AUGUSTA – Pat LaMarche, the Green Party’s nominee for vice president of the United States, urged Americans on Tuesday to get involved in the political process to ensure the defeat of President Bush in November.

“Anyone who cares about their community, their town, their state and their nation should know that this year – more than any other year in my lifetime – we need you to become involved and pick up the mantle of politics,” LaMarche said. “We own our government and our government has been taken away from us in so many ways. We need to take it back.”

LaMarche said she was not worried that her ability to draw votes in Maine could potentially weaken the Democratic nominee’s standing in Maine and deliver a re-election victory for the president.

“I know that it was not our fault that Ralph Nader polled well last time,” she said. “Six million Democrats voted for the Republican. So I wish someone would explain that.”

Speaking to reporters at the State House, LaMarche returned this weekend from the Green Party’s national convention in Milwaukee, Wis., where she was selected to share the top of the ticket with presidential nominee David Cobb, a Texas lawyer.

The 43-year-old single mother from Yarmouth was flanked by her two children, Becky, 18, and John, 17, who she said symbolized the single driving force that prompted her to seek the second-highest office in the country for the Greens.

“It is because of my children and the way I feel about them that I worry about children in the rest of the world,” she said. “If we don’t take action and make sure that we handle things properly in this extremely dangerous election year, the children of this country and of the world will not have the fate that they should.”

LaMarche, an Augusta radio personality who expects to be leaving her broadcasting job soon to campaign full time, said she was encouraged two months ago by Green Party officials to pursue the vice presidential post. A 1998 Green Independent Party gubernatorial candidate in Maine, LaMarche won 7 percent of the vote with a campaign war chest of about $20,000. Although Gov. Angus King was re-elected, LaMarche secured official party status for the Greens in Maine by garnering more than 5 percent of all ballots cast.

A former supporter of Ralph Nader, the Greens’ presidential candidate in 2000, LaMarche was inclined this year to have the party pass on endorsing a presidential candidate after Nader said he would not accept the party’s nomination. Instead, the consumer rights advocate wanted the Greens to endorse his candidacy to guarantee his right to appear on the ballot in states where the Greens are recognized as an official party.

In many states, LaMarche said, the Greens’ official party status demands that they run a presidential candidate and that failing to have a national candidate could endanger the party’s legitimacy. To a lesser degree, another factor in LaMarche’s decision pivoted on the perception that nominating Nader, or even endorsing him, placed the party in a potential spoiler position in what is expected to be a close presidential race.

In 2000, President Bush and Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore faced a hotly contested showdown in Florida in a disputed ballot count that remains a sensitive issue between the parties today. Although Bush won the state’s Electoral College votes, critics claimed the politically progressive Nader drew votes away from Gore, who they maintain won the popular vote.

Maine is now perceived as a battleground state for President Bush and Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

“I wrestled long and hard with the possibility that I could do more harm than good in absolutely everything I do,” LaMarche said Tuesday. “I don’t think that progressives staying home or feeling alienated will help anything. I hope people understand that Bush, in my opinion, is definitely the worst president of my lifetime and possibly the worst president in the history of the United States.”

Claiming President Bush has the potential to cause “irreparable, incredible damage” in the world, LaMarche said she felt duty-bound to deliver her message to as many people as possible.

“Then people can go out and do what they think is best,” she said. “That’s the best that I can do. I will never encourage anyone to cast a vote that will get President Bush elected. No – ‘re-elected’. Well, I guess ‘elected’, because he wasn’t elected the first time.”