Ralph Nader, along with his Green Party running mate, Winona LaDuke, gained the presidential ballot in 43 states. The epitome of a Public Citizen for three decades, Nader has forced debate on issues ranging from GM's Corvair to the Dalcon Shield. He may be best known, however, for "Nader's Raiders," the host of young activists who have challenged corporate power and built a public interest movement in this country.

Once, querying him on PBS about what he'd do if actually elected, Jim Lehrer expressed concern about Nader's capacity to comprehend the complex array of federal agencies for which he'd be responsible as president. Nader was nonplussed and bemused:"Well, I don't know anybody," he finally replied,"who has sued more of them."

In 1996 Nader merely"stood" for President, neither raising money nor campaigning, but this year he's been aggressively running. Polls suggested he could pull 7 percent of the vote. If he draws 5 percent, the Greens will be eligible for federal campaign support in the future and be established as a credible voice and choice.

The New York Times editorialized against Nader on the premise that he is cluttering the political playing field and distracting voters from the clear-cut choice which they regard Bush and Gore as representing. His candidacy has also been controversial, even divisive, in left circles where many argue that his strong showing in swing states like California and Michigan could effectively elect George W. Bush. That position may best be represented by the Sierra Club, which regards a vote for Nader as environmentally irresponsible. Nader, however, is losing no sleep over the prospect of playing"spoiler." His observation is that the only difference between Republicans and Democrats is the relative speed"with which their knees hit the floor when the big corporations knock on the door."

He regularly makes three points on the"spoiler question." First, that the "evil of two lessers" approach simply legitimizes the downward slide into corporate captivity. Second, there is nothing preventing Al Gore from"stealing Nader's issues." Go ahead. Let Gore open up on corporate crime, corporate welfare, the WTO, environmental and economic justice. And lastly, he points out, rather than diselecting Gore, Nader voters may actually tip the narrow balance in electing a Democratic Congress.

We spoke with Nader by phone just after his return from the Republican Convention, where he'd been smuggled onto the floor during Dick Cheney's acceptance speech. We asked him about it.

There was a little anti-slavery party that led the way in the 19th century, the pro-women's-right-to-vote party, a workers' party, farmers obviously, the Progressive party. So third parties have led the way, especially when they have emerged out of a citizen movement which needed a political parallel.

Ralph Nader: There was a huge mob of press all around. It sort of shook up the Florida and Michigan delegations before they got wise and took us back to the runway area on the outside. Someone asked,"Why are you here?" I said, "Because it's so grotesque, you have to see it to believe it!" Basically it's a dance between the politicians shaking down the business lobbyists for huge gobs of deductible cash because the IRS has ruled it all a "business expense." They're dealing a terrible blow to democracy and politically accountable parties.

The Witness: This raises for us something of a theological question. Corporations were originally forbidden to participate in the political process. But we're now 100 years into a Supreme Court ruling that grants these commercial powers the legal status of persons before the law with "rights." Even their money is treated as free speech. What's your take on that? Is it reversible?

R.N.: Well, we first developed that idea in 1975 in our book, Taming the Giant Corporations. Unfortunately there's that Supreme Court decision in 1887 declaring corporations as persons under the 14th amendment. So, you can't do it by statute, but you might find some states that will begin conditioning or revoking the charters of badly behaving companies. That can be done at the state level or by referendum redefining a corporation as a non-person. It is also possible to make the charter a much more conditional mechanism for corporate misbehavior. A state could throw the company into a trusteeship just like creditors can, or banks. Remove the board and the officers and put in trustees to straighten out the corporation. That does it without laying off workers or closing down the company. Federal law does precisely that for crooked labor unions. Why not for crooked corporations?

T.W.: Given the scale which corporations have assumed these days, how close are we to seeing them succeed even nation states as the preeminent structures of power?

R.N.: Well, very close indeed, because they now command, overwhelmingly, capital, labor, technology and government influence. There's no countervailing economic model of any power operative in the world. Well, there are models that are superior, but they're not the power. What kept capitalism less destructive of its workers and other constituencies was the way they viewed the specter of communism and socialism. There are a lot of models -- such as the Bangladesh microcredit or other cooperative models -- but basically we see these giant corporations merging with one another like Colossus astride the globe. As the title of David Korten's book says, corporations rule the world. They need not do it directly, but primarily through government proxies. Giant corporate power merges with government, turning government against its own people and making it largely an "accounts receivable" for corporate demands: subsidies, handouts, inflated contracts and bailouts. The corporate welfare matrix.

T.W.: Running for president and raising these issues, you must believe we're not so far down the line on globalization and this fusion with the nation state that government couldn't still be in a position to put the brakes on, or reverse it by creating some new measure of political accountability?

R.N.: Well, yes. I think first of all that the global corporations are losing the important symbols. They no longer can make a claim to patriotism, because pitting one government against another, they really have no allegiance to the U.S., other than to control it. They talk openly about being multinational, anational corporations. And second, they're losing the sovereignty issue, because they're undermining sovereignty in sending petitions to Geneva and the WTO and the like. And third, if things turn bad, if there is ecological disaster, if there is a recession, then that's when the groundwork that's now being laid with the Green Party, with the increasing debate around the country -- not yet in the mass media -- about corporations as persons and corporate charters will flower. And that is what's important: to be ready with a process of dialogue, a battery of facts, a knowledge of history, and models of corporate accountability, so that when the tide does turn, the progressive forces in the country are ready. You know, that is what the Right did. When Reagan came in, they had all kinds of plans -- from Heritage Foundation and Cato and so forth -- ready to move. And that's what was missing in the 1930s. It was pretty ad hoc from the citizen point of view. Franklin Roosevelt filled in some blanks, but the 1930s represented a great missed opportunity to deal with corporate charters and corporations as persons.

T.W.: What would you urge people to be doing now to lay that groundwork?

R.N.: Well I think they should be part of the Green Party movement, which is discussing real issues of structural power abuse and what the remedies might be. As well as setting out substantive policies like universal health insurance or shifting power through checkoffs for consumer groups, vís-a-vís banks, insurance companies, HMOs, cable companies and the like. We've got to address poverty, which is a huge agenda, and economically develop inner-city neighborhoods. We must deal with all the environmental areas from environmental racism to ozone depletion and global warming. And we must repeal Taft-Hartley, which is a chokehold on labor. Let votes count by removing private money from campaigns.

T.W.: How do you view the street activity going on in Philadelphia or on a massive scale in Seattle? What's the connection between street politics and alternative electoral politics?

R.N.: Well, it's very important. First, because the media will pay attention to people who engage in non-violent civil disobedience and protest. At least they will give marginal notice, where they wouldn't pay attention if these groups had sedate press conferences with nice reports. Second, it's an important recruiting opportunity for young people, in particular, who really begin to develop an understanding of how power works in the society and the world. And they tend to commit for a long time. When you talk to people now in their 50s and 60s who have been activists all their lives and say, "How did this happen to you?" "Well, I went to a major anti-war rally" or "I went to a major Earth Day demonstration, or a Civil Rights March." So for recruiting to swell the ranks, it's very important. Thirdly, it feeds right into the Internet activity of citizen groups and all the websites which both prepare the groundwork for these demonstrations by putting out the alerts and inviting people to come to a certain place and time. People are hugely energized by the resultant demonstrations.

Now, that's the first step. Obviously, that doesn't take you to more than first base and you've got to get to home plate. But you don't get to home plate without getting to first.

T.W.: So you would see home plate as the electoral end of things?

R.N.: Yes, once the civil culture mobilizes then there's a political corollary. In terms of the Green Party, they go together and they work together. They each become more authentic. There was a little anti-slavery party that led the way in the 19th century, the pro-women's-right-to-vote party, a workers' party, farmers obviously, the Progressive party. So third parties have led the way, especially when they have emerged out of a citizen movement which needed a political parallel.

T.W.: Could we ask about a couple of issues that you didn't mention? Nuclear weapons, for one. You've made statements on the huge financial benefits to the weapons makers and environmental fallout, but how do you see these weapons as an element of foreign policy? Are they moral? Necessary? Legal?

R.N.: Well, we've got to drive to abolish them! Even former Strategic Air Command General Butler and Paul Nitze, the hawk of hawks, are talking this way. I mean, a real major push to arms reduction and not just holding the line. Who are the big enemies anymore? We've got a military budget geared for the Soviet Union and a Progressive China. That's not the situation. So that's another area we want to talk about -- missile defense and F22 and Osprey and all those boondoggle-type weapon systems for Lockheed's or General Dynamics' profit.

T.W.: You mentioned environmental racism -- how seriously do you see the racial divide in this country and what is the role of the federal government in addressing it at this point?

R.N.: Well, the role is obviously to keep enforcing the civil rights laws and affirmative action and preventing police brutality and housing discrimination. One of my favorite concerns is marketplace exploitation and employment discrimination. I would think we have to put a huge class component in dealing with race issues. If you go after class and have any success, that will modify very significantly racial animosities -- at least between people and neighborhoods. You don't see the racialism in areas with better living standards that you do in poor areas.

One way, for example, to deal with the merchant exploitation of African Americans and Hispanics around payday loans or rent-to-own rackets at 200 percent interest rates, is to grow community development credit unions where people's money is recycled in consumer-owned institutions offering decent interest rates. That's the greatest antidote to the loan-shark business. So, you see I'm focussing on areas like these, or redlining, that civil rights advocates traditionally ignore.

T.W.: Jeanie recalls from working with you 20 years ago on Detroit's Poletown struggle that you lived a pretty simple life. Unmarried, a spartan apartment, no car or credit card.

R.N.: Yeah, that's still true.

T.W.: How do you see the connection between that and your political work? And, moreover, how do you take care of yourself? A political campaign is pretty brutal. Perhaps they are systematically brutal so that candidates tend to be -- spiritually one might even say -- deformed by them. How do you resist that and how do you take care of yourself in the midst of this?

R.N.: Well, I've been in training for many years. I've travelled a lot. Going into 50 states between March 1 and June 20 is a little more intense than usual, but actually I did nearly that in 1986 when we tried to keep the insurance companies from destroying tort law.

Second, I'm a very calm person. You have to have some minimum sleep and you have to have a good diet. And you try not to burn yourself out. Don't drink; don't smoke. And you keep a historical perspective, you keep a little humor, and keep your eye on the ball. And you don't develop a political ego -- on which I may have gone to the reverse extreme -- it's hard for me to say I, I, I, every day. I do use the "we" more often because it is a "we" after all -- there's a whole team together on this.

And, finally, if you have to campaign knowing that should you say a certain thing you're not going to get money from some special vested or corporate interest, that creates a lot of tension. We don't have that tension. We say what we mean. We mean what we say. If people want to give, they can give. We take no PAC money. We take usually no soft money. That simplifies matters. And it develops a certain purposeful tranquility to the whole campaign. l

Bill Wylie-Kellermann is both book review editor and a contributing editor of The Witness. His wife, Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann, is The Witness' senior editor. They live with their two daughters in Detroit.