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Monday, August 07, 2000
By Johnna A. Pro, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
PHILADELPHIA -- It's a hot and sticky afternoon in Philadelphia.
Ralph Nader, the 1960s consumer advocate and Green Party candidate is somewhat rumpled as he strides into an auditorium at Drexel University where several hundred attendees of the National Youth Convention are awaiting his arrival. His posture is stooped and his appearance more of a serious professor than a man seeking the presidency of the United States.
Unlike other politicians who seem always to be behind schedule, Nader is on time for his 2:15 p.m. speech. It is the students who are somewhat disorganized, running behind schedule as they ready the stage.
He waits patiently in the wings until his name is called, then makes his way to the podium to a standing ovation.
"Gee, I thought I was going to get to meet George Bush," he says, gesturing to an empty chair with a "Reserved for George W. Bush" sign hanging on it.
The remark draws laughter and those gathered get his point. Of all the presidential candidates, either from major parties or minor ones, it is Nader alone who comes to address the students.
He is now on the ballot in 45 states, including Pennsylvania, and while chances of a victory are slim, he is running to win.
"You have to run to win. You can't run around the country saying, 'Hey, vote for me; I'm running to lose,' " he said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
The group on this day is composed of young people in their late teens and early 20s who have organized, not as a party, but as a group trying to learn more about the political process and create a platform for their ideas.
They come from around the country and, using telephones and the Internet to survey people, have drafted a list of concerns and proposed solutions that they want everyone to hear.
Despite their pledge not to endorse any particular candidate, it is obvious Nader is their man and he relies on their support.
He draws sustained applause when he tells them: "You've got to have a sense of empowerment. You are citizens, not citizens in waiting. Shuck off the layer of society's trivialization of you."
Nader, who was born in Winsted, Conn., in 1934, graduated magna cum laude from Princeton in 1955 and from Harvard Law School in 1958.
Most who are there to hear him weren't born when he surfaced in the public consciousness in 1965 with his book "Unsafe at Any Speed," a critique of the automobile industry.
At 66, he is still very much the consumer advocate that he was in youth and the rhetoric of his campaign reflects that.
He uses his time on the podium to assail the nation's health care system, the inability of workers to get ahead, rapidly spiraling consumer debt, child poverty and corporate corruption, among other things.
And in this city where the Republican National Convention is taking place at the same time as the youth convention, he criticizes the massive amount of corporate donations that fuel the 1,110 receptions and parties hosted by the GOP.
They are the same kinds of corporate donations that will fund the Democratic fest on the West Coast later this month, he says, calling them "political orgies."
"In the meantime," he tells the students, "our democracy is being hijacked. Usually they say a rising tide lifts all boats. What we're seeing is a rising tide lifting all yachts."
By comparison, he says, the Green Party's approach is much less lavish.
It has 600 organizers on college campuses around the country, where Nader is focusing his message.
To this group, he encourages the students to "pick up a history book. When people aren't turned on by politics, sure enough, politics turns on them."
Ralph Nader (Photo from "Meet the Press") 
Ralph Nader 
Born: 1934 in Winsted, Ct. In the news: He is on the ballot for president in 45 states, including Pennsylvania. Quote: "You have to run to win. You can't run around the country saying, 'Hey, vote for me; I'm running to lose.' " Education: Princeton University, 1955; Harvard Law School, 1958.