Independent presidential candidate and Connecticut native Ralph Nader held a rally at E.O. Smith High School Saturday night, where he spoke for two and a half hours, heavily criticizing the Democrats and Republicans for their corporate ties and encouraging students to become more active in politics.
Nader, a lawyer and consumer activist originally from Winsted, is best known for his successful efforts in the 1960s to push for increased safety regulation in the automobile industry, most notably by requiring seatbelts to be installed in all cars.
This is Nader's third consecutive presidential bid following a rocky campaign history. Many believe that, had Nader not run in 2000, the 2.7 percent of the popular vote he received would have gone to Democratic candidate Al Gore instead, giving him enough leverage to have defeated current president George W. Bush. It was perhaps because of this belief that, in 2004, Nader did not even gain one half of one percent of the popular vote, and according to an Oct. 5 Gallup poll, isn't likely to do much better in the November election. Nader is currently trailing 50 percentage points behind current leader, Democratic candidate Barack Obama and 43 points behind Republican candidate John McCain.
Green Party Candidate for Connecticut's 2nd Congressional District G. Scott Deshefy opened the rally, giving a speech where he criticized a deregulated Wall Street and discussed his belief in reducing the military budget to finance single-payer health care and alternative energies.
"Surely we, at a time when liberty has been compromised, can find the courage to vote for progressive change in this election," Deshefy said.
Following Deshefy, Nader took the stage, receiving a standing ovation from the many people in attendence.
He started his speech by accusing college students of being more interested in corporate America than in political America. He encouraged people to go to city council meetings, watch a court proceeding, or read books rather than go to the mall or listen to music, a point he seemed particularly insistent on, claiming that modern teenagers listen to six times more music than his generation did.
"You've been commercialized," he said. "You think you're independent since you can pick your music and you can pick your junk food and you can pick your junk drink, but you're kidding yourself. You're being controlled."
He next turned his attention to the presidential frontrunners, saying that they were "like Siamese twins." He cited both candidates' refusal to immediately withdraw from Iraq, their similar positions on the drug war, their unwillingness to impeach President Bush, his belief that neither candidate will raise minimum wage sufficiently and especially their support of the recent $700 billion Wall Street bailout, which he said was evidence of both parties' willingness to comply with the demands of the corporations that donate to their campaigns. He seemed especially angry that the bill was passed without any public hearings.
"The bailout is ultimate proof that both parties are irrevocably corrupt and indentured to the worst swindlers," he said.
By contrast, Nader promoted his beliefs of immediate troop withdrawal, a widely improved minimum wage and belief that nonviolent drug users currently in jail should be granted amnesty and replaced with the corporate leaders responsible for recent economic woes.
He also promoted his plan to cut military spending significantly, saying that the country has fallen into the "military industrial complex Eisenhower warned us against," noting that, with the money the military spends maintaining bases in nonviolent countries, Americans could vastly reduce the amount of money they spend on taxes, and afford to institute a single-payer health care system like the ones currently available in Canada and Finland.
He ended by reminding people that, for progressive doctrines like the ones he proposed to pass, the country first needs a renewed interest in civics.
After taking a break and allowing his staff to collect donations from the audience, he opened for a question-and-answer session.
Some of the audience members questioned Nader's decision to run a third time. One man suggested that he instead start lower, challenging Christopher Dodd's senate seat.
"You have to break [the two party system] with a national movement, not a self-serving senatorial race," Nader said.
When asked if, in light of his dismal poll figures, Nader wouldn't be better off returning to lobbying and consumer advocacy, the candidate said that he believed he had made too many enemies in Congress, and that the system was much different from the one he worked in during the 1960s.
"The doors are closed … It would be great to continue what I have done over the past
years, but you can't do it anymore. We don't have the senators, we don't have the representatives and we don't have president Lyndon Johnson," he said.
A highlight of the session was when 3rd-year UConn law student Gabriel McGlamery argued that Nader made the same comparison between Bush and Gore in 2000 that he is now making about Obama and McCain. After trying to dodge the question, Nader admitted that he was "not possessed by retroactive clairvoyance" and that Gore and Bush did campaign in similar ways before veering ideologically after the election.
Nader went on, arguing that voting democrat was voting for "the least worst" candidate, rather than the best. McGlamery argued that compromise in some areas was necessary to enable larger gains.
The two continued to argue over the benefits of introducing single-payer health care, or gradually introducing universal health care, with McGlamery arguing that single-payer health care hurts small businesses more than insurance companies, and Nader arguing that polls report that a majority of physicians support single-payer insurance.
He finished the session by answering questions that helped him assert his stance that the electoral college was a flawed system and that any unemployment from his health care plan would be offset by the benefits of free health care. He also used the time to point out his views that public universities should be free to citizens.
"If we bring our soldiers back, two things happen," he said. "We save $80 billion a year and we give all these soldiers and the students in America free tuition in every public university in the country."
After the speech, Nader invited interested parties to meet with him and discuss volunteering opportunities.
According to Jonny Schreiber, a 7th-semester English and political science major and Nader supporter, the rally went over well.
"Nader is always impeccable," he said. "He details each part of his answer so well. When he talks it doesn't sound like rhetoric; it sounds like a study because he gives out all the numbers."
He said that although people got belligerent during the question section, Nader handled it with class, though he admitted that on the UConn campus there was little notice of the candidate, if not outright dismissal.
Schreiber also noted his displeasure at a two-party system and justified his support of the candidate - despite Nader's low chance of victory - since he believes voting how one feels is more important than voting strategically.
"I think it depends on how you look at what a vote stands for," he said.
McGlamery, speaking after the speech, disagreed. He said that voting for a candidate who didn't jive with his views 100 percent was not wrong, and although he agreed with many of Nader's points, he didn't like his stubbornness.
"Connecticut isn't America; there has to be compromise," he said. "I don't want to be held to Midwestern values, and on the other side, I don't want to shove my views down their throats."
Nader, in an interview after the rally, said he thought the event was "extraordinary" and that the students he had spoken to were very open-minded and had good ideas on how to spread word of his campaign.
When asked about how he felt about overcoming the low odds pundits have given his victory - particularly when confronted by a campus like UConn's, where he does not have a large following - he said that the most important thing he could do was remind of them of the third option.
"All you can do is put it before [the UConn students,]" he said. "They have a difficult future coming up, with unaffordable housing and big government debt they'll have to pay off, and jobs outsourced to India and China.
He furthermore pointed out that nations poorer than America have been able to tackle similar problems, and encouraged students to observe foreign nations that are not "corporate dominated."
Earlier, Nader had encouraged people not to be discouraged by the odds.
"There are people who would have voted, but they were part of this two-party mentality," he said, "as if you're throwing your vote away by voting for something you believe in. Eugene Debs put it succinctly when he said 'better to support the thing you want and don't get it than support the thing you don't want and get it.'"
Debs, a well-regarded socialist and union advocate, was active at the turn of the century and ran for president five times. He never won.
Be the first to comment on this article!