I changed parties one year just so this party could get enough votes to be on Maine's ballot.

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES (GREEN PARTY) - The Green Party -- the informal US-affiliate of the leftist, environmentalist European Greens movement -- is one of the two largest third parties in the nation.

The party regularly fields candidates for local, state and federal offices in many states, and has established active state affiliate parties in nearly all 50 states. The Greens scored a major political points when it convinced prominent consumer advocate Ralph Nader to run as their first Presidential nominee in 1996. Spending just over $5,000, Nader was on the ballot in 22 states and carried over 700,000 votes (4th place - 0.8%). In 2000, Nader raised millions of dollars, mobilized leftist activists and grabbed national headlines with his anti-corporate campaign message.

Nader ignored pleas from liberal Democrats that he abandon the race because he was siphoning essential votes away from Al Gore's campaign -- answering that Gore was not substantially different than Bush and that his own campaign was about building a permanent third party. In the end, Nader was on the ballot in 44 states and finished third with 2,878,000 votes (2.7%) -- seemingly depriving Gore of wins in some key states. More significantly, Nader missed the important 5% mark for the national vote, meaning the party remained ineligible for federal matching funds in 2004. Until 2001, the Greens were largely a collection of fairly autonomous state/local based political entities with only a weak (and sometimes splintered) national leadership structure that largely served to coordinate electoral activities.

That faction -- formerly named the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP) -- was the larger and more moderate of the two unrelated Green parties. The ASGP voted in 2001 to convert from an umbrella coordinating organization into a formal, unified national party organization. Nader made another run in 2004 -- but ran as an Independent. Nader picked a prominent Green leader as his VP runningmate, but Nader's backers were unable to secure the party's endorsement for his 2004 run. Instead, Green Party General Counsel David Cobb of Texas won the Presidential nomination (ballot status in 29 states - 120,000 votes - 6th place - 0.1%).

Cobb argued the party needed to nominate a candidate who openly belonged to the party (note: Nader had never joined) and was pledged to building the party at the local level. Cobb ran what was called a "safe-states" strategy -- a controversial move whereby Cobb only made major efforts to gain votes in states where a strong Green showing would not compromise the ability of the Democratic nominee to defeat Bush in the state. Democrats appreciated the move, but it weakened Cobb's message.

There is much buzz within the Greens of a desire to nominate a woman or person of color for President in 2008


Source

Party Website

I have a bit of treehugger in me I guess.

They have a respectable following in Maine. Maybe it's because we have a lot of trees.

They are big on enviromental issues , which I liked. I felt they at least deserved to be on our ballot. They still field candidates in some of our local elections and in the statewide elections as well.

It seems they have a lot of work to do if they want to make an impact nationwide.

The highest-ranking Greens ever elected in the nation was John Eder, who was a member of the Maine House of Representatives until his defeat on November 7, 2006 and Audie Bock who was elected to the California State Assembly in 1999. The Party has 305,000 registered members in states that allow party registration, as well as thousands of supporters in the rest of the country. During the 2006 elections the party had ballot access in 31 states.