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THE OTHER CANDIDATES
Bad Nader
BY ADAM REILLY
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Back in March, some Green Party activists were warning that Ralph Nader — who was still mulling another presidential campaign — could damage the Green movement by running as an independent (see "Power Broker," News and Features, March 12). Fast-forward five months: Nader is, indeed, running as an independent. And just as predicted, his candidacy is roiling the American Green community. In California, for example, a pro-Nader Green contingent is seeking to give Nader and Peter Camejo — as opposed to David Cobb and Patricia LaMarche, the presidential and vice-presidential nominees of the Green Party of the United States (GP-US) — the Green Party ballot line. The same thing is happening in Utah and Vermont. (These three are not considered swing states; in Missouri, which is, the state Green Party has refused to give any candidate the Green ballot line, in order to avoid siphoning votes from John Kerry.) There’s just one problem with this go-it-alone approach: as a condition of their affiliation with the GP-US, state parties commit to running the national Green nominee. By choosing Nader over Cobb, the California Greens and other state Green parties would risk expulsion from the GP-US — a schism that could do serious harm to the American Green movement. "I don’t know what kind of action we’d have to take if California or any other state rejected our nominees," says GP-US spokesman Scott McLarty. "That would probably be the subject of a very lively discussion.... We support Ralph’s right to compete in the national election. But we don’t believe he can demand Green Party state-ballot lines in opposition to what the national party has decided." Forrest Hill — a California Green who describes himself as the state’s coordinator for the Ralph Nader–Peter Camejo campaign — sees things quite differently. For example, he argues that California, which contains about half the Green voters in the United States, is woefully underrepresented in the party’s nominating process. "It’s very undemocratic," Hill says. "In California, we held a primary, and David Cobb got 12 percent of the vote. Peter Camejo got 73 percent of the vote, and Lorna Salzman got 11 percent, and Lorna and Peter both were Nader supporters." (Before Nader announced his intentions, several Green candidates ran as his "stand-ins," so the party could make Nader its nominee — or, if Nader refused to accept the nomination, could endorse him instead.) Hill and his allies face long odds. With the Green Party of California poised to skip its nominating convention this year, the pro-Nader cadre needs to convince 14 of the state’s 19 steering-committee members to convene an emergency meeting. Then, if 80 percent of California’s 100-odd Green delegates were to back Nader over Cobb, Nader would become the state’s Green candidate. The GP-CA has to submit the name of its presidential candidate to California’s secretary of state by August 26, so time is short. But Hill is optimistic — and he’s sure his cause is just. "In America, if you don’t have a marquee candidate, you’re not putting out your message," he says. "To 95 percent of the electorate, you don’t exist anymore."
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