Ralph Nader is an easy scapegoat for the Democrats, and for liberals across the US who cannot tear themselves from the Democrats however critical of them they may be. Nader's decision to stand for the presidency, which he did with the backing of the Green Party, drew the Democrats' ire in the run-up to the election. But it sent them apoplectic when the closeness of the vote emerged.

Nader received 2.8 million votes, 3 percent of the poll nationally. He got more than 5 percent in some ten states across the US, and in Alaska--where the rights of oil companies to drill through a wildlife refuge was a major issue--he won 10 percent of the vote. His vote was squeezed, but nonetheless it shows the thirst for an alternative that exists in the US.

In the key state of Florida, Nader got 97,415 votes--that is 25 times the number of votes he got in that state four years ago when he stood for president as a write-in candidate. One Florida Nader voter told reporters, 'I voted for greater democracy. I voted for taking immediate steps to end the crisis of the environment, and the corporate dominance of our government and our culture.'

As a result Nader was blamed for 'stealing' Gore's votes, and a vote for Nader was deemed a vote for Bush. One New York Times (pro-Democrat) columnist called Nader an 'egomaniacal narcissist' with an 'insane economic philosophy'. David Broder in the Washington Post dismissed the Green Party as existing 'mostly in the imagination of its candidate'.

Feminists, African-American activists and some environmentalists joined in the attacks. The National Abortion Rights Action League launched anti-Nader television ads warning that if Bush won because Gore lost votes to Nader, abortion rights in the US would hang in the balance. President of the United Steelworkers of America, George Becker, told Nader supporters, 'It would be tragically ironic if your dedication to principle should ultimately result in the further domination of our political process by the very forces of corporate greed that we have both worked so hard to restrain.'

Nader himself is unrepentant. Speaking on election night he said, 'Going around the country you get the feeling that there are millions of people who are really ready for a new progressive political movement. It takes a lot of work to get them together, and to believe that they can do it, because of the dominance of the two-party duopoly. We have to go into the political arena and mobilise new political civic energy throughout the US in order to come back and take our government back from the corporate supremacists who think that there's nothing they can't control, there's nothing that they can't commercialise, there's nothing that they cannot daunt. And we're going to prove them wrong.'

Soon after the election he spoke to a packed hall of over 1,000 people in Minnesota on 'The corporatisation of America'. He reiterated his campaign message that too much wealth is concentrated in corporations while 20 percent of children in the US live in poverty. The biggest cheer of the night was for when he said, 'Some say the poor don't work. Let me tell you something--the poor are the hardest working people in America.'

There is disappointment that Nader did not receive the 5 percent of the poll nationally which would have qualified the Green Party for federal funding. But as Business Week magazine points out, 'Nader also leaves the Greens with a mailing list of 240,000 supporters who gave $7 million to Nader...nearly all in under $100 donations. He engaged the young, got people to the polls who might never have gone and raised issues that the major parties never mentioned.' Some 40 percent of those polled said they would not have voted if Nader had not stood as a candidate. Those involved want a radical alternative to the present system, and the Nader campaign gave them a focus. The question is, what now for those who backed Nader? The debate has already begun. Some college-based Nader committees are now meeting as Green Party groups. In New York the Greenwich Village campaign, which was active, is keeping going. Others are joining different campaigns. All are feeling confident, buoyed by Nader's success against the odds.

A blue-green alliance?

It is too soon to say whether the Green Party will emerge as a mass party. But an organisation transformed in the wake of Seattle, and which began talking of a 'blue-green alliance' at its convention earlier this year (blue for blue collar), is looking to further electoral campaigns and talking of building a lasting third party. The Green Party holds 72 elected posts across the US, 18 of which were won in this month's election.

Jeanna Penn, who works for Nader, says, 'Obviously, the disappointment is that we didn't reach the 5 percent because of the federal funding issue. But aside from that, everything about the campaign's been a victory...just in terms of the broad numbers of people who are ready to now move and mobilise across the country, it's very strong. It's also prepared a whole youth movement for activism. There's another election in two years time, and we'd like to get as many local Green candidates on the ballots across the country as possible. I think a lot of people are looking towards the Green Party as an alternative.'

Nader says it is too soon to say whether or not he will run again, but says the party is aiming for a 'great second leap forward in 2002'. In the short term many Nader activists are taking part in the hundreds of 'democracy demonstrations' going on all over the US in response to the electoral fraud in Florida. 'We're out there showing we stand for real democracy,' says one Nader supporter.