Nader, a liberal politician who made his name as a so-called consumer advocate exposing “excesses” by big corporations, ran as the Green Party’s presidential nominee in the 1996 and 2000 elections. Running candidates against Democrats and Republicans, the Greens have acted as the left wing of the Democratic Party.

In 2000 Nader’s Green Party campaign ran in 43 states and garnered 3 percent of the vote. According to a recent poll by Investors Business Daily, Nader today would take 5 percent of the vote in a three-way race with the two main capitalist parties.

In this year’s presidential race, Nader has decided not to run on the ticket of any one party. He is seeking the endorsement of the Green Party, which has ballot lines in 23 states.

On June 21, two days before the opening of the Green Party convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Nader announced that his running mate would be Peter Camejo, the Greens’ candidate for California governor last year.

Nader has also been endorsed by the rightist Reform Party and has welcomed support from fascist-minded politician Patrick Buchanan.

The Reform Party was founded by billionaire Ross Perot, who in 1992 won 19 percent of the presidential vote by making a radical rightist appeal to the insecure middle classes. He demagogically promised to “clean out the stables” in Washington and bring economic stability with an iron hand. The Reform Party has waned in subsequent national elections. This year it has ballot status in seven states.

Buchanan, like the group founded by Perot, denounces the two main capitalist parties for betraying the needs of “the little guy.” But unlike Perot’s followers, who promote an electoral movement, Buchanan is an incipient fascist politician whose longer-term goal is to recruit cadres to build a popular, ultrarightist street movement. In 2000 his supporters took over the Reform Party as a temporary vehicle, abandoning it after the elections. Buchanan writes regular columns in his biweekly magazine, The American Conservative.

Nader presents his campaign as an “anti-monopoly” and “peace” alternative to the two main big-business parties and argues that these “progressive” positions can be shared by voters across the bourgeois political spectrum.

While coming from different directions, what Nader shares with both the Reform Party and the Buchananites is an American nationalist standpoint—from their opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to their calls for controlling immigration in the name of protecting “American workers.”  
 
Support from Buchanan
“Ralph Nader Makes a Play for the Right,” reads the cover of the June 21 issue of The American Conservative. In a feature interview, Nader makes the case for why supporters of Buchanan should consider backing his presidential campaign. Spoon-fed questions by the rightist politician, Nader outlines their points of agreement.

Nader rails against NAFTA and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Like Buchanan, he claims that the U.S. government is held hostage by the WTO, which he presents as a body that supposedly imposes unfavorable trade policies on U.S. business and violates “American sovereignty.” In reality, the WTO, made up of government representatives from different countries, is dominated by Washington and other imperialist powers and is used by the U.S. rulers as one more tool to advance their economic interests around the world. Similarly, NAFTA, a trade pact between the U.S., Canadian, and Mexican governments, is used by U.S. capitalists to bolster their competitive edge against imperialist rivals in Europe and Japan.

“Conservatives are upset about the sovereignty-shredding WTO and NAFTA,” Nader said. “I wish they had helped us more when we tried to stop them in Congress because, with a modest conservative push, we would have defeated NAFTA because it was narrowly passed. If there was no NAFTA, there wouldn’t have been a WTO.”

“The decisions,” Nader said, “are now in Geneva, bypassing our courts, our regulatory agencies, our legislatures.”

“I find it amazing that Congress sits there and they get an order from the WTO, and they capitulate,” Buchanan concurred. “What happened to bristling conservative defiance, ‘don’t tread on me’ patriotism?”

Nader declared that “giant multinational corporations have no allegiance to any country or community.” Spelling out the economic nationalist character of this argument, he stated that President George Bush “is encouraging the shipment of whole industries and jobs to a despotic Communist regime in China.” The anti-China campaign is a major element of protectionist opposition to the WTO.

He said the interests of “American workers” must come before those in other parts of the world. Arguing that immigrants cause unemployment and depress wages, Nader stated, “14 million Americans are unemployed or part-time employed who want full employment or have given up looking for jobs.” If the minimum wage were increased, then U.S.-born workers instead of immigrants “will do so-called work that Americans won’t do.”

“We have to control our immigration,” Nader said. “We have to limit the number of people who come into this country illegally.” To do this he insisted that Washington “enforce the law against employers” to prevent them from hiring immigrant workers without documents.

He spoke against an amnesty for undocumented immigrants. “I don’t like the idea of legalization because then the question is how do you prevent the next wave and the next.”

Buchanan asked, “Would that have an adverse impact on the environment?” Nader’s response was, “We don’t have the absorptive capacity for that many people.”

On foreign policy, Nader called for reducing U.S. troop deployments abroad as a way to cut the U.S. budget deficit. “You bring the troops home from Europe and Korea and the Balkans?” Buchanan asked. “We are presently defending prosperous nations like Japan, Germany, and England, who are perfectly capable of defending themselves against nonexistent enemies,” Nader replied.

Criticizing the U.S.-led war on Iraq, Nader said Washington’s policies in the Middle East are dictated by the Israeli government. “Both parties concede their independent judgment to the pro-Israel lobbies in this country,” he said. The “Congressional and White House puppets” do the bidding of Tel Aviv, he alleged, and “when the chief puppeteer comes to Washington, the puppets prance.”

Nader’s argument converges with that of Buchanan and other Jew-haters who claim that the Israeli government and its “amen corner” in Washington control the foreign policy decisions of the U.S. rulers.

On China, Iraq, and other questions, Nader said, he would find agreement among “conservative Republicans” like Buchanan’s supporters as opposed to the “corporate Republicans” that back Bush.

“Did you see how Nader differentiated between the corporate Republicans and the traditional conservatives?” Kevin Zeese said in a June 18 phone interview with the Militant. Zeese, who considers himself a “left progressive,” is a Nader spokesperson and Green Party member. “The traditional conservatives agree with us on a number of things like trade agreements and the war on Iraq. On these points we agree with the Reform Party. Conservatives are also upset with the Patriot Act and the budget deficit.”

Nader said the concentration of wealth and the growth of monopolies must be checked so that the true principles of capitalism can be restored. “Concentrated corporate power violates many principles of capitalism,” he said. “Capitalism is premised on a level playing field; the most meritorious is supposed to win. Tell that to a small inventor or a small businessman up against McDonald’s or a software programmer up against Microsoft.”  
 
Socialist groups back Nader
Nader’s campaign has also received support from some middle-class socialist organizations. One is Socialist Alternative, a group that has campus chapters in several U.S. cities. Nader’s “insurgent campaign against the Democrats and Republicans…will be the best way in the 2004 elections to forward the interests of workers, young people, women, people of color, LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender] people, the environment, and the anti-war movement,” states a pamphlet put out by the group.

A vote for Nader is “a vote for radical change,” reads a statement by Socialist Alternative. He “is challenging the war in Iraq and corporate domination over our society.” His campaign can help defeat Bush, who the group says “is the most right-wing administration in decades.” The problem with the Democratic Party and its candidate, John Kerry, the statement says, is that they “offer no alternative to Bush.”

They complain that a Kerry White House would continue the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and other reactionary policies. They criticize him for backing NAFTA, the WTO, and “PNTR with China”—that is, permanent normal trade relations.

Another group, the International Socialist Organization (ISO), actively backed Nader in the 2000 campaign. In the current election campaign it has so far withheld its support, citing Nader’s acceptance of the Reform Party’s endorsement and his refusal to sharply criticize the Kerry campaign.

In a May 28 editorial published in its paper, Socialist Worker, the ISO urged Nader to change course and held open the door to backing him as the campaign progresses. “The urgency of building a left-wing alternative to the two parties is profound,” the editorial read. “Nader could be that alternative in Election 2004—but not if he continues to celebrate his support from the right, and not if he pulls his punches when it comes to Kerry.”

In a recent “open letter to Ralph Nader and Nader campaign activists,” several leaders of Socialist Alternative criticized Nader for accepting the Reform Party ballot lines but did not withdraw their support for his campaign.

Green Party activist Zeese said he was confident the ISO would again back the Nader campaign. “I think we’ll see a lot of the campus support come back,” he said. “I was part of a conference call last week with some ISO leaders and it was very positive.” He said the ISO was one of the more politically active groups on university campuses that support Nader, providing the campaign “with an army of activists.”  
 
Democrats’ greener pastures
While Nader refused to stand for nomination as the Green Party’s candidate in this election, he has said he would welcome its endorsement. A substantial number of Green Party figures, including Camejo, have called on the Green Party to endorse Nader.

Camejo has received the second-highest number of delegates to the Greens’ June 23-28 convention, and said he will urge his supporters to endorse Nader.

The leading contender for nomination at the Green Party convention is David Cobb, a leader of the party from Texas, who represents Greens who are uncomfortable with challenging the Democratic Party directly in the elections.

Nancy Allen, a spokesperson for the Green Party, said, “David Cobb will run a ‘safe states’ strategy” that will not challenge Democrat John Kerry in any of the states where the race will be close. On his web site, Cobb calls on voters “to go all out for Green Party victories at all levels in the likely 40 states where the electoral college vote for the President is not in doubt.”

“A John Kerry administration represents a lesser evil than another catastrophic George Bush administration,” Cobb’s campaign states.

Allen said that if no one wins the 50 percent of the vote that is required to be nominated by the Green Party convention, the delegates would then vote whether to endorse a candidate. “Many Greens were disappointed when Nader didn’t stand for nomination,” she said.  
 
 
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