NADER FADES IN POLLS BUT DRAWS CROWDS

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 23 - The main act came dressed in a wrinkled blue
suit, file folders tucked under his arms. As he stepped onto the
stage, squinting into the klieg lights, he looked more like an
accountant than a performer. Yet the 12,000 boisterous fans who paid
$7 each to get inside the Target Center erupted like teenagers at a
Smashmouth concert, chanting his name and waving signs that read, "Let
Ralph Debate."

Ralph Nader, superstar?

Yes, Mr. Nader, the Green Party candidate for president, is getting
plenty of star treatment these days. Though he has been locked out of
the presidential debates, struggling for media attention and fading in
many polls, he has managed to attract huge and adoring crowds in the
college towns and union strongholds he has visited in recent weeks.

Last week, as part of his "nonvoter tour" of the Midwest, Mr. Nader
addressed capacity audiences of 1,800 in Madison, Wis., and 1,000 in
Flint, 1,200 in Ann Arbor and 1,700 in East Lansing, Mich. Last month,
he drew more than 10,000 fans in Portland, Ore., in what his campaign
claimed was the largest political rally for any candidate this year -
until last night.

To Mr. Nader and his supporters, those crowds are clear evidence that
his campaign has finally gained steam, building a movement of
disaffected voters - one might call them angry white liberals - that
will put the Green Party on the political map.

"To the spinners and handlers of the major parties who would dismiss
us as a distraction, we want you to know we will not go away," Phil
Donahue, the former talk-show host and a Nader supporter, told the
Target Center crowd last night.

But it is the paradox of the Nader campaign that as his crowds have
grown, his poll numbers have shrunk. When once Mr. Nader seemed headed
to break double digits in vital states like California, he has dropped
below 5 percent there and in most other states.

And suddenly, Democrats who not long ago feared he would undermine
Vice President Al Gore are increasingly viewing Mr. Nader as a storm
whose thunder has passed.

"I think Nader is fading," said Amy Isaacs, national director for
Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal group that has endorsed Mr.
Gore. Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster, said, "The Nader vote has
really collapsed, and that is another indication that Democrats are
coming home to Gore."

Odd as it might sound, Mr. Nader does not mind that Mr. Gore's
supporters are feeling so confident. For months, he has battled the
perception that a vote for him would essentially be a vote for the
Republican nominee, Gov. George W. Bush.

So, Mr. Nader now asserts, if the race begins to seem like a runaway,
many liberals and independent voters will feel freer to vote for him.
And for that reason, Mr. Nader and his supporters have begun telling
audiences not to worry, because Mr. Gore is going to win anyway.

The filmmaker Michael Moore, who has been touring with Mr. Nader, put
it this way: "This podium I'm leaning on is smarter than George W.
Bush," he told a crowd at Michigan State University on Thursday. "You
have to trust me on this one. He is not going to win."

The crowd roared, but not everyone was convinced. "I really want to
vote for him," Pat Lee, 53, who teaches at a prison near East Lansing,
said of Mr. Nader. "But I really don't want Bush to be president."

Ed Garvey, a lawyer in Madison who ran for governor of Wisconsin on
the Democratic line in 1998, admires Mr. Nader so much that he
appeared with him in Madison this week. But Mr. Garvey said he would
vote for Mr. Gore because he believed the race would remain tight to
the end.

If his recent events are any indication, Mr. Nader has no plans to
slink quietly into the night. At every stop, he slashes at Mr. Gore's
credibility, using language that might make a Republican blush. In
Lansing, the vice pres ident is "forked-tongued, Pinocchio-nosed Al
Gore." In Minneapolis, he is "a certified political coward." In
Milwaukee, he is an "identity thief," guilty of stealing Mr. Nader's
populist oratory.

But if Mr. Nader can sound like the Republicans in attacking Mr.
Gore's character, his platform is a smorgasbord of liberal ideas.

He would place a moratorium on federal death penalty cases, push for
decriminalizing marijuana and increase federal drug treatment
programs. He would require public financing of campaigns and same-day
voter registration.

He would also seek to establish universal health care and a guaranteed
minimum income. He would abolish the Taft-Hartley Act, which prohibits
certain kinds of labor organizing. He would step up enforcement of
federal civil rights and antitrust laws, and work to "end corporate
welfare as we know it." And he would cut the military budget by a
third, push for the complete dismantling of the nation's nuclear
forces and bring all American troops home.

And unlike the two major-party candidates, Mr. Nader would do nothing
to the Social Security system, which he argues is in sound shape. Talk
of the system being in crisis is "a hoax," he says.

Winona LaDuke, a Native American activist from Minnesota who is Mr.
Nader's running mate, brings her own agenda to the ticket. She has
proposed a "seventh generation" Constitutional amendment that would
require federal officials to consider the impact of all decisions on
seven generations to come. She also advocates the return of all
federal lands improperly seized from Indian tribes and payment of
reparations to descendants of slaves.

With his left-tilting platform and shoestring budget, Mr. Nader is not
out to win any states; his goal is to take 5 percent of the vote
nationwide, a figure that would entitle the Green Party to millions in
federal matching funds for the 2004 campaign.

To do that, he plans to focus his energies on states where either Mr.
Bush or Mr. Gore holds a commanding lead.

Nader events always draw eclectic crowds of ex-hippies with graying
ponytails, well-dressed professionals, purple-haired 20-somethings and
blue-jeaned union activists.

As one might expect, his campaign is loose-knit to the point of
disorganization. Planes and meetings are routinely missed or almost
missed.

"The Greens, they think we photosynthesize," Tarek Milleron, Mr.
Nader's nephew and travel companion, said with a touch of disgust
after campaign volunteers forgot to provide lunch on Wednesday.

At another point during the tour, Mr. Donahue asked Mr. Nader and his
aides for advice about how to handle a radio interview. When no one
answered, Mr. Donahue said with some exasperation, "It's hard to march
without orders."

Though a funny man in private, Mr. Nader, 66, makes little effort to
indulge in the small gestures of politicking, like mingling with
supporters or making small talk with voters. Neither does he try to
soften his sometimes sharp-edged manner or warm up his cool,
intellectual demeanor in quest of votes.

Mr. Nader rarely takes time to work the crowds. Asked why, he replied:
"Bishops do that. This is deliberative democracy."

Yet many people at his events this week seemed to get just what they
had come for: bristling indignation with American politics, sweeping
ideas about how to fix it and strong advice about how to vote.

"I'm fed up with voting for the lesser of two evils," said John
Sherman, 61, a coordinator for a food cooperative in Minneapolis, as
he left the Target Center last night. "I think it's time to make a
statement."