Nader rally to hit Long Beach

By Jennifer Umaña
Daily Forty-Niner

Less than a week before voters chose the next leader of the free world, a super rally will be held in Long Beach to support Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

The super rally will be held Friday at the Long Beach Arena. Green Party candidates Medea Benjamin for U.S. Senate and Sara Amir for State Assembly, 42nd District, will join Nader at the event.

Several special guests are also scheduled to attend. Former talk show host Phil Donahue will give a speech. Political cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, who draws "This Modern World," will present a giant video cartoon. And musicians Patti Smith and Michelle Shocked will be headlining after 8 p.m., said Heather Priest, a volunteer for the Nader 2000 campaign.

Performance artists "Billionaires for Gore or Bush," the comedy group Culture Clash, and poet/actor Saul Williams are scheduled to perform, in addition to performances by several as-yet-to-be-determined local bands and poets, all starting at 6 p.m.

Besides the music that will be flowing through the arena, the attendees' other senses can be delighted by other goodies that will be available.

"There will be tables with about 50 different organizations selling campaign T-shirts and food," Priest said.

Woody Hastings, the Southern California Nader 2000 campaign coordinator, said that these organizations include the Long Beach Greens and other Green Party allies, such as environmental and social justice groups.

Saundra McMillan, Cal State Long Beach professor of film and electronic arts, who works for the campaign and helped bring the presidential candidate to campus this past September, is assisting in the rally.

McMillan said the organizers are hoping to fill the arena to its capacity of 13,000.

The Long Beach super rally will be the second-to-last rally in a series that began Aug. 26, at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Ore. That rally drew a crowd of 10,571, according to votenader.com. The final rally will be held in Washington D.C. on Nov. 5, two days before the election.