There was a sense of accomplishment, if not hope, at Paul Lachelier’s election-night party at the Kirkland Café on Tuesday night. A small group of volunteers gathered around a spread of quesadillas and quiche and talked cheerfully of high voter turnouts for the 26th Middlesex state-representative race. Although they did not realistically expect victory over incumbent Democrat Tim Toomey, Green Party members clearly were hoping for a good showing, somewhere over 30 percent of the vote. A man burst in from Lachelier’s home down the street and declared that thus far, Paul was getting 35 percent. "For Toomey to be entrenched here and for Paul to come in at 35 percent, that’s something," he said.

Lachelier himself appeared soon afterward, about an hour and a half after the polls closed. He thanked his supporters, but quickly cut to the chase: his Green Party ticket received 37.5 percent of the vote. "In some sense, we got our asses kicked," he said. "37.5 percent is by no means a close margin, but if you put it in the perspective of this race, and how I’ve been here a little over two years, we did remarkably well against a competitor who’s been here all his life." Indeed, Toomey has been a devoted son of Cambridge, and has served as state representative in the 26th District, which includes Cambridge and East Somerville, since 1992. Lachelier managed to draw a positive message from the loss: "We got Tim Toomey to talk about issues and to actually start campaigning in a way he hadn’t campaigned in years." Toomey had run unopposed in every election since 1994, but in this campaign, Lachelier called the incumbent out on his State House voting record regarding timely issues like Clean Elections and education.

The evening remained upbeat, and the consensus seemed to be that this was a critical step forward for the Green Party. As for Lachelier’s future, he plans to stick with the Greens. "I think that the attitude that the Green Party needs to take to be serious about winning is to continue the effort, relentlessly campaign, and if we work hard enough, we will win," he said. Lachelier then ducked out to congratulate Toomey at his headquarters nearby, and the remaining supporters turned their attention to the gubernatorial-race results on TV. Shannon O’Brien was trailing Mitt Romney by an alarmingly large gap, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein had just three percent of the vote. "I wish I voted for Jill now," said one of Lachelier’s volunteers, a former progressive Democrat who had been lured to the Greens by the merits of Lachelier’s campaign. "We’re fucked."

The mood at the Kirkland was taking a noticeable nosedive. O’Brien’s concession speech was met with boos and more muttering about wasted votes — on O’Brien’s campaign. Apparently, fear of the "Nader effect" reaches far and wide. It seems that although the Green Party is a legitimate cause in East Somerville and East Cambridge, it hasn’t achieved such status even for its staunchest supporters in a big-time election. Paul Lachelier’s good work might get them there someday, but not just yet.