John Nichols: Nader scares campaign tacticians

John Nichols  —  5/27/2008 3:54 pm

Ralph Nader is making every effort to be the most serious candidate for president this year, and he is showing some signs of succeeding despite the dismissals of the political class and the media that sustain it.

That was evident to anyone who got a glimpse last week of Nader standing in front of the White House to lay down his marker on behalf of presidential accountability.

The notion that Nader is serious runs against the narrative that has developed in regard to the pioneering consumer activist who in recent years has turned his attention toward presidential politics. Nader has not run for president enough times to be treated with the respect that was accorded Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party stalwart who after six runs for the nation's top job was ultimately accorded a the respectful "elder statesman" status that the political class bestows upon candidates seen as thoughtful but harmless.

Nader is thoughtful. But he does not choose to be harmless. And that leads to dismissals of his candidacy by journalists and political commentators who can't stand the notion that America's politics is something other than a narrow two-party duopoly.

The independent candidate scares tacticians in both parties, and especially in battleground states such as Wisconsin where Democrats fear he could be a factor in the fall. The fear of Nader stems not merely from the fact that he has upset calculations of political insiders in the past but because he continues to campaign with a boldness that draws attention and opens fundamental debates about the direction of the campaign and the country.

Nader has been using Washington as a backdrop for a series of challenges to official secrecy and wrongdoing. He did so again Friday, with the White House press conference at which he called on President Bush and Vice President Cheney to resign.

The candidate cited the long list of failures, neglected duties, corruptions, high crimes and misdemeanors that have attached to the lame-duck administrators of a nation that is stuck in a Middle East quagmire, descending into recession and seemingly incapable of addressing even the most pressing human needs -- a nation now so badly off course that three-quarters of its citizens tell pollsters "America is headed in the wrong direction."

And, of course, Nader suggested that if a Republican president and vice president choose not to resign, then a Democratic House and Senate should impeach and try them -- moves that substantial pluralities, and in some cases majorities, of Americans tell pollsters are now appropriate.

For his trouble, Nader was portrayed as unduly radical or, worse yet, out of touch with the political zeitgeist of a moment in which we are supposed to be talking about candidates and their pastors.

But Nader is being heard by enough Americans -- thanks to the dramatically more media-savvy approach of his campaign this year as opposed to his efforts in 1996, 2000 and 2004 as a Green and independent presidential contender.

A good many voters are finding themselves to be more in tune with Nader's constitutional urgency than with the more cautious constructions of Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton or Republican John McCain. And, despite the dismissals of his candidacy by most of the media, a decent number of those voters appear to be considering casting a ballot for the independent candidate.

The latest Zogby poll has the independent at 4 percent nationally (in a contest where Obama beats McCain 47-37) and a recent California survey has Nader at 5 percent in the vote-rich Golden State (again in a race where Obama dominates). And the consumer advocate, who has always run a little better in Wisconsin than nationally, can be expected to make a reasonable dent in the Badger State this fall.

Nader may not be seriously in the running for the presidency.

But he is running seriously, and his challenges to Bush and Cheney, to a sputtering two-party system, and to the media that maintain failed presidents and failed politics are not nearly so radical -- or so off-putting -- as his dismissers would have Americans believe.

John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times.

John Nichols  —  5/27/2008 3:54 pm