My friend, sitting in his cabin in Fairbanks, held the July issue of Rolling Stone with Barack Obama over his head.
Obama's face is downcast, but smiling broadly. His eyes are closed. It's an almost aw-shucks expression, not a typical pose for a presidential candidate, not a steely look, not squinty eyes that say, "be afraid and vote for me," but the humbled grin one gives when highly praised by his grandma in front of company.
My friend stared at me, saying nothing, and holding the magazine over his head for at least a full minute. He didn't have to say anything. I knew what he was up to.
A day before, I had received a phone call urging me to help collect signatures for Ralph Nader. Nader wants to get on the ballot in as many states as possible, and in Alaska it takes a little over 3,000 signatures from voters.
There are big stakes up here for all the presidential candidates. Noting the strength he had in January's caucus, Obama's team hopes he will pull off the first Democratic presidential victory here in decades. McCain has always challenged our delegation on its gratuitous pork spending, so he has to make some amends with Alaskan Republicans. Nader wants to tap stalwart independent constituencies. Ron Paul enjoys a hardcore group of backers as well.
My brother, meanwhile, continues to send me the Obama pins and bumper stickers. He was recently invited to an Obama speech when the candidate visited his hometown of Colorado Springs. My brother was seen on television shaking Barack's hand and getting a pat on the back.
Though my parents' van sports Obama's "hope" bumpersticker, my father recently directed me to votenader.org.
Nader supports everything I do. He supports everything, in fact, many Americans do, according to polls, issues like a single-payer health care, cutting the enormous military budget, and a crackdown on corporate crime.
These are issues that remain problems no matter whether the administration is Republican or Democrat: Clinton pardoned rich friends just as Bush did, drug companies are too powerful for real health care reform, and it was a Democrat that got us involved in the Vietnam war.
Obama is part of the same two-party machinery that has made America less a democracy and more a plutocracy -- a country ruled by a wealthy elite.
The problem is, of course, Nader is unelectable, like Ron Paul, like Libertarian candidate Bob Barr and like, apparently, Mike Huckabee.
Candidates without cargo jets full of money can't expect to go far (Barack has raised over a quarter billion dollars), and contenders require a compliant press (lest your scream at a rally be replayed hundreds of times, as in Howard Dean's case).
Nader is widely viewed by Democrats as a "spoiler" in the close elections between Bush and Gore in 2000 and Bush and Kerry in 2004. The hearts of his critics do not bleed for his noble causes, rather they writhe at his gall. For them, Nader is the newcomer to the lawn party who tries to knock the host's croquet balls under the salad bar.
Folks like Ralph Nader face a wall in the business of American politics. In the previous election, Nader not only was not invited to the presidential debates, he was threatened with arrest if he showed up. Rather than a "spoiler," the consumer advocate was a convenient scapegoat for Democrats.
I downloaded the petition form for Nader and went to the store to make copies.
The way I see it, you should be able to vote for someone who you agree with. You should have the opportunity, at least, whether the name is Nader, Ron Paul or Chuck Norris. They shouldn't have to have an "R" or a "D" behind their name.
Isn't that how a democracy is supposed to work?
My friend's action was prescient. I'm sure everywhere I go this campaign season, I'll have Barack's face staring down at me, smiling at me.
Soren Wuerth is a teacher and lives in Girdwood.
SOREN WUERTH
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