Some Nader Faithful Turn Away

Martine Zundmanis is perfectly aware that Ralph Nader cannot be elected president, but she cast an early ballot for him anyway. Politics, she said recently, is about things far more important than winning an election.

“I’m a moral person, and I’m offended by what my government is doing to the rest of the world,” said Zundmanis, 39. The two-party political system, she added, “is no good for the people of this planet.”

Despite charges from Democratic leaders and activists that a vote for Nader could mean victory for President Bush, as they say happened in 2000, some Floridians again are backing the 70-year-old consumer advocate and social activist in his admittedly hopeless bid for the White House.

“I have friends who have said, ‘We’re never talking to you again if you vote for Nader,’ ” said Wayne Keller, 34, chef and general manager of Finnegan’s Wake, a pub and eatery in Key West.

Keller’s friends have been telling him that he’s crazy to support Nader; they blame the third-party candidate for costing Democrat Al Gore the White House four years ago by getting more than 97,000 votes in Florida. Democrats and many independent analysts think Gore would have taken the lion’s share of Nader’s voters, winning Florida and, with it, the presidency.

As Keller sees it, however, the problem facing America is not Bush but a political system corrupted by big money. “The biggest stereotype is that the Republicans are rich and all for war and that Democrats are poor and all for domestic issues,” he said. “Everyone says there’s a two-party system, but there’s a one-party system. I call them the Republicrats.”

Keller believes that, like Bush, Democratic challenger John F. Kerry wants to keep U.S. troops in Iraq and is a puppet of corporate interests.

Billy Hower, another Nader supporter and the self-labeled southernmost liberal in the United States, hosts a daily talk show on a Key West radio station. He’s not shy about calling Kerry a fascist. If voters choose Kerry as the lesser of two evils, Hower said, “it’s still evil.”

Nader recently addressed a mostly friendly audience of about 200 at the University of South Florida campus here. He repeated his campaign mantra: that asking voters to limit their options to Bush or Kerry is like asking them to choose “between heart disease and cancer.”

But in a question-and-answer session, some voters said that despite their support for Nader’s social and ecological crusades, they wouldn’t dare vote for him this year.

Other onetime Nader backers in Florida said they had reached the same conclusion.

For nearly four years, David Hoch, a visiting professor of law and business ethics at the University of Florida, has wrestled with feelings of guilt for voting for Nader in 2000 and, as he sees it, helping bring about a Republican presidency. This time, Hoch said, he is doing all he can to support Kerry.

Four years ago, Nader was on the ballot in 43 states plus the District of Columbia and received 2.7% of the popular vote. His name is currently on the ballot in 34 states, and a Los Angeles Times poll this week showed his level of support nationwide at 1%. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to add him to the ballot in Ohio. He earlier lost a court bid to be on the Pennsylvania ballot.

The war in Iraq and the conservative agenda pursued by the Bush administration, analysts said, may have persuaded many Americans that they could not afford the luxury of a protest vote this November.

“In 2000, a lot of folks voted for Nader because they thought Bush and Gore were Tweedledee and Tweedledum,” said Daniel Smith, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida. “They voted for Nader because they didn’t see any real difference between the candidates. My guess is that there are very few people who think there is little difference between George Bush and now John Kerry, save Ralph Nader and his acolytes.”

Compared with 2000, the Nader campaign in Florida is a shoestring operation that was late getting started and remains remarkably thin on the ground. The rally here Thursday doubled as a fundraiser, with the campaign deciding to charge admission.

And two “corporate crime-buster” vans staffed by volunteers have been crisscrossing the state trying to get Nader’s message heard amid the din of radio and television spots promoting Bush and Kerry.

But even a modest showing by Nader and his running mate, Peter Camejo -- who ran for governor of California in last year’s recall election -- could tip the balance in battleground states.

“Nader is taking some of the disaffected national incumbent vote from Kerry,” said Lawrence Jacobs, professor of political science at the University of Minnesota. “In some close state races, that could be important.”

A poll released this week for the Nation Institute, a nonprofit group committed to free speech, found that in eight battleground states, Nader voters favored Kerry over Bush by 3 to 1. That is the type of finding that worries Democrats.

Unlike her husband, Tania Keller, 29, sees a distinct difference between the two parties that dominate American politics. And she is willing to support a less-than-perfect politician to keep one whom she considers even worse from remaining in office.

“My major reason I’m voting for Kerry is I dislike Bush immensely,” said Keller, who works in electronics sales. “There is no way Nader is going to win. And if you vote for Nader, even if he’s better on some issues, it’s going to take away from Kerry, and Bush will win.”

Keller said she believed the Republicans were bankrupting the U.S. economy, ravaging the environment, neglecting education and needlessly prolonging the war in Iraq.

That’s the kind of political conversion welcomed by Democrats.

“I think Ralph Nader is the Benedict Arnold of modern democracy,” said Scott Maddox, chairman of the Florida Democratic Party. “There’s a big difference in the positions of George W. Bush and John Kerry. We should let the country choose without someone attempting to be a spoiler.”

But to his faithful, Nader is no spoiler, but an idealist with dreams of a better America.

“One thing I want is values. And I see Ralph as supporting a long tradition of Catholic teachings on social justice -- including peace, preferential options for the poor, support of unions, against the death penalty,” said Rich Mercadante, 41, a teacher at a Jesuit high school in Tampa.

Nader’s campaign may seem hopeless or even pointless, Mercadante said, but so did the quests of those who fought to abolish slavery or give women the right to vote.

“Those parties never had a candidate in office,” Mercadante said. “But what would have happened if they had just pulled back?”