Greens Take Root in New Mexico Politics

Talking animatedly about the moral bankruptcy of the two major political parties, Bob Anderson, Green Party candidate for Congress, abruptly stopped. He was having a bankruptcy crisis of his own: He’d ordered a soda and couldn’t pay for it.

An inspection of his well-worn wallet revealed no bills and rummaging through his pants pockets yielded no coins. A campaign volunteer scrounged $2 and handed it to Anderson, a union organizer and college professor who paid and never missed a beat in his dissection of the state’s major political issues.

So it goes for the Greens: under-funded, overlooked and out-machined. They are nevertheless the spoilers in New Mexico politics. Although the party has yet to elect a candidate to statewide office, Green candidates have influenced the outcome of important races, often at the expense of Democrats.

Nationally, the Democrats are so concerned about what they view as the Green incursion into their constituency that House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt personally called Anderson to beg him to pull out of the race, lest the incumbent Republican, Heather Wilson, prevail over Democrat Phil Maloof and help ensure continued GOP control of the House.

Anderson declined to quit, as have numerous other Green candidates who have been pressured to abdicate in deference to the big two parties. Although they represent only 1% of the registered voters in New Mexico, the Greens often poll in double figures. Candidates from the two major parties have taken note, and in some case co-opted Green issues and ideas.

No longer focused on “tree-hugger” issues, Greens in New Mexico spend more time talking about health care, living wages and government waste than the environment.

State Democrats speak of Green voters as lost lambs who have strayed from the party while Republicans are delighted to reap the benefits of an election split three ways. Since their breakthrough in 1994, when a Green candidate polled 11% in a three-way gubernatorial race, the Greens have qualified to be on the ballot without having to gather petitions. The party has been most active in vying for the state’s three congressional districts, and this fall their role is being watched in two very competitive races.

“Yes, the races have been close, but we’re doing well in recent polls,” said Fred Harris, Democratic state chairman. “The Greens aren’t that damaging to us. [But] we’d like to have their voters, who may be Democrats.”

An example of Green muscle came last year in a special election to fill a vacancy in the 3rd Congressional District in the northern part of the state. Green Carol Miller polled 17% of the vote, enough to knock off the favored Democrat and give Republican Bill Redmond the victory.

Miller, a longtime Washington-based health care lobbyist, is running against Redmond again. She refuses to accept the mantle of spoiler.

“The Democrats are the spoilers; they’ve spoiled it for themselves,” she said. “There is no appreciable difference between the parties, and the voters are now more willing to vote outside the traditional party system. We offer real choice. The voters here have been taken for granted for too long.”

For more than 50 years, New Mexico could be expected to send an entirely Democratic delegation to Washington. Democrats still hold a 67% majority of registered voters, but observers say that traditional party-line voting is on the way out.

Bill Umstead, 69, of Albuquerque is a former Democrat now voting Green.

“The major parties aren’t talking to us anymore,” he said, standing on a windy Civic Plaza at a “meet the candidates” gathering. “I see no distinction. They are canned. The Greens offer diversity of ideas.”

Other Green candidates are active in races across the country, including Al Lewis, who played Grandpa on “The Munsters” TV series. He’s running for governor of New York.

But nowhere else are the Greens such a factor. The question here this political season has been, what is it about New Mexico that has allowed the Greens to hold such political sway?

“I’ve been thinking about that a great deal, “ said Cliff Baines, a Green candidate for the Public Regulation Commission. “I’m not sure the level of hardship is as apparent elsewhere as it is here. We are desperately poor. Almost a Third World country.”

New Mexico has the highest poverty rate in the nation and was recently named the worst state in which to raise children. One view is that in the absence of help from traditional politicians, impoverished New Mexicans might as well try the Greens.

No group of politicians could be more nontraditional than the New Mexico Greens. Compared to the carefully coiffed and well-rehearsed Republican and Democratic candidates, the Greens are a spin-meister’s nightmare. They may go an entire day with lunch debris on the lapels of their outdated suits.

Unrepentant policy wonks, they are incapable of uttering sound bites and, consequently, are often not included on the evening TV news. While their comprehensive knowledge of the issues sometimes makes them appear overly didactic, the Greens are often picked by newspapers as the winners of public debates.

They are not put off by failure; Green campaigns almost always end in defeat. Undaunted, the candidates run again and again, recycling their yard signs and penciling in updated information on campaign literature.

They are dramatically outspent. In the 3rd Congressional District, which includes Santa Fe, Tom Udall, the Democrat, collected $573,838 in contributions since July while Republican Redmond took in $311,435. Miller, the Green, had receipts of $3,732.

In the 1st District, which encompasses Albuquerque, Anderson refuses contributions from sources that might create a conflict of interest. Most other Greens do the same. No Green candidate in the state has a paid staff member. Anderson worries he’s burning out his hard core of volunteers.

Asked if he could foresee a time when a Green might actually win an election rather than sway one, Anderson laughed.

“Oh yeah, I can see it,” he said, the wind whipping his campaign literature (recycled paper, union-printed) around the plaza. “If we keep putting up quality candidates, sooner or later people will take a chance on us.”