> What Went Wrong for Ralph?
> Micah L. Sifry, NewsForChange.com November 28, 2000
> Nader's gamble was that his 37 years as a citizen advocate, his
> convincing fight for the "little guy" and his defense of civic values
> over corporate values would transform the Greens into a new kind of
> populist/social-democratic party. Clearly that didn't happen -- or at
> best, it is only beginning to happen. Instead, in this campaign, Nader
> became a "green" -- and despite his best efforts that term by itself
> still doesn't resonate with most Americans.
I find it fascinating that even someone like Sifry, who's been pretty pro-Nader in the past, is so acutely limited by the categories of symbolic capital handed down by the American Empire. His criticisms are all managerial: Nader micromanaged this, didn't run that, there was no money for TV ads, etc. You can sense the longing for a Kennedyesque (a.k.a. Clintonesque) ueber-manager capable of rising up to save the Dems from their corporate paymasters -- the curious mirror-image of the hatred, bile and sheer class ressentiment of the Dem neolibs who, and let's be clear about this, trashed Nader in the final two weeks of the campaign like the Chinese CP excommunicating its dissident-of-the-month. Ralph just didn't know his place, you see; activism is fine, but not when it disturbs the deliberations of our one-party-state. Sifrah seems to want to pin Ralph down as an irresponsible gambler, who staked his prestige on a bunch of granola freaks and lost. This is too simple. Ralph did more than anyone could have asked, given the disorganization of the US Left; most of all, he put the issue of a third party on the agenda in a serious way. Let's hope the Labor Party folks get serious about running candidates in the future.
-- Dennis