Nader and the Green Party had celebrated successful "super rallies" in Minneapolis and Boston, but the turnout still came as a surprise. Organized just two weeks before, the rally relied on volunteers who had a handful of days to pound the pavement, hand out flyers and drive decorated vans throughout Manhattan. Some supporters were concerned that $20 a ticket was too much -- other Nader rallies had charged as little as $7.

But nobody seemed to mind shelling out the extra bucks (it's New York, we're used to it) and when it came time to toss a few more into the cardboard donation boxes, folks wrote checks, thinned their wallets and emptied the change from their pockets.

It was a thoughtful, respectful audience: teenagers and the elderly, the man who has vowed to fast from Sept. 30 until Nader is allowed to debate, men still in their business suits, those sporting green sweaters or shirts declaring "I lived through an era of unparalleled prosperity and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" along with the ubiquitous "Bush and Gore Make Me Wanna Ralph," some with dyed green hair and multiple piercings and others looking as quiet and conservative as a devoted churchgoer. They got a lot more than just Nader for their money.

After a taped message from running mate Winona LaDuke (absent that evening), Phil Donahue strode onto a stage littered with potted trees and was greeted with a standing ovation. But the legendary TV talk-show host, whose show seemed dedicated to "healing," is now trying to incite his audiences. When blinding white lights would flash above him, he had the fleeting aura of an evangelical preacher who'd finally found his way.

He brought up a few of the central issues of the night: the need for universal healthcare, the evils of corporate mergers and the failed war on drugs. "If you fall while ice skating, you're covered in Canada because you're Canadian. Ask Canadians if they want to swap with us," he said. "The New York Times owns the Boston Globe. The Chicago Tribune owns the Los Angeles Times. How will they blow whistles on huge corporations when they themselves are one?" he asked. And, he said, "Ralph Nader wants to end the rootin' tootin' Wild West of the war on drugs."

He then introduced Mark Dunau, the Green Party's candidate for New York's contested U.S. Senate seat -- a small guy who punctuated his statements with an angrily pointed finger. "Rick Lazio and Hillary Clinton are corporate lawyers. We need corporate lawyers as U.S. senators like we need a hole in the head," he said. Dunau, by contrast, is an organic farmer.

Before Donahue introduced Company Flow, a hip-hop group ("You look up a picture of hip-hop in the dictionary and you see a picture of me," the onetime daytime king joked) he attacked the notion -- promulgated by many Democrats -- that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. "One hundred million adults chose to stay at home in the last election. That's 51 percent. Ralph Nader is looking at that 100 million who stayed at home. In the last four years, 3 million people became eligible to vote. A vote for Nader isn't a vote for Bush. These are new voters."

Then lefty gadfly Michael Moore, donning a green baseball cap, came on stage to incredible applause and verve -- even the sleepy couple from Park Slope, Brooklyn, sitting next to me jumped from their seats at the sight of him.

"Last week in the debate, I think the moderator Jim Lehrer summed it up for me," Moore said. "Lehrer said, 'Welcome Governor Bush and welcome Vice President Bush ... uh ... I mean, Gore.'"

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