THE NEW THREAT TO CLINTON

It's not Dole, it's not Whitewater:

Philip Delves Broughton says it's a

left-winger who runs on pinto beans

EVER SINCE the Republican Party won control of the Senate and House of Repre- sentatives in the congressional elections of 1994, there has been a hole on the Left of American politics. President Clinton, advised by Dick Morris, a former Republi- can 'strategist', has walked crab-like towards the centre, chastened by the oppo- sition to his early decisions such as affirm- ing the position of homosexuals in the military and by the failure of his wife's pro- posed reforms to the health care system.

Now, however, a threat has emerged on the Left from the minute, California-based Green Party. This threat would be easier to ignore were it not for two things: the deep disillusionment felt by the Left with what they see as Clinton's sell-out to the Right of his party and to the ways of Washington; and the man they have chosen to be their candidate for the presidency.

Ralph Nader is a man with whom Amer- ica, and in particular corporate America, has been familiar for 30 years. Fuelled by a diet of cabbage and pinto beans, ascetic, gaunt, gangly and with hawkish features, he is the architect of 'consumerism', credit- ed with the introduction of everything from seat-belts and air-bags in cars to non- smoking sections in aircraft. Already, he has the White House frightened.

He is a pioneer of the anti-nuclear movement. He was lecturing about the environment in a pre-Body Shop age. He was the first to lure corporate 'whistle- blowers' out into the open. Thalidomide, Opren, clean air, clean water — there is hardly a single big 'consumer issue' in which Nader has not been involved since his emergence as a national figure in 1966.

The son of Lebanese immigrant parents, Nader was hailed as a brilliant lawyer while still at Harvard. Rejecting a lucrative career in private practice, in 1966 he pub- lished a book, Unsafe at Any Speed, based on the case of a woman whose arm was severed when her Corvair car flipped over as she was driving it at 35 mph. General Motors was so unnerved by Nader that they set about investigating his private life.

Like many others since, General Motors could not find a single point of weakness in Nader. Then, as now, he lived in a one- room apartment in Washington and used the pay phone on his landing. He is scrupulous about rejecting corporate favours and is rarely to be found on the political sucking-up circuit. He has never `I keep hearing this knocking.' married and still proudly wears the same batch of army surplus socks he bought in 1966. Any money he makes is ploughed straight back into his work. There are no floozies, Whitewaters, unsolicited gifts or rent boys.

Working a regular 126-hour week, trawl- ing through the Patent Office rec-ords, Nader single-handedly overhauled America's car industry safety standards. When a Senate committee examining his findings learned of General Motors' investigations, the company was forced to apologise and subsequently had to pay considerable damages.

`Every reform', Nader said, 'starts with information.' This obsession with factual accuracy over ideology is what has made Nader such a force. Though he may have sympathised with their goal, he would have abhorred the way Greenpeace spread mis- information and used publicity stunts in their opposition to the sinking of Shell's Brent Spar oil platform last year. Nader's popularity has fluctuated over the years. In the late Sixties he was a folk hero, and his team of young lawyers, known as `Nader's Raiders', achieved cult status for their tackling of governmental and corporate behemoths. During this time, a seat in the Senate was Nader's for the taking and he was twice approached about running for vice-president on the Democratic ticket of 1972. He has always said, however, that he has 'never been tempted by the illusion of power'. When asked to describe his role, he says, 'full- time citizen, the most important office in America'.

In the late Seventies, his popularity waned, as Washington's mood swung to the Right as a prelude to Reaganism. Con- gressmen, in a spirit not dissimilar to that shown by Newt Gingrich's foot-soldiers, would brag, 'Whatever Nader's for, we're against.' Having successfully established the principles of consumer protection and the enforcement of social responsibility on business, in the mid-Eighties he shifted his focus, launching himself at energy costs, the tax system, access to the means of communication and health care.

In 1993, Nader came out against the free trade agreements of Nafta and Gatt, argu- 1 you we shouldn't have gone Cunard.' ing that by these agreements America was helping businesses to bypass the sort of health and safety standards he had fought so hard to have implemented. In 1995, he railed against President Clinton for failing to veto the lifting of the 55 mph Federal speed limit, and continues to attack him for what he sees as his acquiescence in Republican attempts to roll back the wel- fare state. These issues, among others, are what have inspired Nader to accept the Green Party's nomination.

Crucial to the Nader candidacy is the fact that it has its base in California, the most important state in the presidential elections. California holds 54 of the elec- toral college votes, one fifth of those need- ed to win the presidency. So important is the state to Clinton that he has visited it 23 times during his term of office and was there just recently, promising yet more federal money, this time for a rail link in the Los Angeles area. If, as the Greens hope, Nader can win 12 per cent of the vote in California, he may just hand the state to the Republicans.

Though low on organisation and finances, and with Nader refusing to cam- paign in what he calls a 'spoiled' electoral system, the Greens plan to get their candi- date on the ballot in as many as 30 states. They have already had talks with Ross Perot's Reform Party about how best to take on the two-party system.

It would be easy to dismiss Nader as some sort of loony Greenie at the head of a crazy band of Hare Krishnas, Save the Beaver campaigners and practitioners of colonic irrigation. Nader, however, is more than just some perverse character from a Thomas Pynchon novel. He has rejected pleas from Democrat heavyweights not to run and says he is in the campaign for the duration.

With Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow Coalition reduced to limp protests about the paucity of blacks among the Oscar nominees, the Clinton White House has not had to worry about keeping the Demo- crat Left in line. The divisions, they thought, were over on the Right, with Pat Buchanan and Perot snatching votes from the official Republican Party candidate.

Nader and the Greens have shaken that complacency, and such is their hostility to Clinton and their determination to breach the political duopoly that they would be prepared to pay the price of letting the Republicans into the White House. As General Motors discovered all those years ago, it is not worth underestimating a man who lives on pinto beans.

Philip Delves Broughton works on the Times.