Democrats and Republicans will have difficulty this fall matching the current animosity between Democrats and Greens. Minnesota Democrats are enraged by a Green challenge to Paul Wellstone. Here, some Baldacci supporters, in a preemptive blame game, have labeled Jonathan Carter a “spoiler.” I am an agnostic as to whether Greens can or should displace Democrats. Nonetheless, it would behoove all progressives to examine races on a case-by-case basis, to articulate their guiding principles, and to seek areas in which Democratsand Greens can collaborate.

I share the Greens’ disappointment with Wellstone. Elected on the promise that he would lead grass- roots efforts to reshape his party, he became a Washington insider consumed in fruitless efforts to lobby Clinton Democrats. Worse still, he supported the misnamed Patriot act. Even so, if I lived in Minnesota I’d vote for Wellstone. He remains an important Senate voice for causes Greens and Democrats share. Greens have a right to challenge even liberal icons, but their nominee, Ed McGaa, supports both the war and dangerous limits on civil liberties. When a third party candidacy simply vents rather than expresses differences of principle, the candidate merits the label “spoiler.”

Democrats, however, also often abuse language. If progressives are expected to hold their noses and vote for “lesser evils” Gore, Lieberman, Baldacci, it would help if the Democrats could delineate the evil. As I view it, the greatest evils are attacks on the right to political dissent or policies that occasion economic collapse. Bush has moved perilously far along the former course, but with almost complete Democratic acquiescence. On economics, mainstream Democrats offer us Hoover era pay-off-the debt nostrums as an answer to Bush. I am not sure where the lesser evil lies.

Here in Maine, it is absurd to portray Peter Cianchette as an “evil.” He would probably be a social moderate with an economic agenda tied to the mainstream business lobby. We have already survived sixteen years of that. Many opportunities have been missed, but the sky did not fall.

Unlike Gore, Baldacci starts with the image of a likeable small businessman. Unencumbered by a controversial boss, he has the election in his hands. Even a Jonathan Carter with $900,000 to spend will derail Baldacci only if the latter cooperates.

Baldacci needs to learn from Gore’s defeat. Even many of Baldacci’s friends regard him as cautious to a fault. He faces a strategic choice. Does he run as a moderate who limits himself to vague “concerns” about accessibility of health care and the tax burden faced by working class Maine citizens or as a progressive Democrat? In the latter role, he would follow the Maine House in embracing single-payer alternatives to a corporate health care model that ships our health care dollars out of state and squanders our resources. And he would acknowledge the burdens of middle income citizens not by further slashing bare- bones schools and services but by broadening the tax base. Why is it that legal, financial, and accounting services already taxed in many states are exempt here?

Bowdoin’s Chris Potholm is famous for the line that in Maine politics, the center holds. I propose an amendment: The center usually holds. In some eras the center is more volatile and less sure where it lies than in others. Health care is in crisis. National polls indicate that many citizens now regard adequate public services funded by fair taxes as more important than tax cuts. Perhaps the center is waiting for a leader to help it redefine itself.

At the very least, Baldacci must offer wavering progressives electoral reforms. Instant Runoff Voting, under which a voter rank orders choices on Election Day, would ease some tensions between third parties and their mainstream rivals. The Nation’s John Nichols comments that: “With an IRV system, if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, weaker candidates with no chance of winning are eliminated and the second-choice votes of their supporters are then counted. In New Hampshire, where George W. Bush defeated Al Gore by 7,241 votes.[with] an IRV system, a substantial portion of the 22,198 New Hampshire voters for. Ralph Nader might well have ranked Nader first and made Gore a grudging second choice in order to prevent a Bush presidency. Had Gore picked up enough second-choice votes to close the gap with Bush, he would have won.” Under such a system, talk of spoilers becomes moot. In addition, all voters have a greater chance of voting for candidates whom they admire. Voter turnout improves.

At some point Republicans may also see their candidates derailed by “social conservatives.” Divisions on both substance and strategy implied in such contests will not soon fade. Nonetheless, voting reforms would allow ideological battles less encumbered by fears about future bogeymen. Perhaps victory or a near miss by a candidate who might be the last choice of all but his loyal cadre might concentrate the minds of mainstream leaders.

John Buell is a political economist who lives in Southwest Harbor. Readers wishing to contact him may e-mail messages to jbuell@acadia.net.