Matt Gonzalez
Gonzalez in December 2007.
Member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from District 5
In office 2001–2005
Preceded by	Election was not district specific
Succeeded by	Ross Mirkarimi
Personal details
Born	(1965-06-04) June 4, 1965 (age 47) McAllen, Texas
Nationality	U.S.
Political party	Independent
Other political affiliations	Green Democratic
Alma mater	Stanford University, Columbia University
Occupation	Lawyer, activist

Matthew Edward Gonzalez (born June 4, 1965) is an American politician, lawyer, and activist prominent in San Francisco politics. He currently serves as chief attorney in the San Francisco Public Defender's office.

Gonzalez was a member and president of San Francisco County's Board of Supervisors.^[1] He was also one of the first Green Party candidates elected to public office in the San Francisco Bay area. In 2003, Gonzalez ran for mayor of San Francisco but lost in a close race to Democrat Gavin Newsom. In the 2008 presidential election, Gonzalez ran for vice president as the running mate of candidate Ralph Nader.

Early life[link]

Matthew Edward Gonzalez was born in McAllen, Texas, to a Mexican mother, Oralia, and Mexican-American father, Mateo. Gonzalez spent his first four years in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Gonzalez family moved to New Orleans, Louisiana; Baltimore, Maryland; and Louisville, Kentucky, before the family returned to McAllen when Gonzalez was 11 years old.

In an interview with the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle, Gonzalez described his father as a salesman who initially started out selling "cigarettes from the back of his car in south Texas" in the late 1950s or early 1960s, and later started an import/export business selling medical and dental supplies.^[2] A profile in the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Gonzalez's father was a division chief for the international tobacco company Brown & Williamson.^[3]

"Eddie", as Gonzalez was called in his youth, was an Eagle Scout and the president of his senior class. He discovered a talent for debating at Memorial High School, from which he graduated in 1983.^[3] Gonzalez said about his childhood in South Texas: "The Mexican-American–Latino–Chicano culture in California is different than my experience in Texas. I grew up in a town that is majority Mexican and Mexican-American. In McAllen, we didn't refer to ourselves as Latinos or Chicanos. We referred to ourselves as Mexican. There's a different feel in that border area."^[4]

Gonzalez earned a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 1987, and a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1990. At Columbia, he studied comparative literature, political theory, and was a member of the debate team.^[5] While attending Stanford, he was an editor for the Stanford Law Review and member of the Stanford Environmental Law Journal. He worked on immigration issues at the East Palo Alto Community Law Project, pending death penalty cases at the California Appellate Project, and "gender discrimination and religious clause issues" as a research assistant to the Dean of the School, constitutional law scholar Paul Brest.^[5]

In 1991, he began working as a trial lawyer at the Office of the Public Defender in San Francisco. He was a Certified Specialist in Criminal Law (the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization). He represented and won eight out of nine life in prison cases (the ninth was later won at appeal) and was named "Lawyer of the Year" by the San Francisco La Raza Lawyers Association in 2000.^[5][6]

Politics and public service[link]

Gonzalez entered politics when he ran for San Francisco District Attorney in 1999. He campaigned in a field of five candidates, including incumbent Terence Hallinan. His campaign focused on cleaning up alleged political corruption, prosecuting environmental crimes, and fighting illegal evictions.^{[7][8][9][10]} Hallinan won the race but the campaign raised Gonzalez's profile. He finished third with 11 percent of the vote, or 20,153 votes.

Party Affiliation[link]

In November 2000, Gonzalez switched from the Democratic Party to the Green Party in what he called "a political or moral epiphany." While protesting the absence of Green Party senatorial candidate Medea Benjamin at a debate between Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, and her Republican challenger Tom Campbell, Gonzalez decided to switch parties. He wrote, "I couldn't help thinking of how most of my support in last year's district attorney's race came as a result of being allowed into televised debates with my better-known opponents and how that support has eventually led to my being the frontrunner in the District Five supervisorial race. The more I thought about it, the more I knew I wasn't okay with it. I didn't want to be a member of a party that was urging the exclusion of a candidate solely on the grounds that the candidate didn't have enough support, when it's precisely television coverage that could win that candidate public acceptance."^[11]

In 2008, Gonzalez left the Green Party, changing his registration to decline to state, when he was the running mate of Ralph Nader in an independent presidential campaign. "I expressly said to Nader that I would not run with him if he sought the Green Party nomination," Gonzalez said. "The question after the campaign was: is there a reason to go back to the Green Party?" Among the reasons he cited for the party's slide were infighting, inadequate party-building work, and the party's failure to effectively counter criticisms of Nader's 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. "We were losing the public relations campaign of explaining what the hell happened," he said.^[12]

Board of Supervisors[link]

Election[link]

In 2000, a system of electing supervisors by district rather than citywide took effect. At the urging of Supervisor Tom Ammiano, Gonzalez ran for supervisor in newly-made District 5 (besides Hayes Valley, District 5 comprises the Haight-Ashbury, the Western Addition, Alamo Square, and the easternmost part of the Sunset District).

In the runoff election, Gonzalez's opponent, Juanita Owens, tried to capitalize on many Democrats' ill feelings toward the Green Party in the wake of Ralph Nader's involvement in the acrimonious 2000 presidential election,^[13] but Gonzalez won the run-off election. Like all municipal elections in San Francisco, elections for supervisor are nonpartisan, but some Greens saw the election of their candidate as a significant achievement because, for the first time, a Green Party member had been elected to an important position in San Francisco.

He was elected on a slate of candidates who wanted to change the direction of city policy, in opposition to the "Brown machine", a Democratic Party political machine that had dominated local politics for over 30 years behind Mayor Willie Brown, the Pelosi family, and other Democrats.^[14] His supporters saw his election as a turning point in local politics.^[15][16] According to San Francisco State University political science professor Richard DeLeon,

"The beginning of the end probably was in 2000, when San Francisco returned to district elections.... The results brought in Gonzalez and other new supervisors not beholden to Brown. It opened the door for a new wave of young neighborhood politicians who didn't need the type of citywide support political leaders like Brown and [John and Phil] Burton had provided over the years."^[16]

On the board[link]

When the Board put forth a resolution commending San Franciscan Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi for being elected House Minority Whip and being the first woman to hold that position, Gonzalez was the only board member who voted against it. Gonzalez said that supervisors should not issue commendations for winning partisan political positions and that he had written a personal note to Pelosi congratulating her, as she had done him for being elected board president.^[17][18] Gonzalez refused to meet with Brown during his first two years on the Board of Supervisors, saying he did so to avoid being subject to Brown's influence rather than as a matter of disrespect.^[19] Two sources reported that Gonzalez defied Brown by walking out of the mayor's State of the City address in 2002.^[20][21] However, Gonzalez later stated in an interview that he was not in attendance.^[22]

As board president[link]

In January 2003, Gonzalez was elected president of the Board of Supervisors. The decision involved seven rounds of voting, most of which had Gonzalez vieing for a majority vote with supervisors Aaron Peskin and Sophie Maxwell. When Peskin dropped out Gonzalez emerged the winner, counting among his supporters conservative Board member Tony Hall, who said when asked why he voted for Gonzalez, "Gonzalez is a man of integrity and intelligence who will carry out his responsibilities fairly and impartially."^[23][24][25]

Gonzalez hosted monthly art exhibits in his City Hall office. At the last reception, graffiti artist Barry McGee spray-painted "Smash the State" on the walls of the office as part of his exhibit."^[26] Gonzalez told the press that he knew his office would be repainted for the next occupant.

Campaign for Mayor[link]

In August 2003, Gonzalez ran for Mayor of San Francisco, in a bid to replace outgoing two-term mayor Willie Brown.^[27] On a ballot with nine candidates' names, Gonzalez finished second in the initial mayoral election on November 4 behind Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and fellow member of the Board of Supervisors who had been endorsed by Brown. Gonzalez received 19.6 percent of the total vote to Newsom's 41.9 percent.^[28] Because none of the candidates received a majority a run-off election was held on December 9, gaining national and international media coverage.

Gonzalez faced a difficult run-off election; only three percent of voters in San Francisco were registered to his Green Party,^[29] and the Democratic Party, dominant in San Francisco, was opposing his candidacy. If elected, Gonzalez would have been the first Green Party mayor of any large American city. Although Gonzalez was endorsed by several key local Democrats, including five among the Board of Supervisors, national Democratic figures, concerned about Ralph Nader's role in the 2000 presidential election, became involved on Newsom's behalf.^[30][31] Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, Dianne Feinstein, and Nancy Pelosi all campaigned for Newsom. In the left-leaning political newsletter CounterPunch, Bruce Anderson wrote, "If Matt Gonzalez, a member of the Green Party, is elected mayor of San Francisco, it will be a dagger straight into the rotted heart of the Democratic Party... He wants to represent the many against the fortunate few the present mayor has faithfully represented for years now."^[32]

The candidate, however, saw the election in similar terms. "They're scared, not of a Green being elected mayor", he said, "but of an honest person being elected mayor."^[33] Many volunteers worked on Gonzalez's campaign in the run-off. "He's the indie-rock Kennedy", one supporter said of Gonzalez.^[34] Said Rich DeLeon, professor of political science at San Francisco State University, "The Gonzalez campaign was truly a mobilizing campaign. It really attracted young people who had not been involved — who were perhaps cynical and apathetic — into the active electorate."^[35]

Progressives championed Gonzalez as an alternative to a more centrist Democratic mainstream:

In an interview in January 2005 on his last day in office as a Supervisor, Gonzalez said of his campaign, "After getting in the runoff, literally the day after, as I heard Mayor Brown and others start attacking me for being a communist and racist, well, I started thinking I was going to lose in the very landslide I had foreseen for other candidates. Naturally, I worked hard to represent progressive ideas and win the race. By the end, we started thinking, hey, maybe it’s possible."^[37]

Newsom outspent Gonzalez $4.4–4.9 million to $800,000–900,000.^[38] Gonzalez sought to tighten spending caps and expand public financing, and accused Newsom of campaign improprieties and spending limit violations.^{[39][40][41][42][43][44][45]} Newsom won the election by 133,546 to 119,329 votes.^[46]

Return to private life[link]

Gonzalez at a Day Without an Immigrant rally in San Francisco

Following the mayoral contest, Gonzalez announced he would not seek re-election to the Board of Supervisors. Explaining his decision to retire from politics, he said:

Gonzalez left office when his term ended in January 2005 and was succeeded by Ross Mirkarimi, a Green Party member and community activist who had also worked on Gonzalez's campaign.^[48] Gonzalez then opened law offices with fellow Stanford University alum Whitney Leigh. In May 2005 Gonzalez sought unsuccessfully to overturn the contract of San Francisco school Superintendent Arlene Ackerman.^[49] His firm brought suit against a San Francisco hotel for not paying its workers the minimum wage;^[50] two wrongful death suits against Sacramento police for using tasers; against the city of San Jose and Ringling Brothers Circus for interfering with free speech rights of protestors; and against Clear Channel in a naming rights dispute over the locally owned San Francisco Warfield Theatre. It has also been involved in examining the New Year's Eve attack on the Yale a cappella group The Baker's Dozen in Pacific Heights.^[51]

Gonzalez worked as a guest host for several months in 2005 on Pacifica Radio station KPFA, substituting for Larry Bensky as the anchor of the weekly public affairs program Sunday Salon.^[52]

Gonzalez is also an artist; in the spring of 2007, an exhibit of his collages was displayed at the Lincart gallery in San Francisco.^[53] Gonzalez also makes a brief uncredited appearance in the 2004 documentary Let's Rock Again!, interviewing Joe Strummer after his performance at Amoeba Records. In 2009, Gonzalez founded the progressive political blog, As It Ought To Be.^[54]

2008 presidential race[link]

Nader-Gonzalez 2008 yard sign

In January 2008, Gonzalez, along with several other prominent Green Party members, launched Ralph Nader's 2008 Presidential Exploratory Committee to support a possible Nader candidacy.^[55]

On February 28, 2008, Nader named Gonzalez as his running mate for the 2008 presidential election,^[56] only four days after announcing his bid for president. Nader announced that he and Gonzalez would not seek the Green Party nomination but would run as independents.

On March 4, 2008, Gonzalez announced that he had left the Green Party,^[57] by changing his voter registration to independent. The change was to accommodate states including Delaware, Idaho and Oregon, which do not allow members of political parties to run as independents.

On October 18, 2008 Gonzalez and Nader also held a large protest on Wall Street following the passage of the government bailout bill.^[58] Their opposition to the bailout was a key issue of the Nader/Gonzalez campaign during October 2008, in contrast to both major party candidates who supported the bill

Gonzalez participated in the third party vice-presidential debates, along with Constitution Party vice-presidential candidate Darrell Castle and Libertarian Wayne Allyn Root, held in Las Vegas, on November 2, 2008.^[59] The event was hosted by Free and Equal.org and Free & Equal Elections (FREE), an organization of political parties, independent citizens and civic organizations formed to promote free and equal elections in the United States.^[59]

In San Francisco, Gonzalez received fewer votes citywide when he ran for vice president in 2008 (3,682)^[60] than he received in District 5 (12,743)^[61] when he ran for supervisor in 2000. Will Harper, editor of the SF Weekly, wrote:

"Eight years ago, 24,819 San Franciscans voted for Nader, according to Department of Election records. Of course, we've all had eight years to realize that throwing away our vote on a third-party candidate can do a lot of damage, so Nader's poor showing this time was not entirely unexpected. But Nader supposedly had one thing going for him in San Francisco that other candidates did not: A running mate from the city, former supervisor and Green Party pinup boy Matt Gonzalez. Obviously, having a hometown guy in the race didn't make a difference for S.F. voters sick of Republican rule of the White House".^[61]

Public Defender[link]

In February 2011, Gonzalez returned to San Francisco Government, appointed chief attorney in the Public Defender's Office by Jeff Adachi. Some speculated that his appointment was a harbinger of another run for elected office, but Adachi dismissed those claims.^[62][63]

An unorthodox politician[link]

Newspaper accounts from the San Francisco mayoral election noted that Gonzalez slept on the uncushioned slats of a futon frame because "it's more comfortable", wore Doc Martens shoes and baggy suits (some of which were given him by former San Francisco mayor Art Agnos^[64]), and did not wear a watch,^[65] even though he owned a Rolex given him by his father.^[66] The "floppy-haired, slump-shouldered champion of the counterculture", as the Christian Science Monitor called him,^[67] is not married and owns no real property. He gave away his 1967 Mercedes-Benz sedan because, he said, he found it easier to get around on public transportation.^[68]

Gonzalez irked his progressive allies and public-sector employees in San Francisco by standing alongside Ron Paul, a Republican libertarian congressman, and Tony Hall, a conservative former city councilman in San Francisco, in supporting a ballot proposition in San Francisco that would have required city workers to pay more into their own pension fund^[69].

He is fond of chess and poetry. In 1997, at his own expense, he published a collection of poetry by Beat poet Jack Micheline called Sixty-Seven Poems for Downtrodden Saints. He served on the Board of Directors for Intersection for the Arts, a non-profit organization, and in 2004 taught a course called "Art & Politics" at the San Francisco Art Institute. Gonzalez played bass guitar in a rock band (called John Heartfield) and still plays occasionally with his brother Chuck and his law partner Whitney Leigh.^[70]

In addition to supporting artists and collecting, Gonzalez creates art himself in the form of collages. In April 2011, he and fellow artist Tom Schultz presented their work in a month-long exhibition.^[71]

References[link]

Books[link]

• Carlsson, Chris, ed. (2005) The Political Edge, City Lights Foundation Books: San Francisco, CA. ISBN 1-931404-05-4.
• Walter, Nicole (2004) Go Matt Go! Hats Off Books: Tucson, AZ. ISBN 1-58736-346-1.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Matt Gonzalez

• The Matt Gonzalez Reader, Gonzalez's blog
• Gonzalez's Nader/Camejo 2004 Campaign Kick-Off Rally Speech a speech delivered on July 16, 2004
• Matt Gonzalez and Rosa Clemente respond to Biden-Palin Debate Response to only televised 2008 U.S. Vice-Presidential Debate, Democracy Now! October 3, 2008.
• [5] Speech on Wall Street in protest of the Wall Street Bailout Bill organized by Nader/Gonzalez Campaign on October 18, 2008
• Speech at the 2004 Green Party national convention Milwaukee, Wisconsin. June 26, 2004

Articles written by Gonzalez[link]

• Gonzalez Pens Open Letter to Pelosi. Fog City Journal. October 12, 2010
• What's Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander. San Francisco Chronicle. March 12, 2008
• The Obama Craze: Count Me Out BeyondChron. Feb. 27‚ 2008
• Invoking the “Will of the Voters” – But Only If Convenient, BeyondChron, May. 19‚ 2006
• Instant Runoff Voting - On the Move, North Bay Progressive. November 2005.
• Sparing the Crips Founder, Issue 12, Mesh November 2005.^{[dead link]}
• Debunking Ackerman's Numbers. SF Frontlines, November 2005.^{[dead link]}
• Giving Noncitizens Access to the Voting Booth. SF Frontlines, October 2005.
• Howl! A Look at Allen Ginsberg's Howl! on the 50th Anniversary of Its Debut, Issue 11, Mesh September 2005.
• Where Is the Body? Understanding the Corpus Delicti Rule, Issue 10, Mesh July 2005.^{[dead link]}
• A New Era in San Francisco Politics?. San Francisco Bay View, June 29, 2005.
• Marla Ruzicka, 1976–2005, San Francisco Bay Guardian, April 20, 2005.
• Free Santos Reyes!, San Francisco Bay Guardian, March 22, 2005.
• Existential Warfare: Overwhelming our Opponents by Killing Ourselves, Issue 9, Mesh, March 2005.^{[dead link]}
• A New Era in Baseball, The Golden Gate -X-Press Online, February 28, 2005.
• Green & Red Apples SF Bay View, February 20, 2005.
• Boxers Rebellion: Understanding Self-Preservation Politics, Issue 8, Mesh January 2005.
• Ignoring Tired Pleas. Issue 7, Mesh, November 2004.
• In Another Era: The Socialist Circle of Eugene Debs, Issue 6, Mesh August 2004.^{[dead link]}
• Are You Ready for Bechtel Park? How about Halliburton Stadium, or Monsanto Field?, Issue 5, Mesh, June 2004.
• Reigning in the Chains, Issue 4, Mesh, April 2004.
• Until When?. Issue 3 Mesh, February 2004.
• Concession Speech - San Francisco Mayor’s Race, San Francisco Call, May 10, 2005 (this speech was delivered on December 9, 2003).
• Multicultural America Reclaiming Cinco de Mayo. San Francisco Chronicle, May 5, 2003.
• Escaping the Ice Age. San Francisco Bay Guardian, June 19, 2002.
• CHOROSHO! An Auto/Biographical Sketch of Jack Hirschman (with Jack Hirschman). San Francisco Call, May 24, 2002.
• Let's Bellyache!. San Francisco Call, May 24, 2002.
• My Green Manifesto. Left Curve Magazine, February 14, 2002.
• Why I Turned Green. San Francisco Bay Guardian, November 15, 2000.
• Who Has a Dark Wallet?. San Francisco Bay Guardian, March 8, 2000.

Ralph Nader
Nader speaking at BYU's Alternate Commencement
Personal details
Born	(1934-02-27) February 27, 1934 (age 78) Winsted, Connecticut, U.S.
Political party	Independent
Other political affiliations	Green (affiliated non-member) Reform (affiliated non-member) Peace & Freedom (affiliated non-member) Natural Law (affiliated non-member) Populist Party of Maryland (created to support him in 2004) Vermont Progressive Party (affiliated non-member)
Alma mater	Princeton University, Harvard University
Occupation	Attorney, consumer advocate, and political activist
Religion	Eastern Orthodox Christian[1][2]
Signature
Website	nader.org
Military service
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1959

Ralph Nader ( /ˈneɪdər/; born February 27, 1934)^[3][4] is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government.^[5]

Nader came to prominence in 1965 with the publication of his book Unsafe at Any Speed, a critique of the safety record of American automobile manufacturers in general, and most famously the Chevrolet Corvair. In 1999, an NYU panel of journalists ranked Unsafe at Any Speed 38th among the top 100 pieces of journalism of the 20th century.^[6]

Nader is a six-time candidate for President of the United States, having run as a write-in candidate in the 1992 New Hampshire Democratic primary, as the Green Party nominee in 1996 and 2000, and as an independent candidate in 2004 and 2008. Some people claim that Nader acted as a spoiler in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, while others, including Nader, dispute this claim.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]}

Background and early career[link]

Nader in 1975

Nader was born in Winsted, Connecticut. His parents, Nathra and Rose (née Bouziane) Nader, were immigrants from Lebanon^[13] and members of the Maronite Church.^[1] His family's native language is Arabic,^[13] and he has spoken it along with English since childhood. His sister, Laura Nader, is an anthropologist. His father worked in a textile mill and later owned a bakery and restaurant where he talked politics with his customers.^[14]

Nader graduated from The Gilbert School in 1951, followed by Princeton University four years later and then Harvard Law School.^[15] He served six months on active duty in the United States Army in 1959, then became a lawyer in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a professor of history and government at the University of Hartford from 1961 to 1963. In 1964, Nader moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked for Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan and also advised a United States Senate subcommittee on car safety. Nader has served on the faculty at the American University Washington College of Law.^[16][when?]

Automobile safety activism[link]

Nader's first consumer safety articles appeared in the Harvard Law Record, a student publication of Harvard Law School, but he first criticized the automobile industry in an article he wrote for The Nation in 1959 called "The Safe Car You Can't Buy."^[17]

Ralph Nader lectures at Florida State University, 1980s

In 1965, Nader wrote Unsafe at Any Speed, a book which claimed that many American automobiles were unsafe. The first chapter, "The Sporty Corvair - The One-Car Accident," pertained to the Corvair manufactured by the Chevrolet division of General Motors, which had been involved in accidents involving spins and rollovers. There were over 100 lawsuits pending against GM in connection with accidents involving the popular compact car. These lawsuits provided the initial material for Nader's investigations into the safety of the car.^[18]

A 1972 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration safety commission report conducted by Texas A&M University concluded that the 1960–1963 Corvairs possessed no greater potential for loss of control than its contemporaries in extreme situations.^[19] Additionally, according to Crash Course by Paul Ingrassia, Corvairs were environmentally friendly due to their smaller size and lighter weight, and Nader's safety-focused activism negatively affected the cause for eco-efficiency.^[20] However, former GM executive John DeLorean asserted in On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors (1979) that Nader's criticisms were valid.^[21]

In early March 1966, several media outlets, including The New Republic and The New York Times, reported that GM had tried to discredit Nader, hiring private detectives to tap his phones and investigate his past and hiring prostitutes to trap him in compromising situations.^[22][23] Nader sued the company for invasion of privacy and settled the case for $425,000. Nader's lawsuit against GM was ultimately decided by the New York Court of Appeals, whose opinion in the case expanded tort law to cover "overzealous surveillance."^[24] Nader used the proceeds from the lawsuit to start the pro-consumer Center for Study of Responsive Law.

Nader's advocacy of automobile safety and the publicity generated by the publication of Unsafe at Any Speed, along with concern over escalating nationwide traffic fatalities, contributed to the unanimous passage of the 1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. The act established the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and marked a historic shift in responsibility for automobile safety from the consumer to the government. The legislation mandated a series of safety features for automobiles, beginning with safety belts and stronger windshields.^[25][26][27]

Activism[link]

Hundreds of young activists, inspired by Nader's work, came to DC to help him with other projects.^{[citation needed]} They came to be known as "Nader's Raiders" and, under Nader, investigated government corruption, publishing dozens of books with their results:

• Nader's Raiders (Federal Trade Commission)
• Vanishing Air (National Air Pollution Control Administration)
• The Chemical Feast (Food and Drug Administration)
• The Interstate Commerce Omission (Interstate Commerce Commission)
• Old Age (nursing homes)
• The Water Lords (water pollution)
• Who Runs Congress? (Congress)
• Whistle Blowing (punishment of whistle blowers)
• The Big Boys (corporate executives)
• Collision Course (Federal Aviation Administration)
• No Contest (corporate lawyers)
• Destroy the Forest (Destruction of ecosystems worldwide)

Nader speaks out against the Iraq War at a September 15, 2007, anti-war protest

In 1971, Nader co-founded the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Public Citizen with fellow public interest lawyer Alan Morrison as an umbrella organization for these projects. Today, Public Citizen has over 225,000 members ^[28] and investigates congressional, health, environmental, economic and other issues. Nader wrote, "The consumer must be protected at times from his own indiscretion and vanity."^[29]

In the 1970s and 1980s Nader was a key leader in the antinuclear power movement. "By 1976, consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who later became allied with the environmental movement, 'stood as the titular head of opposition to nuclear energy'."^[30][31] The Critical Mass Energy Project was formed by Nader in 1974 as a national anti-nuclear umbrella group.^[32] It was probably the largest national anti-nuclear group in the United States, with several hundred local affiliates and an estimated 200,000 supporters.^[33] The organization's main efforts were directed at lobbying activities and providing local groups with scientific and other resources to campaign against nuclear power.^[32][34] Nader advocates the complete elimination of nuclear energy in favor of solar, tidal, wind and geothermal, citing environmental, worker safety, migrant labor, national security, disaster preparedness, foreign policy, government accountability and democratic governance issues to bolster his position.^[35]

Nader was also a prominent supporter of the Airline Deregulation Act.^[36]

Ecology[link]

Nader spent much of 1970 pursuing a campaign to educate the public about ecology. Nader said that the rivers and lakes in America were extremely contaminated. He joked that "Lake Erie is now so contaminated you're advised to have a typhoid inoculation before you set sail on some parts of the lake."^[37]

He also added that river's state of contamination affected humans because many residents get their water supply from these contaminated rivers and lakes. "Cleveland takes its water supply from deep in the center of Lake Erie. How much longer is it going to get away with that?"^[37]

Nader told how some rivers are contaminated so badly that they can be lit on fire. "The Buffalo River is so full of petroleum residuals, it's been classified an official fire hazard by the City of Buffalo. We have the phenomenon now known as flammable water. The Cuyahoga River outside of Cleveland did catch fire last June, burning a base and some bridges. I often wonder what was in the minds of the firemen as they rushed to the scene of the action and pondered how to put this fire out. But we're heading in river after river: Connecticut River, Hudson River, Mississippi River, you name it. There's some rivers right outside of Boston, New Hampshire and Maine where if a person fell into 'em, I think he would dissolve before he drowned."^[37]

Non-profit organizations[link]

Throughout his career, Nader has started or inspired a variety of nonprofit organizations,with most of which he has maintained close associations :

In 1980, Nader resigned as director of Public Citizen to work on other projects, lecturing on the growing "imperialism" of multinational corporations and of a dangerous convergence of corporate and government power.^[38]

Presidential campaigns[link]

Ralph Nader has been a frequent contender in U.S. presidential elections, always as an independent candidate or a third party nominee. His activism on behalf of third parties goes back to 1958, when he wrote an article for the Harvard Law Record critiquing U.S. electoral law's systemic discrimination against them.^[39]

Presidential campaign history[link]

1972[link]

Ralph Nader's name appeared in the press as a potential candidate for president for the first time in 1971, when he was offered the opportunity to run as the presidential candidate for the New Party, a progressive split-off from the Democratic Party in 1972. Chief among his advocates was author Gore Vidal, who touted a 1972 Nader presidential campaign in a front-page article in Esquire magazine in 1971.^[40] Psychologist Alan Rockway organized a "draft Ralph Nader for President" campaign in Florida on the New Party's behalf.^[41] Nader declined their offer to run that year; the New Party ultimately joined with the People's Party in running Benjamin Spock in the 1972 Presidential election.^[42][43][44] Spock had hoped Nader in particular would run, getting "some of the loudest applause of the evening" when mentioning him at the University of Alabama.^[45] Spock went on to try to recruit Nader for the party among over 100 others, and indicated he would be "delighted" to be replaced by any of them even after he accepted the nomination himself.^[46] Nader received one vote for the vice-presidential nomination at the 1972 Democratic National Convention.

1992[link]

Nader stood in as a write-in for "none of the above" in both the 1992 New Hampshire Democratic and Republican Primaries^[47] and received 3,054 of the 170,333 Democratic votes and 3,258 of the 177,970 Republican votes cast.^[48] He was also a candidate in the 1992 Massachusetts Democratic Primary, where he appeared at the top of the ballot (in some areas, he appeared on the ballot as an independent).

1996[link]

Nader was drafted as a candidate for President of the United States on the Green Party ticket during the 1996 presidential election. He was not formally nominated by the Green Party USA, which was, at the time, the largest national Green group; instead he was nominated independently by various state Green parties (in some states, he appeared on the ballot as an independent). However, many activists in the Green Party USA worked actively to campaign for Nader that year. Nader qualified for ballot status in 22 states,^[49] garnering 685,297 votes or 0.71% of the popular vote (fourth place overall),^[50] although the effort did make significant organizational gains for the party. He refused to raise or spend more than $5,000 on his campaign, presumably to avoid meeting the threshold for Federal Elections Commission reporting requirements; the unofficial Draft Nader committee could (and did) spend more than that, but the committee was legally prevented from coordinating in any way with Nader himself.

Nader received some criticism from gay rights supporters for calling gay rights "gonad politics" and stating that he was not interested in dealing with such matters.^[51] However, more recently, Nader has come out in support of same-sex marriage.^[52]

His 1996 running mates included: Anne Goeke (nine states), Deborah Howes (Oregon), Muriel Tillinghast (New York), Krista Paradise (Colorado), Madelyn Hoffman (New Jersey), Bill Boteler (Washington, D.C.), and Winona LaDuke (California and Texas).^[53]

2000[link]

In the 2006 documentary An Unreasonable Man, Nader describes how he was unable to get the views of his public interest groups heard in Washington, even by the Clinton Administration. Nader cites this as one of the primary reasons that he decided to actively run in the 2000 election as candidate of the Green Party, which had been formed in the wake of his 1996 campaign.

Nader's supporters, with Christopher Hitchens speaking, protest his exclusion from the televised debates in 2000.

In June 2000 The Association of State Green Parties (ASGP) organized the national nominating convention that took place in Denver, Colorado, at which Greens nominated Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke to be their parties` candidates for President and Vice President.^[54][55]

On July 9, the Vermont Progressive Party nominated Nader, giving him ballot access in the state.^[56] On August 12, the United Citizens Party of South Carolina chose Ralph Nader as its presidential nominee, giving him a ballot line in the state.^[57]

In October 2000, at the largest Super Rally of his campaign,^[58] held in New York City's Madison Square Garden, 15,000 people paid $20 each^[59] to hear Mr. Nader speak. Nader's campaign rejected both parties as institutions dominated by corporate interests, stating that Al Gore and George W. Bush were "Tweedledee and Tweedledum". A long list of notable celebrities spoke and performed at the event including Susan Sarandon, Ani DiFranco, Ben Harper, Tim Robbins, Michael Moore, Eddie Vedder and Patti Smith. The campaign also had some prominent union help: The California Nurses Association and the United Electrical Workers endorsed his candidacy and campaigned for him.^[60]

In 2000, Nader and his running mate Winona LaDuke received 2,883,105 votes, for 2.74 percent of the popular vote (third place overall),^[61] missing the 5 percent needed to qualify the Green Party for federally distributed public funding in the next election, yet qualifying the Greens for ballot status in many states.

Nader's actual influence on the 2000 election is the subject of considerable discussion, and there is no consensus on Nader's impact on the outcome. Nader's votes in New Hampshire and Florida vastly exceeded the difference in votes between Gore and Bush, as did the votes of all alternative candidates.^[62] Exit polls showed New Hampshire staying close, and within the margin of error without Nader^[63] as national exit polls showed Nader's supporters choosing Gore over Bush by a large margin,^[64] well outside the margin of error. Winning either state would have given Gore the presidency, and while critics claim this shows Nader tipped the election to Bush, Nader has called that claim "a mantra — an assumption without data."^[65] Nader supporters argued that Gore was primarily responsible for his own loss.^[66] Nader critic Eric Alterman disagreed, writing: "One person in the world could have prevented Bush's election with his own words on the Election Day 2000."^[67] Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn cited Gore's failure to win over progressive voters in Florida who chose Nader, and congratulated those voters: "Who would have thought the Sunshine State had that many progressives in it, with steel in their spine and the spunk to throw Eric Alterman's columns into the trash can?"^[68] Still others argued that even if Nader's constituents could have made the swing difference between Gore and Bush, the votes Nader garnered were not from the Democrats, but from Democrats, Republicans, and discouraged voters who would not have voted otherwise.^[69]

The "spoiler" controversy[link]

In the 2000 presidential election in Florida, George W. Bush defeated Al Gore by 537 votes. Nader received 97,421 votes, which led to claims that he was responsible for Gore's defeat. Nader, both in his book Crashing the Party and on his website, states: "In the year 2000, exit polls reported that 25% of my voters would have voted for Bush, 38% would have voted for Gore and the rest would not have voted at all."^[70] (which would net a 13%, 12,665 votes, advantage for Gore over Bush.) Michael Moore at first argued that Florida was so close that votes for any of seven other candidates could also have switched the results,^[8] but in 2004 joined the view that Nader had helped make Bush president.^[10][71] When asked about claims of being a spoiler, Nader typically points to the controversial Supreme Court ruling that halted a Florida recount, Gore's loss in his home state of Tennessee, and the "quarter million Democrats who voted for Bush in Florida."^[72][73]

A study in 2002 by the Progressive Review found no correlation in pre-election polling numbers for Nader when compared to those for Gore. In other words, most of the changes in pre-election polling reflect movement between Bush and Gore rather than Gore and Nader, and they conclude from this that Nader was not responsible for Gore's loss.^[74]

An analysis conducted by Harvard Professor B.C. Burden in 2005 showed Nader did "play a pivotal role in determining who would become president following the 2000 election", but that:

"Contrary to Democrats’ complaints, Nader was not intentionally trying to throw the election. A spoiler strategy would have caused him to focus disproportionately on the most competitive states and markets with the hopes of being a key player in the outcome. There is no evidence that his appearances responded to closeness. He did, apparently, pursue voter support, however, in a quest to receive 5% of the popular vote."^[7]

However, Jonathan Chait of The American Prospect and The New Republic notes that Nader did indeed focus on swing states disproportionately during the waning days of the campaign, and by doing so jeopardized his own chances of achieving the 5% of the vote he was aiming for.

Then there was the debate within the Nader campaign over where to travel in the waning days of the campaign. Some Nader advisers urged him to spend his time in uncontested states such as New York and California. These states – where liberals and leftists could entertain the thought of voting Nader without fear of aiding Bush – offered the richest harvest of potential votes. But, Martin writes, Nader – who emerges from this account as the house radical of his own campaign – insisted on spending the final days of the campaign on a whirlwind tour of battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Florida. In other words, he chose to go where the votes were scarcest, jeopardizing his own chances of winning 5 percent of the vote, which he needed to gain federal funds in 2004.^[75]

When Nader, in a letter to environmentalists, attacked Gore for "his role as broker of environmental voters for corporate cash," and "the prototype for the bankable, Green corporate politician," and what he called a string of broken promises to the environmental movement, Sierra Club president Carl Pope sent an open letter to Nader, dated 27 October 2000, defending Al Gore's environmental record and calling Nader's strategy "irresponsible."^[76] He wrote:

You have also broken your word to your followers who signed the petitions that got you on the ballot in many states. You pledged you would not campaign as a spoiler and would avoid the swing states. Your recent campaign rhetoric and campaign schedule make it clear that you have broken this pledge... Please accept that I, and the overwhelming majority of the environmental movement in this country, genuinely believe that your strategy is flawed, dangerous and reckless.^[77]

2004[link]

Nader announced on December 24, 2003, that he would not seek the Green Party's nomination for president in 2004, but did not rule out running as an independent candidate.

Meeting with John Kerry[link]

Ralph Nader and Democratic candidate John Kerry held a widely publicized meeting early in the 2004 Presidential campaign, which Nader described in An Unreasonable Man. Nader said that John Kerry wanted to work to win Nader's support and the support of Nader's voters. Nader then provided more than 20 pages of issues that he felt were important and he "put them on the table" for John Kerry. According to Nader the issues covered topics ranging from environmental, labor, healthcare, tax reform, corporate crime, campaign finance reform and various consumer protection issues. Nader reported that he asked John Kerry to choose any three of the issues and highlight them in his campaign and if Kerry would do this, he would refrain from the race. For example, Nader recommended taking up corporate welfare, corporate crime—which could attract many Republican voters, and labor law reform—which was felt Bush could never support given the corporate funding of his campaign.^[78] Several days passed and Kerry failed to adopt any of Nader's issues as benchmarks of his campaign, so on February 22, 2004, Nader announced on NBC that he would indeed run for president as an independent, saying, "There's too much power and wealth in too few hands."

A Kerry aide who had attended the meeting had a different recollection. "He made more the point that he had the ability to go after Bush in ways that we could not, He did not at all say to Kerry, 'I'm here to make you better on things.' That was not his tone at all."

The New York Times quoted Nader saying after the meeting "Gore was petrified wood, He was stiff as a board, he didn't want to have these kinds of meetings. He didn't want to have meetings like this when he was vice president three years before the election. Kerry is much more open." Nader himself said he had deliberately steered clear of disagreement, telling the Times, "When you go in looking for common ground, it takes up most of the time, doesn't it?"^[79]

The campaign[link]

Nader's 2004 campaign ran on a platform consistent with the Green Party's positions on major issues, such as opposition to the war in Iraq. He has detailed the legal reasons George W. Bush and Dick Cheney fit the criteria for war criminals, and why they should have been immediately impeached.^[80]

Due to concerns about a possible spoiler effect as in 2000, many Democrats urged Nader to abandon his 2004 candidacy. The Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe, stated that Nader had a "distinguished career, fighting for working families," and that McAuliffe "would hate to see part of his legacy being that he got us eight years of George Bush." Nader replied to this, in filmed interviews for An Unreasonable Man, by arguing that, "Voting for a candidate of one's choice is a Constitutional right, and the Democrats who are asking me not to run are, without question, seeking to deny the Constitutional rights of voters who are, by law, otherwise free to choose to vote for me." Nader's 2004 campaign theme song was "If You Gotta Ask" by Liquid Blue.

In May 2009, in a new book, Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny, Theresa Amato, who was Nader's national campaign manager in 2000 and 2004, alleged that McAuliffe offered to pay off Nader to stop campaigning in certain states in 2004. This was confirmed by Nader, and neither McAuliffe nor his spokeswoman disputed the claim.^[81]

In the 2004 campaign, Democrats such as Howard Dean and Terry McAuliffe asked that Nader return money donated to his campaign by Republicans who were well-known Bush supporters, such as billionaire Richard Egan.^[82][83] Nader's reaction to the request was to refuse to return any donations and he charged that the Democrats were attempting to smear him.^[82] Nader's vice-presidential running mate, Peter Camejo, supported the return of the money if it could be proved that "the aim of the wealthy GOP donors was to peel votes from Kerry."^[82] According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Nader defended his keeping of the donations by saying that wealthy contributors "are human beings too."^[82]

Nader received 463,655 votes, for 0.38 percent of the popular vote, placing him in third place overall.^[84]

2008[link]

Nader campaigning in October 2008

Wikinews has related news: Ralph Nader enters US presidential race as independent Ralph Nader calls out Democrats for financial bailout

In February 2007, Nader criticized Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton as "a panderer and a flatterer."^[85] Asked on CNN Late Edition news program if he would run in 2008, Nader replied, "It's really too early to say...."^[86] Asked during a radio appearance to describe the former First Lady, Nader said, "Flatters, panders, coasting, front-runner, looking for a coronation ... She has no political fortitude."^[87] Some Greens started a campaign to draft Nader as their party's 2008 presidential candidate.^[88]

After some consideration, Nader announced on February 24, 2008, that he would run for President as an independent. His vice-presidential candidate was Matt Gonzalez.^[89]

Nader received 738,475 votes, for 0.56 percent of the popular vote, earning him a third place position in the overall election results.^[90]

Personal life[link]

Nader was raised in the Eastern Orthodox Church.^[1] He has never married. Karen Croft, a writer who worked for Nader in the late 1970s at the Center for Study of Responsive Law, once asked him if he had ever considered getting married. She reports: "He said that at a certain point he had to decide whether to have a family or to have a career, that he couldn't have both. That's the kind of person he is. He couldn't have a wife—he's up all night reading the Congressional Record."^[91]

Personal finances[link]

According to the mandatory fiscal disclosure report that he filed with the Federal Election Commission in 2000, Nader owned more than $3 million worth of stocks and mutual fund shares; his single largest holding was more than $1 million worth of stock in Cisco Systems, Inc. He also held between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of shares in the Magellan Fund.^[92] Nader said he owned no car and owned no real estate directly in 2000, and said that he lived on US $25,000 a year, giving most of his stock earnings to many of the over four dozen non-profit organizations he had founded.^[93][94]

Television appearances[link]

In 1988, Nader appeared on Sesame Street as "a person in your neighborhood." The verse of the song began "A consumer advocate is a person in your neighborhood." Nader's appearance on the show was memorable because it was the only time that the grammar of the last line of the song—"A person who you meet each day"—was questioned and changed in the show. Nader refused to sing the prescriptively improper line, and so a compromise was reached, resulting in Ralph Nader singing the last line as a solo with the modified words: "A person whom you meet each day."^[95] In the same episode, Nader tests "Bob"'s sweater, with permission, and destroys it, telling Bob "Your aunt . . . knitted you a lemon!"

He hosted an episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live in 1977 and appeared in a 2000 episode.^{[citation needed]}

He was interviewed on Da Ali G Show by Sacha Baron Cohen.^{[citation needed]}

During his 2008 presidential campaign, Nader appeared on NBC's Meet The Press, CNBC with John Harwood, CNN with Rick Sanchez, PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and Fox News Channel with Shepard Smith.^[96] He was interviewed by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in 2008. Also that year he appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher. In 2011, he appeared multiple times on the Fox Business Network primetime show Freedom Watch with Andrew Napolitano, including a January 19, 2011 joint appearance with Ron Paul.^{[citation needed]}

Works[link]

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Politics portal

• Shafeek Nader
• Critical Mass (Anti-nuclear group)

Notes[link]

• An Unreasonable Man (2006). An Unreasonable Man is a documentary film about Ralph Nader that appeared at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
• Burden, Barry C. (2005). Ralph Nader's Campaign Strategy in the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election 2005, American Politics Research 33:672-99.
• Ralph Nader: Up Close This film blends archival footage and scenes of Nader and his staff at work in Washington with interviews with Nader's family, friends and adversaries, as well as Nader himself. Written, directed and produced by Mark Litwak and Tiiu Lukk, 1990, color, 72 mins. Narration by Studs Terkel. Broadcast on PBS. Winner, Sinking Creek Film Festival; Best of Festival, Baltimore Int'l Film Festival; Silver Plaque, Chicago Int'l Film Festival, Silver Apple, National Educational Film & Video Festival.
• Bear, Greg, "Eon" — the novel includes a depiction of a future group called the "Naderites" who follow Ralph Nader's humanistic teachings.
• Martin, Justin. Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon. Perseus Publishing, 2002. ISBN 0-7382-0563-X

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• What Was Ralph Nader Thinking? by Jurgen Vsych, Wroughten Books, 2008. ISBN 978-0-9749879-2-7
• Abuse of Trust: A Report on Ralph Nader's Network by Dan Burt, 1982. ISBN 978-0-89526-661-3
• Citizen Nader by Charles McCarry Saturday Review Press, 1972 ISBN 0-8415-0163-7
• The Investigation of Ralph Nader by Thomas Whiteside 1972.

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (March 2012)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ralph Nader

• Nader.org official website
• Nader / Gonzalez '08 campaign website
• Appearances on C-SPAN
  • Booknotes interview with Nader on Crashing the Party, February 3, 2002.
  • In Depth interview with Nader, August 1, 2010
• Ralph Nader on Charlie Rose
• Ralph Nader at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Ralph Nader in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Ralph Nader collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Ralph Nader at the Notable Names Database

Articles and interviews

• Kugel, Allison (May 14, 2008). "Ralph Nader Goes to Washington... Again – The PR.com Interview". PR.com. http://www.pr.com/article/1100. 
• "How Winstedites Kept Their Integrity," article by Nader in the September 1963 issue of The Freeman
• Ralph Nader Goes to Washington... Again – The PR.com Interview
• Digital History Ralph Nader
• Nader, Rare Among Candidates May 5, 2008