15,000 Help Nader 'Rock the Garden'

NEW YORK -- The only empty seats in the house, ironically, were in the darkened corporate skyboxes lining the third tier of Madison Square Garden. The one special effect was a modest blast of red, white and blue confetti that shot from the ceiling when the presidential candidate appeared. There was no canned music to ease the transition between speakers, no photo-op handshakes with the audience, and no TelePrompters to cue scripted lines.

But 15,000 people -- almost all in their late teens, twenties and thirties -- shelled out $20 apiece for an event that was certainly more rock concert than political rally. "Nader Rocks the Garden" it was rather dramatically titled, the latest in a string of successful "super-rallies" to benefit Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.

"It blew the roof off this place," gushed a Nader campaign staffer.

The sheer size of the event, which was announced, planned and publicized in a week, astounded even its own planners. Greg Kafoury, a close friend and colleague of Nader's who was involved in efforts to get him on the ballot in 1992 and 1996, stood onstage while the candidate spread his message of civic rather than corporate globalization, and basked in the stadium's glow.

"We were all blown away," he said. "This was the Democratic Party's beating heart, and tonight we liberated it."

Kafoury said he pitched the idea of a "super-rally" to Nader's campaign organizers in Portland, and they responded with skepticism, imagining being publicly humiliated and financially devastated by a small turnout. Kafoury went ahead anyway and planned the first arena rally, packing in 10,500 people in Portland. He has since helped plan every subsequent super-rally, pulling in over ten thousand people in Minneapolis, Boston, Chicago and Seattle. He called Friday night's showing in Madison Square Garden "the crown jewel of American politics."

Unlike the other super-rallies, New York's event was a virtual celebrity pageant as emcee Phil Donahue introduced one star after another. Actress Susan Sarandon strutted onstage in black leather pants, and urged the audience to fill out voter registration cards being passed around by volunteers. She announced it was the last day to register in New York state, and that after the rally a marching band would lead everyone to the 24-hour main post office across the street to get their registration cards postmarked before midnight.

Sarandon's husband, actor Tim Robbins, came out draped in an American flag in a wheelchair playing Bob Roberts, a fictional right-wing politician from his movie of the same name, and sang a satirical song called "Drugs Stink." Comedian Bill Murray stood at the podium delivering what he called "the biggest political speech of my life," and surprised many in the audience who had never known him as a politically-inclined celebrity.

"When you think about this job, the president of the United States, you have to think, who would want this job anyway? You have half the people hating you and thinking you're a loser," he joked. Murray went on to say, in earnest, "I'm proud that you're here and I'm proud to be here with you, it feels good."

Singer Ani DiFranco played what she called "a little ditty about the drug war," and Ben Harper raised eyebrows with his somewhat out-of-place cover of "Sexual Healing." Veteran rocker Patti Smith called New York the "emerald city of the future," before singing a haunting, pensive version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" that transformed the song into one of political struggle.

"Each one of us has an individual voice which is worthy and which can do things," Smith said, holding her fist out to the crowd. "But our collective voice can move mountains, our collective voice can make change."

Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder sang a haunting, emotional cover of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'," noting to tumultuous applause that he did so with the permission of the author. Vedder has been generous with his support of Nader, having performed at the Seattle and Chicago super rallies, and called Friday night's event "the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."