobic populism. For while the two men may agree about who the villains are in the trade wars, they disagree about many of the solutions; Nader could inject critically needed arguments into the national debate, and his candidacy would inevitably put pressure on Gore's and Bradley's instinctive centrism.

Finally, there is a pragmatic logic to a serious Nader candidacy that could even appeal to some Democrats -- at least the congressional branch of the party. A strong progressive-populist campaign can reach very effectively into the growing ranks of nonvoters, who are disproportionately lower on the socioeconomic ladder, and bring them back to the polls. That is the lesson of victories like U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone's (D-Minn.) in 1990 and 1996 and U.S. Rep. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) in 1990, and even of last year's Washington state initiative to raise the minimum wage to the highest level in the country. In every case, voter turnout rose significantly.

Pollster John Zogby, who has built his reputation on figuring out who is likely to vote, says, "You will see an increase in those who call themselves liberal or progressive if there's a credible Green Party candidate [in the race]. For example, that was seen in New York with Ralph Nader in 1996."

Next page | How Nader will help Democrats