MAINE’S VICE

It has been more than 35 years since a Maine politician has been on the ticket in a presidential race. Then, as now, the country was divided over a war in a distant land and the presidential election was expected to be extremely close. The difference, however, was that in 1968, Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie was the vice presidential candidate on a major party ticket, that of the Democrats.

This time, Pat LaMarche was chosen as the vice-presidential candidate of the Green Party, one of two third parties with contenders in this fall’s presidential race. Her role, therefore, will be much different from that of Mr. Muskie, who teamed with Hubert Humphrey and lost the popular vote to the Republican Richard Nixon-Spiro Agnew ticket by less than 1 percent. In that race, third party candidate George Wallace, a southern governor and opponent of desegregation, won more than 13 percent of the popular vote.

In this race, Ms. LaMarche and Green presidential candidate David Cobb are keen to avoid the role of spoiler, a mantle still borne by Ralph Nader, who in 2000 was the Green Party presidential candidate and who many blame for handing a victory to George Bush by draining votes away from Democrat Al Gore. This year, Mr. Nader was also hoping for the Green endorsement, but party members wisely chose to field their own ticket.

Mr. Nader will now have a harder time getting on the ballot because his party, the Reform Party, is not recognized in most states and therefore doesn’t have automatic access to the ballot.

Mr. Cobb and Ms. LaMarche have made it clear that they will be careful not to take votes away from the presumptive Democratic nominee, John Kerry. Although the Green Party will campaign in all 50 states, it will not do so aggressively in the dozen or so swing states. In fact, Ms. LaMarche said Tuesday that she likely wouldn’t vote for herself if it meant George W. Bush would stay in the White House.

Although it is hard to take seriously a candidate whose message is “vote for someone else,” the Green Party strategy is praised by some political analysts as providing a way for the party to build support for Green candidates for local and statewide offices while not being viewed as affecting the outcome of the presidential election. On the other hand, some party faithful are upset that their candidates will not be running to win as many votes as possible.

Political observers believe the Cobb/LaMarche ticket will not affect the outcome of the presidential race in Maine or the nation. Still, having the charismatic LaMarche on the ticket will help raise the profile of the party and its growing field of candidates.