Spoiling for success: in New Mexico, the Green Party costs the Democrats a Congressional seat.

• Author: Nichols, John

Colorado Governor Roy Romer, the grizzled political veteran Bill Clinton put in charge of the Democratic National Committee, throws off soundbites about the Lincoln Bedroom, the Chinese connection, and Paula Jones with easy confidence.

But ask him about the Green Party tactic of running against Democrats in competitive electoral contests and you'd better be ready for a grumbling diatribe about political responsibility, "spoiling elections," and practical politics.

"People are talking about how they cost us that seat in New Mexico," Romer growls. "I'll tell you something: They got a lot of Democrats angry. They certainly got people's attention."

Romer is talking about the May 13 special election that filled the U.S. House seat vacated by former U.S. Representative Bill Richardson, the Democrat from New Mexico, whom Clinton appointed as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Richardson's northern New Mexico seat was one of the safest pieces of Democratic political turf in the nation.

But on election day, the Santa Fe-based seat fell to the Reverend Bill Redmond, a Republican whose ties to the religious right had consigned him to also-ran status in his previous forays into politics. Redmond won the race over moderate Democrat Eric Serna by a 43-to-40 margin. The remaining 17 percent of the vote went to Carol Miller, a former officer of the U.S. Public Health Service who ran on the Green line.

The willingness of the Greens to cost the Democrats a high-stakes special election has sparked a heated national debate about third-party strategies for advancing progressive politics.

The debate points up a profound difference on the left end of the American political spectrum. Some claim that it is irresponsible to undermine campaigns by credible, if imperfect, Democrats when the result will be the election of conservative Republicans.

This is the position of the New Party, a left-of-center grouping whose members sometimes run as Democrats. It takes a dim view of spoiling, arguing that, for the time being at least, progressives need to work "both inside and outside the Democratic Party."

But 1996 Green Party Presidential candidate Ralph Nader rejects the no-spoiling line. "It's impossible to spoil something that is already rotten to the core," he says.

Cooperation with the Democrats, in the form of a "stay-clear" rule in competitive races, has not advanced the progressive cause, argue a growing number of Greens. The answer, they say, is to offer a clear...