>The San Francisco mayoral election is hardly the biggest or most
>significant mayoral election in the nation. As a matter of fact,
>the Democratic Party establishment did more to defeat Green Matt
>Gonzalez than Republican candidates in most elections for governors,
>congressional representatives, etc.
If I lived in SF, I'd probably have voted for Gonzalez. There was little to lose and something to gain. But there's no analogy between that and the U.S. presidential election, where there's something to lose (e.g. Social Security and Medicare) and little to gain.
But now Gonzalez is off the scene, and he didn't leave much of an institutional residue. So even in the best of cases, Greens leave a lot to be desired.
Doug