Nader Gets Strong-Armed

It was last Tuesday, the Gore-Bush debate was in less than an hour, and the commission goons had shut out throngs of media at the gated foot of the JFK Library on the UMass-Boston campus. As calmly as possible given the likelihood of my five-hour-plus car trip proving comically futile, I pleaded my case to the man with the wire in his ear. Sir, no one told me that there was a time restriction on when we could pick up our credentials. Isn't there?

"It's not my call. Sorry."

Each of us was fucked. Now 50 deep, we hollered nevertheless, like dispropriated French landowners trying to get the Committee of Public Safety to honor just one assignat?just mine, I don't care about his. Bloomberg had its entire crew denied. A sweaty Time reporter was shot down. I was on assignment from my college paper, so there was no way they'd give me preferential treatment.

Everyone yelled into his cellphone, either frantically dialing contacts inside the library or morosely telling editors what had happened. The snarls were saved for the commission wehrmacht, those who would keep us?the harbingers of truth and reason!?from gaining access. Expect harsher editorial invective concerning the Commission on Presidential Debates in the future.

And then I saw Ralph Nader, over my shoulder, down the street, motionless. Here's someone who was really kept out of the debate. I walked over to him and introduced myself, figuring I'd cut my losses and cover the Nader exclusion, since the man was standing right there; and 50 yards down the road were hordes of college students screaming his name; and we could always pull AP coverage of the debate.

I tendered my frigid hand to Nader, who shook it like he was a chemo patient. The man had other things on his mind. Although he was holding a ticket to the event given him by a Northeastern student, he was informed that the CPD would simply not let him in.

"It's the arrogance of power," Nader said, occasionally looking up from the floor at the five-person media representation around him. "They're using police blocks to exclude me, even though I have a ticket. It's clearly a political exclusion."

As if by cosmic machination, three Massachusetts state troopers and a Secret Service agent walked up to Nader. The one who did the talking told Nader he had to leave, immediately.

"Gentlemen, I think you're being subjected to carry out an unlawful order," he said. "The CPD is a private body, not representatives of the state of Massachusetts."

The trooper had his orders, nevertheless, and he confirmed that they came from the CPD.

"I'm not here to get in a debate with you," the trooper said.

I swear to you he really said that.

Nader was told if he didn't let the troopers escort him off the premises, he would be arrested for trespassing.

"I've never been arrested, and I'm not going to be arrested," he responded.

His aide piped up that Nader had been invited by Fox to sit in one of the network's trucks and comment on the debate, but before he was finished speaking, the trooper was shaking his head and saying it wasn't an option.

With that, Nader walked away, mumbling to the Secret Service agent that this was the strangest situation he had ever seen. As he boarded the bus they had prepared for him, he said he would take this "to higher levels." Like a broken man, he walked to the back, out of view, talking to himself?a lone voice of reason?about the ticket he held, and the invite extended to him by Fox.

And then they drove away, a private body successful in using public force to keep a presidential candidate as far away as possible from a seat in an auditorium in which one man would talk about fuzzy math and the other about the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. It is next to impossible that the CPD could have legally obtained the court order that would give them grounds to deny Nader access.