VP candidate for Independent (aka Peace and Freedom Party aka Unaffiliated aka Independent Party of Delaware aka Ecology Party of Florida aka Independence Party aka Natural Law Party aka Peace Party aka Populist Party) (2008)
Running mate with nominee: Ralph Nader (b. 1934)
Popular vote: 739,278 (0.56%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
Ralph Nader, about to turn 74, announced his intention to run for President as an Independent on the Meet the Press television program Feb. 24, 2008, "Dissent is the mother of ascent, and in that context I've decided to run for president."
The start of Nader's 2008 campaign and Matt Gonzalez's place in it is described on the Matt Gonzales Reader webpage--
In 2008 Ralph Nader decided to run for president and asked Gonzalez to be his running mate. Gonzalez saw himself as a stand-in for Peter Camejo who had run with Nader in 2004 but was now unavailable because he was fighting cancer a second time. Camejo specifically encouraged Nader to select Gonzalez who was one of the few elected officials in the nation to publically endorsed their ticket in 2004. Gonzalez agreed with the condition they not seek the Green Party Nomination. Nader was in accord. Both were supportive of Cynthia McKinney’s efforts to win the Green Party nomination and believed both campaigns could complement one another. The decision not to compete against McKinney for the Green Party nomination and to run as independents meant they could not rely on a preexisting party aparatus to gain ballot status.
Camejo died on Sept. 13, 2008.
Gonzalez gave a thumbnail description of the platform in an interview with Krist Novoselic (Seattle Weekly)--
Single-payer health care, ending the war in Iraq (without leaving any of the private contractor soldiers there), and ending the corporate domination of our society. It’s apparent that corporate money is undermining good government decision-making in our legislative process.
We’re committed to election reform. We support proportional representation for our Congress and direct election of the president by majority vote. We oppose plurality victories, which are common in the U.S., and have occurred in eight of the last 24 presidential contests.
Nader picked up support from a number of regional parties. In California he won the nomination of the Peace and Freedom Party. Also the Independent Party of Delaware, Independence Party (Hawaii), and Natural Law Party (Michigan). The Ecology Party of Florida and the Peace Party in Oregon were created for Nader's campaign. In New York Nader ran under the Populist Party banner.
Although he did not actively seek the Green Party nomination, he still won the most votes in their primaries but the convention nominated Cynthia McKinney. Gonzalez left the Green Party partly as a way to make it easier for Nader to file as a true Independent in several states.
Nader/Gonzalez were on the ballot in 45 states and write-ins in four others. They finished in third place and at a higher percentage than Nader's 2004 run, cracking 1% in a dozen states: Maine (1.45%), North Dakota (1.32%), Arkansas (1.19%), Connecticut and Alaska (1.16% each), South Dakota (1.12%), Idaho (1.10%), Minnesota (1.04%), Vermont (1.03%), Rhode Island and Oregon (1.02%), and West Virginia (1.01%). The only state where it could possibly be argued Nader was a spoiler was Missouri, which barely voted for McCain with a 0.13% difference over Obama. Nader took 0.61% of the vote in that state.
Compared to most of the other third parties in the 2008 election season, Nader's Independent bid went comparatively smoothly, but it ended on a real sour note. On Election Night Nader told a Fox News radio reporter regarding Obama, "He is our first African American president; or he will be. And we wish him well. But his choice, basically, is whether he’s going to be Uncle Sam for the people of this country, or Uncle Tom for the giant corporations who are running America into the ground." A bit later Fox TV reporter Shep Smith played back the statement to Nader, but the quote was cut off after the words "giant corporations." After playing it, Smith looked a bit stunned and said with dramatic pauses, "Really. Ralph Nader? What was that?" and the contentious conversation went downhill from there with Nader exhibiting a special sort of zealous cranky cluelessness about the impact of his choice of words.
And thus ended Nader's final major campaign for the Presidency. I actually saw that live when it aired and remember thinking it was a downer departure from the electoral scene by a candidate who is unquestionably America's greatest consumer advocate and activist.
Election history:
1999 - San Francisco District Attorney (Nonpartisan) - primary - defeated
2001-2005 - San Francisco Board of Supervisors (President, 2003-2005) (Nonpartisan)
2003 - Mayor of San Francisco, Calif. (Nonpartisan) - defeated
Other occupations: attorney, collage artist, writer, editor, teacher, art curator, poet
Notes:
During his 2001 campaign, Gonzalez left the Democratic Party and joined the Green Party.
Winner of the 2003 election was Gavin Newsom.
Played bass guitar in an indie rock band, John Heartfield, 1995-1999.
