Nader backers work the petitions

By Janine D'Arcy
The Hartford Courant

Ralph Nader is trying to get on states' ballots

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George is not deterred. He has spent the last hour walking up and down the aisles of the Wal-Mart parking lot. His job is to persuade shoppers to sign the petition that would put Ralph Nader on the state's presidential ballot.

George is a necessarily resilient man.

The woman stares at him and his petition through the dark lenses of her sunglasses. "I've read things about him," she says. "I just don't like him. No. No."

It is here, in the parking lots of the country, where Nader's independent presidential campaign has found itself.

After a dismal week of defeats and unexpected challenges, it is clear Nader will miss his goal of running for president in all the states. It's equally clear that his ideological intentions for his third campaign have, at least in the short term, been surpassed by the logistics of running for president.

This month, Nader's focus is not to spread his anti-corporate message so much as to meet the varied, arcane and sometimes implausible demands of getting on the ballot state by state. It is a situation he was forced into a week ago after losing the Green Party endorsement, which would have provided him access to ballots in 23 states.

The rules can be hard to follow and requirements hard to meet. In some states, his goal is not a fixed number of signatures but a number based on previous voter turnout. In some states, the signatures need to come from voters registered in a specific county, or those who did not vote in the primary. Forty-six states have deadlines in the next eight weeks.

The pressure has created an ends-justify-the-means tinge to the canvassing. If, say, a voter announces his deep disagreement with Nader but says he will sign because it will draw votes from a Democrat, George readily hands over his petition.

"That's fine. I don't care why they sign," George says. "I'm just a mercenary in that regard."

The attitude has drawn attacks from Nader's critics. They say accepting Republican help is a hypocritical stance from the supposedly pristine candidate.
 
Nader dismisses the attacks. He said the petitioning is a matter of free speech and expanding the pool of candidates, so a signer's political affiliation is irrelevant. "If they want to help us speak freely inside the electoral arena, that's fine," Nader said Friday.

In May, Nader won the nomination of the Reform Party, which has ballot lines in seven states, including Florida, which relieves him of a petition drive where he is most controversial, given the 2000 election outcome.

There are other states where Nader had hoped to join a small third party, such as West Virginia's liberal Mountain Party, to get on the ballot. But like the Greens, those parties are proving disdainful. On May 1, the Mountain Party chose to leave its presidential ballot line blank.

Third-party rebuffs were not the only bad news last week. On Friday, the campaign acknowledged it had failed to meet the Arizona requirements after Democrats successfully challenged its canvass there. Democrats in several states are planning legal challenges to his efforts.

And Thursday, a watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, filed a complaint against two conservative groups that had urged their members to get Nader on the ballot, alleging conspiracy and violations of campaign-contribution laws.

"It's been a bad week," George said during a rare moment of negativity. Then, he turned toward his own effort. "At this rate, without professional help, we're never going to make it."

But the moment passes as he bounds in the direction of more prey and is over within two paces. "Excuse me, ma'am," he begins.

"No. No, no, no, no, no. He did that before, and it'll happen again," says a woman named Jean who is loading plants into a truck with a friend.

A few minutes later, George walks away. He didn't sway Jean, but he persuaded her friend. "You can never tell," he says.