Political rallies seldom require the use of earplugs.
But when Ralph Nader came to the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois on Tuesday night, with Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam fame in tow, more than a few civics-minded Americans who have been following Nader’s consumer crusade for more than a generation wondered what they had gotten themselves into.
Vedder left his rock band behind, though, and strummed on a solo guitar to the raucous cheers of an overflow crowd at the 9,500-seat UIC Pavilion. He told the audience that he’d hoped to craft a Nader-specific song but gave up, realizing he could not improve on his second and final effort of the evening, Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin.’ “
Nader stormed into the Pavilion to an energized crowd on yet another stop of his super-rally tour across America. From Oregon to Minnesota to Massachusetts, the Green Party presidential candidate has drawn big and enthusiastic, rock-concert-size crowds.”This is something we haven’t seen in this country since the ’70s,” said Rick Markley, who brought his two teenage sons to witness what he wishes was a Nader revolution. “This is everything they missed out on, wrapped in a small microcosm.”
It was part pep rally, part talk show, part revival and part rave. Low on money but high on energy, Nader backers got the word out about the rally in decidedly retro, unconventional and low-tech ways. One ad was scrawled in huge chalk letters Tuesday afternoon on North Michigan Avenue. Vedder helped spread news at a Pearl Jam concert the night before in Rosemont.
While politicians routinely toss high-bucks fundraisers and dinners to raise campaign cash, Nader tapped his backers by charging a modest admission. The price per head was $10, but those who claimed to be strapped were allowed in for only $7.
Against the backdrop of a giant campaign banner and two thickets of shrubbery, Nader called for a universal health care system and an end to corporate welfare in America. “It is not extremism for people in this country to say no to the hucksters and the corporate child molesters,” Nader said.
While the bulk of the crowd was made up of younger voters, some with dreadlocks, some with brightly dyed hair, parents and grandparents came, too, to absorb a progressive movement that shuns corporate America and the two major political candidates, Democratic Vice President Al Gore and Texas Republican Gov. George W. Bush.
“Gore or Bush, what’s your choice?” Chicago author and radio icon Studs Terkel asked the crowd. “Influenza or Pneumonia, what’s your choice?”
Nader, who championed the mandatory use of seat belts and other consumer issues long before many who came to cheer him were born, last week survived a challenge by Democrats, clearing the way for his name to be added to the presidential ballot in Illinois.
And on Tuesday, Nader supporters took good advantage of the last day to register to vote by signing up scores of new voters at the rally. Former TV talk show host Phil Donahue, who has become part of Nader’s traveling political roadshow, reminded the crowd that America has been surprised before by politicians. “They wouldn’t let Jesse Ventura in the debates,” Donahue said, referring to the Minnesota governor. “Suddenly, the wrestler was governor. That’s what we want in this campaign.”
The concert/rally climaxed a hectic half-day in Chicago for Nader, who arrived in mid-afternoon from Detroit and a series of local and national cable TV interviews before hustling to the Northwest Side studio of WTTW-Ch.11 to tape “Chicago Tonight.” He also squeezed in a small Greektown fundraiser and an MTV interview with Vedder.
Then it was off to the headquarters of Teamsters Union Local 705 near the United Center, where he addressed about 100 members of the 20,000-member local whose main employer is the United Parcel Service.
His remarks to the unionists focused on his harsh critique of federal labor law and the current impediments to union organizing. He was the only presidential candidate to accept the local’s offer to speak to members; the national union has endorsed Gore.
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Many of those in the crowd at UIC cared little about endorsements or the political establishment. Mark Campbell, 23, came to see Nader after hearing Vedder make passionate pitches for the Green Party at Pearl Jam shows.Campbellhas not decided whom to vote for, but he said Vedder’s politicking might hold some sway. “I don’t know if I would be here if I hadn’t seen Pearl Jam and if Vedder hadn’t talked about it so much,” Campbell said.
The ideological perspective of many in attendance was summed up by filmmaker Michael Moore, one of the speakers, who declared, “a vote for Bush is a vote for Gore, and a vote for Gore is a vote for Bush.”
Indeed that was the case for Jen Jensen, 27, a corn and bean farmer from Kankakee
“I’m extremely open politically but the Libertarian Party doesn’t have much of a stand on education, and that’s why I’m looking at the Green Party,” he said. “So I’m very interested to hear what Ralph Nader has to say.”
Sitting with his two sons, Markley has heard all talk from Democrats that a vote for Nader is tantamount to a vote for Bush. That, he told his sons, is not democracy.
“It’s not about whether you vote for someone who will win,” he said. “If you go into the voting booth and pull the lever for someone you don’t believe in, that’s wasting your vote.”