|
|
|
 |
Party Animal Why I'm Not Voting for Nader ... And You Shouldn't, Either. By Susan Zakin
The payoff for attending this misbegotten debutante party in Hunter S. Thompson Land was meeting McIntyre, who writes for the same outdoor magazine that flew me out there. McIntyre is a big, bearded right-wing libertarian hipster with an astounding memory for literary one-liners. We met cute, as they say in the movies. "You know those hunt saboteurs?" I asked him. "The ones who peacefully interpose their bodies between the hunters and their prey?" "Yeah." "I'd never do that. You can have your flea-bitten overabundant Connecticut deer. But anyone who hunts a desert bighorn oughta be hunted down and killed." Recognizing that we had, indeed, been separated at birth, McIntyre adopted me, gleefully pointing out bloody pictures of dead things so I'd go "eee-uw!" and introducing me to Bambi-killers and death-dealing arms merchants as "our token liberal." This is what he e-mailed me last week: "Maybe you can explain to me, though, why you, of all people, are supporting Al over Ralph? Can't vote for Ralph because you agree with almost every one of his principles and policies? "Truth is, I'll be in Russia on Election Day--no joke--and will have already cast my absentee ballot for ... Nader. Don't think about that too hard, but I do challenge you to do the same. Try not to let the dazzle of Al's alpha-male charisma blind your vision." There was more. Much more. There always is. But this is my column, not McIntyre's. (So there, big guy.) This is why I'm not voting for Ralph: Because I don't want George W. Bush to be president. Hey, I'm a journalist. Saying the obvious is my job. The presidential race is too close to call. If Nader's support in swing states like Oregon and Washington doesn't erode by election day, Ralph Nader could elect George Bush. In Arizona, polls show Gore leading Bush 49 to 40 percent. Pollster Fred Solop of Northern Arizona University called the race in our state "a statistical dead heat." Don't think it can't happen. Greens elected Republicans twice in New Mexico. In 1994 Green candidate Roberto Mondragon got enough votes to elect wacko Republican libertarian Gary Johnson as New Mexico's governor. Johnson won by 46,259 votes. Mondragon got 47,990. You do the math. In a 1997 special election New Mexico Green Carol Miller did it again, electing a Republican named Bill Redmond to Congress. Fortunately, Redmond was so egregious that Democrat Tom Udall, the state's former attorney general and a scion of the Udall clan, won handily in the next election. The Greens are trying to reform voting procedures in New Mexico so this doesn't happen anymore. But what about the rest of the country? There are big problems with third-party politics, said political scientist Randall Partin of University of New Mexico. In the 1800s and early 1900s, politics was regional, said Partin. Democrats dominated the South; Republicans had a stranglehold on the Industrial Northeast. A third-party candidate could take a shot at picking off the dominant party and not worry about knocking out an ally. That's not the way things work now, especially in the presidential race. I asked Carolyn Campbell, chair of Arizona's Green Party, if she'd feel badly if the Greens elected Bush. "Nobody seems to buy that Nader gets Republicans as well as Democrats," she said. "In '96 Nader got 40 percent Republicans and 60 percent Democrats." Well, that explains Tom's vote. But I'm not sure I buy Campbell's argument. As a hunter, Tom has a strong conservation ethic. But most swing voters cast their ballot for pocketbook and personality. My guess is that frat boy Bush is strong with these folks and Nader's peeling off mostly Gore supporters. As for the unreconstructed lefties who think there's no difference between Gore and Bush: Do your homework. This is as irresponsible and ignorant a cop-out as any perpetrated by those ignorant Middle Americans to whom left-wingers feel so superior. Another goal of the Greens is to make the Democrats shape up. Yeah, right. While chastened Democrats spout recycled liberal-with-a-capital L rhetoric, President Bush and Vice President Cheney's Big Oil cronies will be drilling every square inch of America, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, aka "The American Serengeti"--something Bush has already promised. Gore, by the way, has promised to keep the refuge intact. Any candidate who seriously wants to be president will move to the center. Deal with it. But, as Tip O'Neill said, all politics are local. Presidential candidates have to seek the middle; local candidates don't necessarily have to turn to mush. Changing the definition of "middle" starts at home. Vote for your local Green, just as long as it won't help the bad guys. Send a message to Arizona Democrats who aren't getting it, especially on sprawl. The party hacks have to go. People who understand what happened at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle should be encouraged into the Democratic fold. And there's no question that Nader and Buchanan should have been allowed into the debates. That's called democracy, folks. But don't vote for Ralph. Nader, aka "our national scold," is a hero of American history. But he's not a politician. Nader couldn't get Congress to pass National Arbor Day, much less the Kyoto global warming treaty. Ralph would be a lousy president.
E-mail: zakin@tucsonweekly.com
|
 |
Home | Currents | City Week | Music | Review | Books | Cinema | Back Page | Archives
|
 |
© 1995-2000 Tucson Weekly . Info Booth |
|