Whither Nader and (His) Greens?

Whether or not Ralph Nader gets five percent of the popular vote in Tuesday's election, what is the future of this "new, progressive political movement" Nader says he's building?

Is it the goofy Green Party of aging hippies like Joey Racano, who opened a Nader rally at Chapman University in Orange, California two weeks ago by announcing that he was running for the Huntington Beach City Council but then spent his invaluable half-hour on the stage before a captive audience of more than 1000 people killing time by playing obscure songs he had written on the guitar?

Or is it the savvy Green Party of Ross Mirkarimi, an assistant district attorney in San Francisco who is Nader's California campaign director, who effectively cajoled $75,000 in spontaneous contributions out of the 7,000 people who came to Nader's Oakland rally, and who has led the organizing that will put thousands of volunteers on the streets before Election Day to walk local precincts in get-out-the-vote efforts?

Is it a party that tries to use its 5 percent of the vote - and up to 10 percent or more in many congressional districts -- as leverage to bargain with the major parties into making changes in the status quo? Or is it a purer, more transformative force that will try to stand outside the mainstream political process?

And what will Nader's role be? In a year filled with political paradoxes, consider this one: the man who has done more than anyone else to put the Green Party on the national map isn't even a member and has no intentions of becoming one. "I'm an independent," Nader said, and it's clear that while he has broken with his own longstanding aversion to electoral politics, he isn't about to become a pure Green partisan either.

Of course, the leaders of Green parties in the many states where the Third Party has sprouted will certainly have a lot to say about the movement's future. Thanks to the Nader campaign, the party is much closer to having a genuine national presence.

By November of next year, the Greens will have ballot qualified parties in forty states, up from twenty-four before this election. Strong state branches like California, Oregon, New Mexico, Hawaii and Maine will be joined by burgeoning Green parties in Texas, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Minnesota and Pennsylvania. And once the finishing touches are put on an agreement that has been hammered out to formally end the debilitating split between the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP) and the more leftist Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA), the party should emerge with one national committee and structure.

Still, Nader will stand head and shoulders above the rest as its de facto national spokesman and, behind the scenes, as the party's most important resource.

In a lengthy interview October 21st, traveling from Santa Monica to Fresno, Nader gave the clearest picture to date of his thinking and plans for the future. We started with the brass-tacks: What will happen to the campaign organization after the election?

"The campaign stays open indefinitely, well into the next year while we establish post-election policies and programs," Nader said. But he made clear that he wasn't going to try to keep on all the dozens of people currently employed by the campaign, but had in mind a core staff of eight or so. It appears from talking to people in the Nader HQ that these will include some key field staffers for a few months, along with the core of the finance and administrative team.

And what about the 75,000 people on the campaign's fundraising lists? "We'll definitely be raising more funds from our lists," said Nader. But the first two projects he mentions for those funds don't sound like Green Party-building at all, or at least not directly.

The first is to set up a "People's Debate Commission" to replace the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates that locked him and the other Third-Party contenders out of the national conversation. Of all the issues Nader raises on the hustings, none gets a bigger cheer than his announcement that he is suing the CPD. And if he manages to bust open that piece of the political duopoly, he'll be performing a huge service to democracy, one that will benefit the Greens along with all other outsider parties.