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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) ― In a historic national presidential campaign that has shunted third-party candidates from the spotlight, San Franciscans may have forgotten that one of their own is making a bid for the vice presidency.

Former San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez, running with independent candidate for president Ralph Nader, was in the Bay Area on Friday as the pair continue their national campaign, having made the ballot in 45 states.

"It's been quite an experience," the 43-year-old Gonzalez reflected.
Gonzalez said he has been impressed by the support their campaign has received, including in economically depressed areas in parts of Ohio and Michigan.

"It's been quite amazing to see articulate people that are struggling, who have finally reached a place to say, what we're doing (as a country) is not working," he said.

A Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Friday showed national support for Nader remains at 2 percent, though the highest of the third-party candidates.

Gonzalez, a former Green Party member who narrowly lost a San Francisco mayoral bid to Gavin Newsom in 2003, said he became an independent to run with Nader, best known for his work as a consumer advocate and his runs for the presidency in 2000 and 2004.

"I've learned a lot from him," Gonzalez said.

"Ralph is someone I have enormous respect and admiration for. I've
also seen him stand up to some pretty illogical criticisms."

"I am embarrassed for people who look at Ralph and think he owes them an apology for the Bush years," said Gonzalez, adding that he felt that view was "pretty anti-intellectual."

"It's been astounding to me that there hasn't been a more critical appreciation for the candidates who stand up for what we believe in ... and yet they don't hold the other candidates accountable for these issues," he said.

The Nader-Gonzalez campaign has placed an emphasis on election reform, environmental regulation and investment in clean, alternative energies, equal pay for workers, tougher restrictions on corporations, cutting the national military budget, and instituting a national health care system similar to that of Canada.

The exclusion of third-party candidates from this year's televised debates has particularly rankled Nader and Gonzalez.

The Commission on Presidential Debates—a private corporation, Gonzales noted—sets the rules for who is allowed to participate. Invitees had to have at least 15 percent national support as determined by selected polling.

Said Gonzalez, "It's difficult when you have to confront the fact that the media very much presents the televised debates as if it's some kind of League of Women Voters-presented forum."

The primary message of the Nader-Gonzalez campaign, Gonzalez stressed, was to present the problems of the nation as "a bipartisan problem," the result of a two-party system that excludes others, he said.

"We're desperately in need of election reform," said Gonzalez.

As he sees it, Republicans and Democrats "don't really want to fix
the problem, they're happy being elected to office half the time."

"The economic crisis was not a Republican occurrence," he said, noting that laws that led to deregulation were also signed by Democrats. He also pointed out Democratic support for funding the war in Iraq, for the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Gonzalez said it was "hard to imagine how voting for things like that is going to change the culture of Washington."

He did concede it looked as if the Democrats were poised to win the election.

"There's nothing wrong with the message of change, and changing how business is done in Washington, it's just that we feel the candidates coming out of the two major parties really don't have the standing to make this change," he said.

"We don't have an opposition party that knows how to fight," he charged.

"The evolution of rights starts because some people want to break away and do it differently," said Gonzalez.

"It's been a challenging campaign, obviously, but it has also been very rewarding to see many people are asking the difficult questions," and advocating for issues like health care and decent wages, said Gonzalez.

Asked if it was difficult representing progressive San Francisco to the rest of the nation, Gonzalez replied, "San Francisco is an interesting town because we oftentimes get upset when supervisors engage in 'foreign policy' ... but what we don't realize is our city is a major entity in this country, and there's no reason we should abdicate how we feel about major issues."

Expressing personal pride in the campaign he and Nader have waged, Gonzalez wouldn't speculate about what the future might hold for him.

"I don't have any plans to run for any political office," he said, adding, "I didn't have a plan to be in this contest."

Gonzalez is scheduled to speak Friday night at the University of California, Berkeley, along with musician and activist Jello Biafra.

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