Paris, Tuesday, November 14, 2000 Nader Voters in Florida Are Feeling a New Heat But They Express Little Regret for Choice
By April Witt Washington Post Service
ST. PETERSBURG, Florida - Alex Parent, who voted for Ralph Nader for president, is arguably the least popular man in his largely Democratic workplace these days. But he is at peace. ''I haven't doubted my vote for a second, even being yelled at,'' said Mr. Parent, 36, a self-described political novice who works for a nonprofit group that finds jobs for the disabled. ''I had to take a chance and assume that if our Nader votes threw the election to George W. Bush, the country wouldn't dissolve overnight.''
The presidential election has catapulted Mr. Parent and the 97,415 other Nader voters in Florida into a limelight they never imagined: The Green Party of Florida, a marginally organized band with big dreams and sparse coffers, played a pivotal role on Election Day. Assuming that a significant slice of the Nader voters would have settled for Vice President Al Gore had the consumer advocate not been in the race, the Nader vote in Florida effectively resulted in the deadlock that has transfixed the country ever since.
That calculation infuriates many Nader voters who say it is not their fault if Republicans and Democrats could not field more appealing candidates.
''Some people tell me my vote cost Gore the election, but I reject that argument,'' said Holly Hutchinson, 42, a museum worker. ''It's arrogant. I didn't vote for George Bush. I voted for greater democracy. I voted for taking immediate steps to end the crisis of the environment and the corporate dominance of our government and culture.''
Few other Nader voters seem to be suffering voters' remorse, and some veteran Green Party of Florida activists are downright gleeful. ''We're on the map now,'' said Julia Aires, 60, of Sarasota, who helped incorporate the Green Party of Florida in 1992. ''I think the goddess, in her infinite wisdom, put a pox on both their evil houses.''
But one new Nader voter, Jeanine Newcomb, 42, a registered Democrat, takes no joy in her difficult choice not to vote for Mr. Gore and said she finds it ''a little scary'' that her vote might help propel a Republican into the White House.
''Because I have kids, I feel a high degree of moral responsibility to vote my conscience,'' said Ms. Newcomb, a St. Petersburg high school special education teacher who was hiking with her two young children in Boyd Hill Park on Saturday. ''I have to be able to look them in the eye and say, 'I did the best I could for you.'''
Mr. Nader's vote on Nov. 7, about 1.6 percent of the Florida electorate, was nearly 25 times the number of votes Mr. Nader won in Florida four years ago as a write-in candidate for president.
Nader voters in Florida, and elsewhere in the nation, are disproportionately young, white and well-educated, support abortion rights, and describe themselves as independent, according to exit polls.
They are also prime scapegoats for Floridians frustrated by confusion over who will be their next president - and for those who blame Nader voters for costing Mr. Gore the election.
Nader supporters here in Pinellas County in southwest Florida, where 10,022 people voted for their man, have received rebukes ranging from anonymous telephoned threats to relatives' teasing. ''My mother called me to give me a little grief,'' said Sigfrid Diane Cartier, 34, a former Gore supporter who voted for Mr. Nader. ''She said, 'I heard you voted for Bush.'''
Johnny Ardis, 42, of Pensacola, a Green Party veteran and a Nader campaign coordinator, called the Nader vote in Florida ''the beginning of a beautiful nonviolent revolution.''
But even revolutionaries must eat. Mr. Ardis is starting a new consulting business, and his partner is worried that liberal anger at Nader voters, especially if Mr. Bush wins, ''might impact our business,'' Mr. Ardis said. ''So we decided I'm going to be low-profile in the business.''
On Saturday, about 30 Nader voters sat at picnic tables along a canal in Pinellas Park and talked about how to transform the energy of this election into a legitimate third-party organization in Pinellas County. They have no office, $250 in the bank and a database of 600 sympathizers.
''If you don't get your act together, if you aren't running local Green candidates by the next election cycle, you will be swept away by the iron broom of history,'' a Nader 2000 campaign consultant, Brian Keaney, told the gathering. ''There will be no Green Party of Pinellas County. It will disintegrate.''
Mr. Parent, the St. Petersburg man whose Democratic co-workers are criticizing his Nader vote, said the Green Party can count on him. ''For years I've equated politics with terminally boring dullness,'' he said. ''This is fun.''