Nader, the Greens, and building a movement.

• Author: Hardy, Karl
• Position: 2008 Presidential Prospects for Progressives: - Ralph Nader

While the presidential primary season lurches onward with Obama and Hillary struggling to secure the Democrat nomination, progressives are finding themselves in a predicament similar to both 2000 and 2004. The question, yet again, is whether or not to hold your nose and vote for the "lesser of two evils" (or, if you will, against the Republican Party) or vote your conscience in support of a true progressive.

Ralph Nader's 2000 Green Party presidential run is well documented. Charges of "spoiling" aside, his 2.7%--despite appearing on only 44 states' ballots and not being included in presidential debates

--represented a significant and promising development for progressives. Unfortunately, as many journalists have documented, Bush won Florida--and thus the presidency--through a combination of illegal voter disenfranchisement and legal fiat thanks to a 5-4 US Supreme Court decision. The momentum created by Nader's candidacy was blunted considerably by the resulting anger and frustration over Bush's installation as president and what energy remained was effectively silenced in the disturbingly reactionary "patriotic" fervor immediately following 9-11. The combination of 9-11 and fallout over the 2000 election was disastrous, in many respects, for the Greens, specifically, and progressives, generally.

What may have been, however, is now a moot point.

In 2004, Nader decided not to seek the Greens' nomination, instead declaring an independent candidacy. Acrimony over both the result of the 2000 election and Nader's distant relationship to the Greens led to divisions within the Green Party that eventually resulted in something of a split. Unknown Green Party member David Cobb campaigned nationally for the nomination and articulated what became known as a "safe state strategy" that involved largely staying away from contested swing states that were likely to determine the next president.

Nader, for his part, never joined the Green Party and refused to share donor/volunteer lists from his 2000 campaign with the Greens--this despite his oft-repeated campaign goal of building the party infrastructure and triggering federal matching funds with at least 5% of the national vote. Nonetheless, he did select a prominent California Green politician, Peter Camejo, as his vicepresidential running mate and asked the Greens for an "endorsement" of their ticket. At a contentious 2004 national convention, Nader's appeal was rejected and Cobb became the party's...