By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK
August 6, 2001, New York Times
PORTLAND, Ore., Aug. 5 "We've got to raise our expectation
level, folks!" Ralph Nader shouted to a thunderous ovation here on
Saturday night at what he billed as the first major rally to kick
off a new "grass-roots movement" that he calls Democracy Rising.
"We've got to raise our expectations!
"Our elections are not for sale!" said Mr. Nader, applause from
the crowd of 7,500 people nearly drowning him out. "Our democracy
is not for sale! Our government is not for sale! Our children are
not for sale! Our environment, not for sale!"
Plenty of people may still be furious with Mr. Nader, believing
that his Green Party presidential candidacy did little more than
tip the 2000 election to George W. Bush. At least two dozen of them
showed up outside Portland's professional basketball arena, the
Rose Garden, to protest Mr. Nader's speech.
They carried satirical placards, all depicting Mr. Nader, the
67-year-old consumer advocate, as a pawn and a dupe: "Right-wing
freaks coalition for Nader." "Back-alley abortionists for Nader."
"Defense contractors for Nader." "Citizens against tundra."
"Unelectable at any speed." They handed out leaflets pleading with
people going inside to persuade Mr. Nader not to run for president
again, but instead to use his influence to move the Democratic
Party to the left.
But in the 20,000-seat arena, which was curtained off, giving the
illusion of being packed, it was hard to find anyone with a
negative word for Mr. Nader or his candidacy. Nearly all in
attendance had paid $10 to hear him speak, and others contributed
even more in the "democracyrising.org" cardboard boxes that were
passed among the crowd.
Though Mr. Nader made virtually no mention of presidential
campaigns past or future in his 57-minute speech and declared that
the rally was "not a political or Green Party event," he remained
unrepentant at a news conference just before about any corollary
effects of his candidacy last year. He reiterated that his sole
regret was that he had not received more votes. (He got about 3
percent nationwide, ranging from 10 percent in Alaska down to zero
in the five states where he was kept off the ballot.)
Mr. Nader brushed aside a question about all those self-identified
progressives who believe his campaign helped nudge Mr. Bush into
the White House. These included protesters outside the arena like
Marty Smith, 34, a Web site developer who said progressives should
strive to be "that `nutso,' must-placate faction of the Democratic
Party in the same way the religious right is something the
Republicans have to deal with," and those who took note of the
Nader trip to Portland with a letter to the editor in The
Oregonian, the state's biggest newspapers, urging him to "be an
organizer and evangelizer, not a candidate."
Mr. Nader snapped: "They're getting over it ; I mean, it
takes a few months. I was under the impression that Al Gore won the
election. I thought that's what they believe." He depicted his
candidacy as having ultimately helped tip the Senate to Democratic
control because, he said, Green Party voters were clearly a factor
in the razor-thin victory of Maria Cantwell, the Democratic
candidate in Washington state.
In any event, he added: "All this talk really comes down to one
issue. They don't think the Democrats should be challenged by any
party of the progressive wing. They haven't been challenged since
1948, with the Henry Wallace progressive party. They've gotten used
to not being challenged. They've gotten used to telling
progressives they have no place to go."
For a man who disdains professional politicians, Mr. Nader has
gotten one trick of the trade down pat, the standard assertion that
he is "not even thinking" about whether to run next time.
"I don't believe in long campaigns," he said, "it's far too
early."
And in his depiction, he never really wanted to run in the first
place but saw no other choice. "I'm a civic advocate; I have been
for 40 years," he said. "When the doors are closed on citizen
groups in Washington, you've got to go into the political arena,
but that's just a means to a broader strengthening of the
citizenry. I read my Jefferson early."
Mr. Nader said he was hoping that the Portland rally would be the
first of several in big cities that were ultimately designed to
spark a "million-hundred-hundred" movement of the citizenry: one
million people devoting at least 100 hours a year and $100 to a
variety of causes like economic and environmental justice,
universal health care, campaign finance revisions, union
organizing, solar energy and better public transportation.
He received prolonged applause during an attack on genetic
engineering. "The new slavery," he said, "is the ownership and
control of the genetic inheritance of the world — the flora,
the fauna and the human genes."
The "Nader Rocks the Rose Garden" Portland rally included speeches
and singing by a variety of Green Party figures and professional
entertainers like Danny Glover, Jello Biafra and Eddie Vedder of
Pearl Jam. Mr. Nader declared it all a big success.
"You just have to ask yourself, is anyone else doing this, is
anybody else bringing out thousands of people?" he said. "That's
really the comparative measure. There's a lot of empty arenas in
this country, built by taxpayer money, I might add, and they need
to be filled."
See Democracy Rising