Green out: dead party walking.

• Author: St. Clair, Jeffrey
• Position: Election 2004: Green Analyses

Buried in the ossuary of road-kill from the November election you will find all that remains of the once brawny Green Party, now splattered into a micro-stain on the electoral scorecard with evidence of its passing barely detectable by even the most expert political forensic scientist. The Green Party, notorious spoiler of Democratic aspirations in 2000, not only wasn't a factor in this election; its very existence was scarcely mentioned by the press ... or by anyone else.

This sorry state of play was hardly surprising since the Green Party's presidential candidate, a mortician-like lawyer named David Cobb, told CounterPunch that he wasn't the least bit concerned about how many votes might come his way on Election Day.

Well, mission accomplished, Commander Cobb. And, in case you missed it, you and your running mate, Pat LaMarche, only convinced a mere 106,264 voters nationwide to pull your lever or punch your chad.

By contrast, Ralph Nader, rejected by the Greens in favor of Cobb, vilified by the Democrats and denied ballot status in such key states as California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Oregon, still pulled in 503,534 vote, nearly five times Cobb's microscopic accumulation.

Cobb was also trounced by Michael Badnarik, the California computer programmer who replaced Harry Browne at the head of the Libertarian ticket this year. On the ballot in 49 states, the vocally anti-war Badnarik got 360,000 votes. Cobb's dismal showing now puts the Greens in the catacombs of third party politics, resting in a musty chamber beneath even the Constitutionalist Party, whose candidate, Michael Allen Petrouka, received 131,000 votes from 36 states.

Throughout the summer and fall, David Cobb kept reiterating that the presidential race wasn't that important. Instead, his campaign was meant to be a vehicle for party building, Green-speak for raising money, winning ballot access and aiding other Green candidates down the ticket.

A similar wipeout took place in state and local races, once the embryonic stem cells meant to fuel the growth of the nascent Party. The Greens were consistently outperformed by Libertarians, Constitutionalists, Independents, and Socialists.

For example, in Oregon, once a bastion of the Green Party, the Greens could only muster up six candidates for election across the entire breadth of the state. They didn't field a candidate for any of the state's five congressional races--despite the fact that incumbents were a lock to win all of them...