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Nader vs. the ‘liberal virus’
BY ADAM REILLY
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After backing Green presidential candidate Ralph Nader in 1996 and 2000, Jesse Gordon, a 43-year-old Cambridge political consultant, decided to register as a Democrat. His motive was simple: he felt guilty. "I feel so bad about the outcome of the 2000 race and my vote for Nader, and how I basically fell into the logic that it was to the good of the party and didn’t hurt Gore," Gordon says. "I think it did hurt Gore." Now Gordon is volunteering for Howard Dean, working to bring Greens into the Dean camp. And he’s doing his utmost to convince Nader not to run again. On Sunday evening, at a private meeting of the Nader Exploratory Committee in Cambridge, Gordon paid the requisite $100 entry fee and presented Nader with the results of an online survey he’d conducted with local progressive activist Eric Weltman. Detractors might note that the survey wasn’t exactly scientific, given that its URL was RalphDontRun.us. But Gordon believed Nader should be confronted with its results, which indicated widespread support for Dean among individuals who might otherwise be inclined to back Nader or other third-party candidacies. The meeting was closed to the press. But according to Gordon, Nader wasn’t impressed with his survey synopsis, which included remarks from hundreds of respondents. "I’d say the most common viewpoint expressed in the survey results I presented was something along the lines of ‘I voted for you in 2000 or in 1996, you’ve been my hero for a long time, I respect everything you do — but if you run for president, I think it’s helping Bush,’" Gordon said. "Nader called it [that viewpoint] the ‘liberal virus.’ I think he meant that the infection has been spreading among Democrats who were basically his supporters." Efforts to reach Nader for comment were unsuccessful. But Theresa Amato, director of Nader’s exploratory committee, dismisses the notion that lobbying from progressive Democrats could convince Nader not to run in 2004. "Polls show that something like 25 percent of Ralph’s supporters would have voted for Bush if he hadn’t run," Amato says. "Thirty-eight percent would have voted for Gore, and the rest wouldn’t have voted at all." Noting that she wasn’t in Cambridge to watch Gordon make his case, Amato adds, "I’m sure Ralph thanked him for his input. That’s part of an exploratory effort — getting input from all those interested in the political process."
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