Nader Chooses Former SF Pol as Running Mate

Green Party stalwart Matt Gonzalez rounds out independent ticket
By Amy Wilkinson,  Newser User
Posted Feb 28, 2008 4:35 PM CST

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader today selected Matt Gonzalez as his running mate, the San Francisco Business Times reports. Gonzalez, 42, was elected San Francisco supervisor on the Green Party ticket in 2000, with the famously hippy Haight-Ashbury neighborhood part of his district. A last-minute campaign for mayor in 2003 saw him lose by less than 15,000 votes.

Dubbed a "floppy-haired, slump-shouldered champion of the counterculture" by the Christian Science Monitor, Gonzalez championed a boost in minimum wage, didn't own a car and played bass in a band. "I have no illusions about what's happening here today," Gonzalez said of the ticket's chances, though "I've never entered a political contest with the idea that it couldn't be won." (More Ralph Nader stories.)

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