Ralph Nader: Unrepentant Pariah

The coming of the Bush administration has changed lots of things in Washington, as it will across the country, but few Americans have been more affected by President George W. Bush’s court-decreed victory than civic-activist-turned-presidential-candidate Ralph Nader. Once a pillar of the progressive community, a fixture at congressional hearings, Nader now finds that many of his longtime allies are shunning him in the wake of his Green Party campaign, which was one prominent factor in Al Gore’s defeat. Nader spoke with The Times from his office in Washington.

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Question: How do you assess the Bush presidency after its first few months?

Answer: The administration has not really jelled. They have yet to make many of their appointments. Others are yet to be confirmed by the Senate. What has happened, so far, is not surprising, except that the appointments have reflected some diversity. What [former President Bill] Clinton did with his last-minute environmental standards was pretty provocative. He could have issued these standards a long time ago. The ergonomics standards were ready in 1995. He did it at the end of his administration to burnish his historic image a bit, but also to lay a trap for Bush, and Bush fell into it. Now Bush is backing off on some things--the lead standards, salmonella. It shows a recognition on his part that a major party can’t be overtly anti-environmental.

Q: But he hasn’t backed off on changing the standard for arsenic in drinking water, or drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

A: Arctic drilling is going nowhere. The Democrats, in a rare display of willpower, will oppose it, largely because [Massachusetts Sen.] John Kerry, who’s running for president, is threatening to filibuster. And when it starts to come out that oil from Alaska is actually being shipped to Japan, that will undermine the credibility of the administration’s claims that this will help solve the energy shortages here. But the Democrats have been quite namby-pamby in opposing Bush overall. They voted unanimously to confirm Spencer Abraham as secretary of Energy. They couldn’t get more than 25 votes against Interior Secretary Gail Norton. They could have stopped John Ashcroft’s confirmation as attorney general, but they didn’t. When the Democrats were in the White House, they didn’t fight; now that they’re in the congressional minority, they don’t fight. And it’s the corporations that set the parameters.

Q: How do you think labor should respond to the new administration? It’s hard to see any upside for unions at the moment.

A: Maybe they’ll put some of their huge reserves into organizing. Is the AFL-CIO pushing the limits of its power? Of course not. Where are the 5,000 new organizers that the unions could afford to hire? Where are the giant demonstrations they could mount? Check the size of the UAW’s financial reserves. Under Clinton, union leaders had invitations to fly on Air Force One. They don’t have that now, so they could choose to become more muscular. This is not an administration that’s as mean as it could be. Bush is not that kind of character. He’s kind of lazy and doesn’t like too much conflict. He’s receiving weekly briefings on global warming from both sides, which is upsetting [syndicated columnist] Bob Novak. There are some business interests that believe global warming is real, and the White House is having good scientists come in and say, “It’s real.”

Q: But the most fundamental policy of the new administration is its tax cut proposal, which does shift everything rightward.

A: The Bush tax cuts could certainly set us up for a decade of destabilization, as [President Ronald] Reagan’s did. But why are the Democrats saying it was a victory in the Senate when they held it down to $1.2 trillion? The problem, maestro, is with the Democrats, with labor, with the citizens groups: They didn’t make big enough of a case for public works, spelling out what the cut took away from public transit, from safe drinking water, from schools.

Q: A lot of those Democrats and unionists and environmentalists blame you for Bush being in the White House. If you hadn’t run, they say, Bush wouldn’t be president.

A: I say they should take a trip to Tennessee, to Arkansas, to South Florida. They need to be reminded of the “what-ifs” that were under their control. Gore could have had Clinton go to Arkansas; he would have carried Arkansas if he’d unleashed Clinton there. And Tennessee is his home state. The only presidential candidate in the 20th century not to carry his home state before Gore was George McGovern, who, unlike Gore, lost just about everywhere. And in Florida, Democrat-controlled counties didn’t recount their votes in time. But they really should be mad at George W., because he took 13 times the Democratic votes in Florida that I did. Look, we’re engaged in a long-term political reform effort. You don’t embark on that kind of thing if you’re concerned about the other parties’ two candidates. For the past 20 years, the Democrats have been telling progressives that they’ve got nowhere else to go, that the Republicans are worse. I don’t accept that.

Q: What if you had run in the Democratic primaries? You would have debated Gore and Bill Bradley. You would have been able to address the Democratic Convention in prime time.

A: It would have been a will-of-the-wisp, amnesiac experience. The only thing they pay attention to is how many votes you take from them in November.

Q: Except for the Republicans under an exceptional set of circumstances, third parties in America haven’t evolved into major parties. What’s the trajectory you foresee for the Greens?

A: Locally, the Greens have a lot of opportunities to win. They’ve had substantial victories in Madison and Milwaukee. It’s good to start locally. Then they can move up to the state level. You’re talking about a long-range dynamic of the party working its way upward. And the political situation could always change: There could be a recession or an environmental catastrophe that could afford a greater opportunity if the Greens are ready. In the near future, they will move into certain congressional districts where there’s no realistic Democratic challenger. We have to keep the progressive agenda alive. The Democrats will get the message, but they’ll have to lose a few seats first. Besides, what will the trajectory of American politics be if the Greens don’t succeed? By the year 2020, someone like [Republican House Whip] Tom DeLay will seem centrist in the Democratic Party. The movement is all rightward. Some Democratic progressives in Congress--Cynthia McKinney [D-Ga.], Jesse Jackson Jr. [D-Ill.]--and senators like Russ Feingold and Paul Wellstone understand this. They’ve been privately praiseworthy--Jackson, publicly--of what we did.

Q: You’ve spoken before about Greens having to run against Democrats, even progressives like Wellstone.

A: I doubt Greens will be running against these kinds of Democrats. They’re more likely to run against conservative Democrats, or someone who just gives lip service to liberal causes. We may have helped cost the Democrats a couple of House seats, but Maria Cantwell [D-Wash.] wouldn’t be in the Senate without Green support. And we really went after Sen. Spencer Abraham in Michigan, who lost to a Democrat, Debbie Stabenow.

Q: But the Democrats narrowly lost the Ann Arbor House seat Stabenow left to run for the Senate. And a Green candidate got more votes than the margin of difference.

A: Can you imagine the Democrats losing in a place like Ann Arbor? How do you wake up a party that still persists in running conservative candidates? Their eternal answer is, “We’re better than the Republicans.” That’s not going to do the trick.

Q: A number of longtime and ardent backers of you and your causes--the trial lawyers, in particular--seem to have cooled their ardor for you in the wake of the election. They’ve withdrawn financial support.

A: They have. Some of them have. They cling to the lesser evil, though the Democrats’ defense of tort law wasn’t all that vigorous. The Democrats take the trial lawyers’ money, but they haven’t really mounted a defense of jury trials, which were a central tenet of the founders’ opposition to King George. I tried to get Gore to respond to Bush’s attacks on the tort system, but he didn’t do anything. And this is what the trial lawyers are clinging to. Why?

Q: Besides the trial lawyers, do you have political problems now in California? The state is undergoing this energy crisis, and you’ve largely stayed away.

A: I’ve actually been saying a lot on the energy crisis. We’ve tried to push the California congressional delegation to be more militant toward the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [which approves wholesale electric rates].

Q: How do you assess Gov. Gray Davis’ performance? Should he have invoked eminent domain over the power plants or the grid?

A: Davis should have bought them out and expanded public power generally. Electricity is too important to be a private commodity manipulated by greedy companies. You know, we went through this fight decades ago; that’s why over 2,200 municipalities in the U.S. own their own electric companies. That’s why today, in Los Angeles and Sacramento, the power companies are not worrying about stock options or their investments in Indonesia. They’re just focusing on delivering electricity affordably and reliably. The Legislature gave the energy companies all that they wanted in ‘96; they deregulated them and picked up their stranded costs. Now they want another bailout? Davis should have bought them out, not bailed them out. He should have acted as soon as the prices spiked in San Diego last summer. The only good thing is that energy conservation is becoming more of a focal point for public policy. Davis could move California more toward renewable sources like wind and co-generation. It could be a very good thing, but he’s not that kind of leader.