Politics Page

In 2000, Ralph Nader asked Amato to be the campaign manager for his first serious run for the U.S. Presidency. She hadn't run any campaign since student council, but starting with less than $40,000, she built a third-party political operation that received more votes than any progressive third- party presidential candidate since 1924 (Fighting Bob LaFollette).

On the 2000 campaign, she met Todd Main, who had run some campaigns and was the Nader 2000 national field director. They teamed up -- and eventually married. Amato then ran Nader's 2004 campaign.

Today, two children and a dozen years later, they run Amato & Main, LLC, to provide consulting services to foundations, nonprofits, good government groups, political candidates and progressive public affairs firms.

For more information on Amato's political activities and book Grand Illusion, The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two Party Tyranny, visit Amatomain.com and the book section of this site. Amato & Main, LLC provides no legal services.

video icon Watch this video of Amato taking on Karl Rove at Harvard's Institute of Politics, February 2001, on the two-party system, starting circa minute 47....

Amato elected to the American Law Institute in 2014.
A new book for The New Press in 2015.
Amato published in Italian Women in Chicago, Madonna mia! QUI debbo vivere?
Amato & Main, LLC host Bob Sullivan, co-author of The Plateau Effect, July 31, 2013.
Amato appears on The Stossel Show with John Stossel on Third Parties on Fox Business, Thursday, 9 p.m. ET, September 13, 2012.
Amato & Main, LLC host Joseph Costello, author of "Of, By For, The New Politics of Money Debt and Democracy," June 23, 2012.
Arab Spring in Oak Park! Amato & Main, LLC host Young Revolutionaries, Legislative Fellows, and Emerging Leaders from Egypt and Morocco visiting on a Heartland International Exchange Program, April 29, 2012.

Italian Women in Chicago, Madonna mia! QUI debbo vivere?
Only One Thing Can Save Us by Thomas Geoghegan.
The Third Coast by Thomas Dyja.
Keynes's Way to Wealth: Timeless Investment Lessons from the Great Economist, by John Wasik.
The Plateau Effect, a book by Bob Sullivan and Hugh Thompson.
Electoral Dysfunction, a book by Victoria Bassetti and the award-winning movie by Bennett Singer and others.
The Power of Habit, Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, a book by Charles Duhigg.
Setting the Table, a book by Danny Meyer.
Elegy for Dead Languages, a book by poet, translator and new media artist, Francesco Levato.
World Wide Rebel Songs, by Tom Morello, The Night Watchman.