In Maine, Jonathan Carter is a household name. For a decade he has run electoral campaigns and referendums on forestry issues. So when he ran for governor this year with $900,000 in Clean Elections money and good media coverage, state and national Greens alike expected great things.
But only 9.2 percent of Mainers voted for Carter this year, just 2 percent over his previous low-budget campaigns. The question many Greens are asking is "why?" The three-part answer says a lot about why people don't vote Green and what Greens need to do to encourage them.
First, a fault line existed between the Jonathan Carter for Governor campaign and the Maine Green Independent Party. Neither believes it got support from the other. Each blames the other for Carter's unexpectedly poor showing.
"Time and again we'd put out a call for volunteers and nobody would show up," said Communications Director Johanna Hill. "I think it would have made a huge difference if we'd had the people." But longtime Maine Green Pat LaMarche countered, "The Green Party faithful didn't think he was one of them." And veteran Maine Green Nancy Allen added, "growing the Green Party needs to be the major focus of a campaign. Carter did not get this." So when the time came for volunteers to hit the pavement, the Carter campaign walked alone.
Second was the candidate himself. Greens both inside the campaign and out described Carter as someone who couldn't delegate authority and who believed that running on issues alone would be enough to win.
"He'd run a lot of campaigns, but he never won one," said LaMarche.
Often, critics say Carter balked at even the simplest professional advice, like changing his speaking style to seem less condescending to voters.
Long before this campaign, Carter's opponents in the paper industry had effectively put him in a box labelled "extremist." It was a label Carter did not shake off during the course of the campaign.
The campaign hired a pollster who told Carter he had strong personal negatives to overcome, but the candidate ignored that advice, critics say. The result? He "got his message out," but voters weren't listening because they didn't like the messenger.
Last, in a state in which both Republicans and Democrats run competitively, Carter found that the spoiler issue had traction.
"I talked to a number of people who said ‘I went into the voting booth intending to vote for Carter and voted for (John) Baldacci (the Democratic candidate) instead,' " said Campaign Manager Tom Fusco.
And Fusco believes that voters couldn't see the point of a Green governor when no one in the state legislature is a Green.
The bottom line: "Running locally and for the state legislature is very important," he said.
