Nader supporters flock to campaign stop in Long Beach
By Daily Bruin Staff
Nov. 5, 2000 9:00 p.m.
 PATIL ARMENIAN/ Daily Bruin Senior Staff Green Party
presidential candidate Ralph Nader speaks at his
"Super Rally" Friday night at the Long Beach Arena.
By Timothy Kudo
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Minutes before he is about to speak, Green Party presidential
candidate Ralph Nader stands in the darkness at the Long Beach
Arena behind the stage curtain scrutinizing his notes by the glow
of a small flashlight.
He puts down his papers for a minute to peer at the crowd
through a break in the curtain and closes the eyes that sit on his
long, tired face. A reporter asks if he ever gets nervous before
speaking to the thousands who have gathered to hear him speak.
“No, never,” he says looking into the distant crowd.
“There’s so much to say.”
He enters the stage to a jubilant crowd and approaches the
podium, gripping it gently from both sides.
While most candidates on a campaign stop to speak for 20 or 30
minutes on several general points, Nader drew from his notes
““ he doesn’t write speeches ““ and talked for more
than an hour and a half, never letting up.
The 66-year-old candidate spoke on Friday of the power of money
taking away the power of people, of the environment, of progressive
movements, and of all things that to him represent the spirit of
democracy.
“Look at history, look what happens when people
aren’t turned on to politics,” he said. “Politics
was the remedy of tyranny, and politics will turn on
you.”
Nader is known as a man of ideals to many of his supporters and
critics. The criticisms of character and of stance that often fly
between the Republicans and Democrats in large part stop when it
comes to him. But there are a few stemming from his perceived lack
of leadership experience in the political realm.
At a recent rally for Al Gore in Westwood, John Cusack, in his
support for the Democratic candidate, pleaded with Nader to drop
out of the race while at the same time praising him as a hero.
Additionally, the mainstream media has, until recently, scarcely
covered Nader himself except to note the effect he is having on
Gore’s polls. The next day’s Los Angeles Times and Long
Beach Press-Telegram showed little change, as neither ran stories
on the rally.
The “Super Rally,” as the Long Beach event was
called, was one of several the Green Party organized to raise money
from individuals rather than corporate interests.
Late in the rally, organizers stood on stage and began asking
for $1,000 donations, and then $500 donations, all the way down the
line from members ““ some of whom gladly gave.
“There’s no point in considering anyone else who is
running,” said one man who gave $500.
Democrats and Republicans criticized the consumer advocate for
being a meddler, saying that a “Vote for Nader is a Vote for
Bush,” and that he’s only campaigning for the 5 percent
vote that will give his party federal matching funds in the next
election.
The Democrats “are calling themselves pro-choice but
they’re asking us not to choose to vote for Ralph
Nader,” said Sara Amir, the Green Party candidate running for
state Assembly in the 42nd district, which contains UCLA within its
boundaries.
Though his views may be too liberal for many voters, with
beliefs that the war on drugs should be stopped, prioritization of
environmental issues, and that the defense budget should be
severely curtailed, Nader has drawn support from voters who might
otherwise be siding with the Democratic Party.
“We want a world based on the love of life and the love of
the planet,” said Medea Benjamin, the Green Party candidate
for U.S. Senate.
But he avoided confronting many of these criticisms as he spoke
to Green Party faithful, and the Nader faithful. Instead, he
focused on the issues that have made his upstart campaign appealing
to voters fed up with the money and centrism he says has engaged
American politics.
“You are going to be, and you are, the pioneers of a major
political reform movement in this country,” Nader shouted to
the crowd.
Throughout the night, Nader portrayed the two candidates as two
sides of the same coin, as he has done throughout his campaign.
Specifically, he criticized the effect on America caused by the
Democratic Party’s move to the center.
“In the process, it tripped up, and it tripped up our
country,” he said.
Toward the end of his speech, Nader urged those present to start
a “first leap forward” by voting for him.
“Don’t settle for the lesser of two evils where at
the end of the day, there’s still evil,” he said.
After standing on stage with the rest of the California Green
ticket while folk-punk legend Patti Smith sang, Nader walked back
the same ramp that took him to the stage. As he headed back to his
room, people approached him to shake his hand and thank him.
One young boy ran after him carrying a Nader poster with his
father in tow and, with the help of a security guard, received an
autograph.
“An autograph from the next president,” the boy
said.
With polls showing him on the edge of the five-percent threshold
with the Democratic and Republican Party candidates far ahead, it
doesn’t look like that will be the case this year.
