No fanfare, just his hometown Winsted not necessarily quick to embrace its native Nader

Waterbury Republican-American ^ | July 7, 2008 | Jim Moore

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WINSTED — This is the only town in America this year where you could have found, on a recent Monday evening, a presidential candidate out for a walk with a lone reporter.

Eschewing entourage or fanfare, dressed in a plaid shirt and gray slacks with sensible walking shoes, renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader, a Winsted native, briskly strode past milestones of hometown memory, stopping now and then to chat with passers-by.

"Hey, Ralph," one woman hailed, extending her arm in a friendly wave. Several fans approached for handshakes and in one case, a hug to embrace Winsted's most famous son, a consumer champion with a half-century track record that includes lobbying successfully for landmark laws.

Nader's 1965 book on auto safety, "Unsafe at Any Speed," prompted Congress to call him to testify and later unanimously pass the 1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. In 1971, Nader founded Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog group that has grown to more than 140,000 members and is credited with facilitating passage of the Freedom of Information Act and the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Nationally, Nader's consumer and rights activism has faded behind his persona as a repeat third-party presidential candidate, a role that prompts many to dismiss him and a few to label him a vote-stealer. There are Democrats who blame him for spoiling Al Gore's presidential bid in 2000, a notion Nader has repeatedly and flatly rejected.

Winsted has not embraced Nader at the polls: He earned 11 percent of Winsted's vote in 2000, though his next run in 2004 drew just 1.7 percent of the local ballots in a town with about 6,900 registered voters, 53 percent of whom are unaffiliated. Nader, 74, has appeared on presidential ballots since 1992, when he ran in Massachusetts.

There is a car parked near his boyhood home on Hillside Avenue with bumper stickers advertising both Nader and Libertarian candidate Ron Paul, which draws a chuckle from Nader. There are no signs or statutes here to alert a casual observer to the connection between Nader and his hometown.

"Well, I don't go for those things, anyway, so it fits in very well," Nader said. "I came from the right town, from that point of view."

"It just doesn't occur to (townspeople) to do the hometown girl or hometown boy dinners, whereas other towns would look out for that," Nader said. "It's always amused me, sort of, the orneriness of the town."

Longtime residents such as Anthony J. Cannavo, 80, a former mayor and prominent local businessman, attribute Nader's electoral weakness here to his departure in 1963, when, armed with a law degree from Harvard and a penchant for activism, he closed his Hartford law practice, packed a bag and hitchhiked to Washington, D.C., to lock horns with the auto industry over unsafe vehicles.

The town, Cannavo said, is slow to forgive its emigrants.

"That's true of many people who left," said Cannavo. "The positive people left and the people who are negative thinking stayed. The optimists went on to greener pastures."

Kathleen O'Brien, chairman of the town's Charter Revision Commission and a past chairman of the school board and another lifelong local resident, agreed.

"The biggest issue with people, I think, it's that he's not here," O'Brien said. "When I remove myself from Winsted and I meet people and tell them that I know Ralph Nader and he grow up in my hometown, the reaction of real interest and real excitement and, 'you know him?' is just palpable. He seems to be much more appreciated outside of Winsted."

Nader was born in 1934 to Nathra and Rose Nader, Lebanese immigrants who arrived in the United States as teenagers and started a grocery store in Danbury. They later moved to Winsted in search of a clean, country life for their children. They opened a popular local restaurant, the Highland Arms, which became a hub of civic discourse. In 1977, Nathra Nader led a march here to protest Congressional salary hikes. Long before his son entered the political arena, Nathra Nader filed suit attempting to overturn prohibitions against independent voters casting ballots in party primaries.

While his parents get much of the credit for making Nader the man he is today, Nader said the town itself was also full of influences.

"There was never anything in the town that was out of bounds," Nader said as he walked toward Main Street. "The Town Meeting, the County Courthouse ... everything was down to scale. People taking stands on policy on parking or how many plows they should have, and so on."

Nader remains connected to his hometown. He is working to raise the second half of the estimated $6 million required to transform a former Main Street factory into a national museum of tort law, celebrating legal victories over corporate and institutional indifference to the safety and welfare of individuals. He said fundraising has been hampered because deep pocket donors have never heard of Winsted.

"It's hard to shake some of these potential donors from California, Florida, Texas, New York," Nader said. "I said, 'if it's in Washington (D.C.), do you want to add another zero?'"

The Shafeek Nader Trust for the Community Interest, named for his later brother, helped salvage an active community health center from the ashes of Winsted Hospital.

When the hospital closed in 1996, Claire Nader called on her brother for help and Ralph Nader came to town.

"We did a petition," Claire Nader recalled, noting that 12,000 signatures were collected in 12 days demanding a tax break for the hospital in hopes of saving it.

The trust finances a community lawyer's office, donates books to local schools, and champions other causes. Northwestern Connecticut Community College owes its existence in large part to Shafeek Nader, who dreamed of starting a college with a group of friends who met regularly after hours at Highland Arms, calling themselves the "window tappers" after their penchant for knocking on the window to gain late-night admission.

Nader paused in front of the glass door at 412 Main Street, the restaurant's former home.

"How many times I've locked this door," Nader said, his fingers reaching for a metal door handle set in glass, his voice trailing.

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winsted ping

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to transform a former Main Street factory into a national museum of tort law, celebrating legal victories over corporate and institutional indifference to the safety and welfare of individuals.

Old, ugly buildings that nobody will visit even if turned into such a museum. No particular value to Winsted -- how about some new enterprises instead?