At noon Nader spoke before an audience of several thousand. at the Santa Barbara Courthouse sunken gardens.... |
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The best sign in the audience was "Bush and Gore make you wanna Ralph" but we were out of film by then. |
After giving Ralph my cartoon, (Inside the card, it said, "Wish you the best. Hope to see you in the white House.") -- I told him that the Savage was giving her full support to his candidacy, that I had convinced even my mother an arch conservative, a lifelong Republican, to vote for him. He asked, "How did you convince her?" I said it was the issues of the corporate control of the media that put her over the edge.
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Brunch with Ralph Nader August 23, 2000, Green Party Candidate for President |
After Brunch we all went into the living room, where Ralph spoke. He was warm, funny, and relaxed; once he got started, he didn't want to stop -- it seemed he has so much information he wants to impart. I found him unassuming and sincere. He is more of a statesman than a politician because "justice for all" is his passion and he wishes people to become leaders not followers. He is NOT the kind of guy that you can buy.
My friend Alison was there and related the story of how she and her husband had driven Ralph around in San Francisco in 1984 (Ralph does not drive) in a White Rabbitt and the car broke down, and Ralph got out and walked. Also ran into Joseph Gallo whom I will always know as "The Black Knight" from the Mediaevel May Faire, and Bill from KPVT Radio (Private, not Pirate Radio) wore a necklace which consisted of his cut up Master Cards, protesting their lawsuit. Ralph said something about the irony of Mastercard attempting to trademark the word "priceless" thereby putting a price on "priceless". All in all, it was a fine gathering. I was much too interested in goings on to eat, whereas Ralph was enthusiastically eating a plateful and grumbled somthing about just "trying to get some nutrition" (whilst everyone was trying to get a piece of him). He had already had a press conference before the brunch and left the house at about 11:45, to speak at the Courthouse.
As we were putting a Nader bumper sticker on our car, Ralph laughed as he said, "not enough not enough!" I retorted "HA! Now,There's no more room...!"
