What can Ralph Nader be thinking? The man who has been the inspiration of a generation of public interest advocates is apparently in bed with the very people who are destroying peace, freedom and sanity in one fell swoop. Ralph Nader, the man who eschews a personal life to live the life of a secular monk, the paradigmatic public citizen, found in bed with his ideological foes in his allowing them to pay for his signature drive here in New Mexico, where a Republican State Senator with a reputation for no-hold-barred partisanship sent out copies of Nader’s petitions to the Republican regulars. This brazen collaboration with ideological opposites would make Nixon, and perhaps even Machiavelli, blush. With Nader’s erstwhile supporters and admirers nearly all focused on getting this pack of neo-conservative ideologues out, almost the only people left to sign Nader’s petitions and finance his efforts are cynical Republicans. But for those of us who actually share Nader’s views on issues, we know that we don’t have the luxury to cast a protest vote this year, for we cannot get around the fact that we don’t even have a popular vote presidential election, what to mention run-off elections, and because of that, Bush and co. are poised to steal another election.

What indeed can be going on with Ralph Nader? It seems that there are only two possible answers: either he has been taken over by the demons of rancor: and one could see how such a position could appear justified, as the last quarter century has witnessed progressives being marginalized within the Democratic Party. The other possibility is that Ralph may yet succumb to the pleadings of many of his closest admirers and supporters of his 2000 bid. Perhaps Nader may not see himself in a coalition with the Democrats but could decide to withhold the benefit that the Republicans hope to garner by embracing a vote trading or “vote pairing” system like that which was being set up by supporters four years ago. This year, the web-meisters of 2000 vote-trading sites are collaborating on launching votepairing.org. Whether or not either Nader or Green Party nominee Dave Cobb comes forward with an endorsement of vote pairing, I believe that the would-be Green or Nader voter will embrace this fairly straightforward method of re-alignment.

Nader’s apparent lack of interest in coming to an understanding that will save the day is not only unfortunate but ignores the positive role that Green parties around the world have played in coalition. We may look at the example of Germany to see how Greens may work in coalition with less ideologically pure parties like our Democrats. One part of being a junior coalition partner for the Greens, however, would be to accept that the senior member, in this case John Kerry and the Democrats, need not embrace all of your positions, as to do so would be to commit political suicide. We need to remember that cooperation and respect for diversity are core Green values: John Kerry may not become the peace candidate, but even so, he is not the war candidate, and the same relative affinity holds for all of the other issues we Greens care about, especially the environment, where Kerry has been a real leader.

Given the on-going adamant position taken by Nader, the Democrat/Green coalition idea, while an obvious choice based on the roles played by Greens around the world, would seem to be no more than unjustified hope. Perhaps that demon of malice does have Ralph “by the nose”. We ultimately cannot decide for him what he should do. In the meantime, Greens for Kerry will encourage would-be Nader or Cobb voters in swing states either to simply vote for Kerry, or to engage in vote pairing. I encourage people to think about vote pairing with friends or family in safe-states or to utilize the website. In this manner vote pairing can get us out from between the rock-and-the-hard-place of voting our hearts or our minds. Elsewhere, somewhere in Utah or Texas, a Kerry supporter who felt as if his vote were to be wasted in a red state will be able to vote for Cobb or Nader in exchange for my casting a vote here for John Kerry. I will have the satisfaction of knowing that by pairing my vote, I and a willing partner have straightened out the fuzzy math of the electoral college and helped to create the legitimacy of majority rule, and that we could even be moving towards true multi-party democracy.

Gutmann is a co-founder of Greens for Kerry, a former Chairman of the New Mexico Green Party and was the Green US Senate Candidate in 1996.

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