AUGUSTA – Environmental activist Nancy Oden became the first candidate to launch a challenge to Democratic Gov. John Baldacci, declaring Thursday her intention to run for the Blaine House in 2006.

The Jonesboro woman, long affiliated with the Green Party, will instead run as an independent. She said her campaign would provide an alternative to the “tired old retreads in office.”

“You can’t do the same thing time after time and expect things to change,” Oden, 65, told reporters before enrolling in the state’s Clean Elections program, which provides taxpayer dollars to qualified candidates. “We need some real change here, and I know a lot of people who are going to help.”

Under the state’s Clean Elections law, Oden will indeed need some assistance.

To qualify for public funding, she must collect 2,500 donations of $5 each between Nov. 1, 2005, and April 15, 2006. Oden must also earn a spot on the Maine ballot by submitting 4,000 valid signatures to the Secretary of State’s Office by June 1, 2006.

If she meets those requirements – an arduous task, public financing advocates say – she could qualify for a minimum of $600,000. Oden could then receive much more in matching funds for the general election should she – as expected – face privately funded candidates who spend above and beyond that mark.

L. Sandy Maisel, a Colby College government professor and expert on third parties, said the thresholds to qualify for the Maine ballot are too low, especially considering the large amounts of campaign cash being provided by the public.

“What you should have to do is demonstrate a significant level of support,” Maisel said. “Right now, we’re going to give a lot of money to a person who doesn’t have a lot of appeal to the public.”

Oden may not be well known outside of Washington County, but she is no stranger to politics.

She helped run Ralph Nader’s independent presidential campaign in Maine in 2004. She ran as a write-in candidate for governor in 1990 against Democrat Joe Brennan and Republican John McKernan. That year, write-in candidates, including Oden, received a combined 311 votes, or just 0.1 percent of the statewide vote.

Oden’s announcement comes just days after a legislative committee voted to ease restrictions on minor political parties in Maine.

On Monday, the Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee unanimously supported a bill that would remove a requirement that third-party candidates receive 5 percent of the statewide vote in the gubernatorial or presidential race to maintain the party’s official status.

Under the proposed changes, which will go before the House later this session, a party could keep its status by maintaining a membership equal to 1 percent of enrolled voters. In Maine, that’s about 10,000 people.

As of Jan. 1, 2005, the Maine Green Independent Party, the state’s only official third party, had 19,006 members.

While the change would remove the necessity for the Greens to field a top-tier candidate – an expensive endeavor that proved a hardship in the party’s early years – Green officials say times have changed. A run for the Blaine House, they said, is now manageable – and all but certain.

“We’ve evolved to a point where we have a much wider footprint across the state and can focus on a statewide race,” said Matt Tilley, co-chairman of the Greens. “I assume someone will pick up the torch in 2006.”

Oden’s campaign Web site is www.cleanearth.net.