This really isn’t about Nader supporters. Cavlan was peddling his “You Were Warned” shtick months before Nader declared.

“All of us former Greens are not coming back. We tried to fix things after the 2004 election (I was fooled by David Cobb and was a Delegate in Milwaukee) and will not be fooled again.”

Let’s see…the National Committee formally repudiated “safe states”, passed proportional representation of delegates in our Presidential primaries and caucuses, and reformed the NC’s own delegate apportionment system. The vote on the apportionment was a cliffhanger, and I personally made phone calls to delegates that helped put it over the top.

We came out of the Green Party’s Annual National Meeting in 2007 with a sense of unity and purpose that I had not seen in years. Greens were looking forward to building our state parties and picking up a lot more ballot lines in 2008.

Out of the blue, Cavlan launched an attack on Phil Huckelberry, who was the most popular of the newly elected Steering Committee members. Among others things, Cavlan accused him of being soft on the Democrats for several reasons, one of which was that he got into a two-way race with a Republican.

Huckelberry was too busy to recruit a Democrat to run against himself that year because he was running the Illinois Greens statewide petition drive. His state party collected 39,400 signatures in 90 days, and defeated the frivolous Democratic party challenge to their petition. Rich Whitney, who was the Green candidate for Governor, went on to get 10% of the vote, securing the Greens’ ballot line until 2010.

Thanks in large part to Huckelberry, the Greens had their first Presidential primary in Illinois in 2008 and ran many more candidates than they otherwise would have.

Unfortunately, Cavlan and his pals were just getting started. For months, the National Committee was under siege by one manufactured “controversy” after another. Huckelberry drew up plans for state parties to help each other get on the ballot. Liz Arnone, who was Cavlan’s favorite Steering Committee member, panned the idea on the grounds that both the national and state parties lacked the resources to help (even though her party needed only 800 signatures to get on the ballot!). She was too busy with her witch hunts for “Demogreens”

Cavlan and his pals were fond of attacking the other SC members, but they never presented an alternative program for the party. Instead of helping to build smaller state parties, they spent their time attacking them as “paper states”.

Most of the Destructo-Greens are gone now, but they really did a number on our party before they left. So many good Greens have been driven out of the party over the years by their antics.

It’s really telling that Cavlan continues to hijack every thread related to progressive third parties to attack the Greens. Typical sectarian leftism, spending 99% of his time attacking others on the left.

Connecticut has some public financing, but it’s given out on a discriminatory basis, so it may be easier to run as an independent than as a Green. Then again, that might be what convinces Nader to run on the Green line, so he can gain standing for a legal challenge to Connecticut’s separate-but-equal public financing law. The man has put up a valiant fight against anti-democracy laws in recent years.

An Unreasonable Man was an excellent documentary.

Ralph Nader running against Dod for US Senate is a fantastic idea.

As an Independent, not as a Green.

The answer to the question I put out about disenfranchised Nader supporters former Greens is not, has not and frankly never will be addressed by the GP.

All of us former Greens are not coming back. We tried to fix things after the 2004 election (I was fooled by David Cobb and was a Delegate in Milwaukee) and will not be fooled again.

Fool me once, shame on you
Fool me twice, shame on me
Fool me again and I am not being fooled at all

THAT has been our lesson..

I appreciate your tenacity. I don’t think most of America realizes they have more options than they are lead to believe. All it takes is a small amount of research. Have you seen the Ralph Nader documentary, “An Unreasonable Man”? It’s very good.

I suggest those that don’t have much of an understanding of Ralph Nader should take a look at it. It would do you a world of good.

Chris Dodd is now known as the Democrat who took hundreds of thousands from AIG, then put in a loophole that let them use taxpayer money for executive bonuses. He’s become the personification of what Nader calls the “corporate occupation of our federal government”, and a high-profile Green run against him could make people finally get the difference between Greens and the corporate duopoly.

He wasn’t the Green Party’s Presidential candidate. That pretty much explains it.

I’d like to see Ralph Nader run as a Green for Senate against Dodd in 2010, but even more so against Sore Loserman in 2012.

Do you folks trying to encourage Nader (or his supporters) to run as a Green in the US Senate race there just not comprehend the level of disenfranchisment from former Greens who have left the GP over this?

I am assuming not. Not that you all seemed to care in the least in the last election cycle.

If he could raise $4 million for U.S. Senate race in Conn…That might make it a race.

What to the Conn opinion polls say about a Nader(G) /Dodd(D)/and (R)other party race?

Dodd does appear to have worn out his welcome.

Especially relevant for those of us involved in breaking past the two party duopoly.

However, do not expect idiots such as Gary or Paleo Pat to have the common political sense to understand that.

There are two kinds of people involved in working past the two party system. Visionaries and crackpots.

Gary, Catholic Trotskyist and Paleo Pat belong firmly in the crackpot side of the ledger.

Seconded. I wish Ralph would direct his energies into party-building, instead of spearheading strong presidential runs that sputter out after election day.

If there are any Connecticut Greens out there, please make an effort to draft Nader to run for Senate against AIG bribe-taker Chris Dodd. I know he’s got his eye on the oval office, but this is a seat he could win, and a senate campaign would still be a bully pulpit for the national issues that he cares about.

Well how the hell are you?

You sound like the same old Ralph Nader groupie as always.
LOL
That is what those old Greenie Meanies called you.

For the record folks, Liz Arnone is a former c0-chair of the GP

What does it take for Americans to wake up to what goes on in our government? And how corporations are ruining the planet and lives around the globe?

I wouldn’t hold my breath in hopes that Obama will pull us out of this mess. He’s too embedded with the people who got us in this mess. His hands are tied, but not ours. We’re the only hope there is. And I would put my money on Ralph and his efforts every time.

Liz