Ah, well I think the question you have to ask your answers is: What do Greens have to do with Ralph?
Most Greens (on list) don't seem disturbed by his behavior. Partly, I think they're still smarting from what happened in 2000.
But, it may also be because local activists still have an interest in keeping Green issues on the agenda. A celebrity like Ralph does that for them. Even if it's not an officially Green campaign and presidential run, Ralph's visits on the campaign trail become important points for getting attention, for even meager fundraising, activism, and educating the wider community. Dunno, but I think his run is something Greens think help them, in spite of the Ind. ticket.
In the end, I tend to suspect it's all about heightening the contradictions, in spite of Yoshie's claims that Kerrybot will win. :)
I agree with Jon. It's very likely that Greens are going to siphon votes away from Kerry. I think my friend, who knows a bit about republican strategy, is right. I'm reposting what he's written elsewhere on why Kerry probably won't win:
<quote> "1.) incumbent presidents rarely get defeated. the ones that have in recent memory were defeated through the application of new campaign technologies or tactics that were not quickly adopted by their opponents and a favorable political environment. one without the other doesn't seem to work. reagan beat carter through the use of direct mail and other means of communicating with voters and supporters outside the norm while carter was occupied by iran. bill clinton ran his own war room that set the tone and obviated the tactics bush 1 used against dukakis while bush was ignorant of the economic conditions around him.
2.) in 2002, karl rove set up this 'experiment' in the senate elections to see what kind of campaign would be most effective in this new political environment. he targeted five democratic senate seats and ran different campaigns with different basic themes; one was successful beyond all expectations: the senate campaign in georgia, where saxby chambliss beat war hero max cleland.
john kerry is a perfect foil for bush in this context. if anything, he's more liberal than cleland, and he's taken more liberal stands on national security issues than cleland. chambliss' campaign was waged on an over/under basis -- television ads that relentlessly attacked cleland on national security, basically saying that cleland had served the country well in the military, but had let the country down since 9/11, combined with an enormous grassroots effort to identify and then mobilize republican voters. while everyone is focused on the negative tv ads, republicans have set out to train 52,000 volunteers in the techniques used in georgia in the 17 battleground states. they are very close to achieving that goal.
3.) money: george bush has two advantages in money: first of all, he's raised ~$150 million for use in the primary. 60% of that is scheduled to be used in attack ads, defining kerry in specific ways in those 17 states. those of you who live in florida, missouri, arizona, pennsylvania will get to know john kerry quite intimately (if you brave to turn on your tv!), or at least the version that the bush campaign is selling. john kerry hopes to raise about half that, and he's certainly been eager to respond -- which has signaled that his campaign will be constantly in debt.
secondly, both campaigns will get $75 million to spend after their conventions. but because the republican national convention was pushed into september, kerry has one more month in which he has to use that $75M than bush. iow, kerry will have $25M a month to spend while bush will have $37 a month to spend.
obviously, kerry will try to leave as much as possible to spend at the end, trying to husband his resources in august -- just when bush will have to spend *all* his remaining funds. this used to not matter, because august was vacation month, so people weren't home. but schools start earlier than they used to, so the calculation is that this won't be wasted spending -- plus, if bush can tempt kerry into responding to his attack ads, then they cuts into kerry's resources for the fall.
4.) senators rarely win the presidency. they've got voting records that make them easy targets, their schedules can be easily manipulated when they are in the minority (say, by scheduling a vote on abortion, or something else that they wouldn't want to miss), they tend to make the mistake that running a national campaign is just like running for senate, etc. we've only elected three sitting senators in our history and not one of them has completed even one full term in office. it's just not a good launching pad for the presidency.
those are technical factors that argue against kerry. then you have kerry himself:
1.) kerry has (so far) run his presidential campaign like he has his prior senate campaigns -- on the back of existing state organizations (usually governors') while attacking his opponent relentlessly. this sets up two problems for kerry: he seems to be weak where there is no existing statewide organization for him to utilize (missouri and ohio spring to mind) and it strongly correlates with what bush is trying to do.
the fact that both seem eager to engage in negative campaigning should have the effect of minimizing the electorate. swing voters, infrequent voters, and new voters are all likely to be turned off by the negativity of the campaign, especially since it will be relied upon by both sides. kerry seems to be gambling that he can turn out more supporters than can bush, which seems like quite a gamble to me!
2.) kerry has proven historically to be an uneven campaigner. to beat an incumbent president, you have to build and sustain momentum for some period of time. i can't see kerry himself being able to do that.
obviously, you can do this same kind of analysis on bush and come up with a few factors that don't work in his (bush's) favor (loss of two million jobs, growing uneasiness over iraq, inability for the administration to stay on message or to control the debate -- quick, what was the message of the day last wednesday? -- et al). but bush's hurdles are a lot lower, and easier to overcome..."
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Kelley