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OAKLAND -- No Gray clouds rained on the Green party Tuesday night. Updated Nov. 6, 1:10 am
The champagne corks popped and the band blasted rock songs from a green guitar beneath a banner that read "Vote Green, not Gray."
Peter Camejo, the Green Party candidate for governor, finished election day with about 5 percent of the vote, and the Greens were declaring victory. Shortly before addressing about 100 supporters here, Camejo said the number of votes he received was among the highest ever for a third-party candidate in California.
"The Greens are extremely excited throughout the state," Camejo said. "It's been a terrific expansion of the Green Party."
Depending on whom you ask, either more and more disenchanted voters are deciding that the grass really is greener with a third party, or the Greens always will be the "Monkey in the Middle," trying to pry the ball away from the big boys in the schoolyard.
And after the 2000 presidential election, in which George Bush narrowly beat Al Gore with the Green Party candidate taking about 3 percent of the vote, some Democrats will never see the Greens as anything but spoilers.
"I like to think Green stands for 'Giving the Republicans Each and Every vote they Need,' " said Cornell Fowler, Northern California regional director of California State Democratic Coordinated Campaign, a branch of the state Democratic Party.
"People who will vote for a Green Party candidate will never vote for a Republican," he said. "They would probably vote Democratic. So that's a wasted vote. If they're not voting for a Democrat, they might as well be voting for a Republican."
Greens argue that they're not to blame if a Democrat loses. They say it's the system that's at fault.
"If you feel that the Greens represent you better, why shouldn't you vote for the Greens?" asked Greg Jan, a co-founder of the Green Party of Alameda County whom Camejo calls "the glue that holds the state party together. "Why should you hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils?"
The Greens propose runoff ballots as the answer to the spoiler charge. Commonly used in Europe, the runoff system allows voters to rank candidates by preference. To win, a candidate must receive a simple majority of the vote. Without a majority, the ballots are recounted using voters' second preferences to determine a winner between the top two candidates.
"If there were runoff elections, the Green vote would explode," Camejo said. "Tons of people who want to vote Green don't because of the 'spoiler' factor."
Camejo estimates that he would have garnered between 20 and 25 percent of the vote if potential Green voters didn't fear the prospect of Republican Bill Simon conquering the state. That's a lot more than the percentage of registered Greens in California.
Although the Greens constitute just 1 percent of the state's registered voters, their number is on the rise. Between 1998 and 2002, it grew from 93,000 to 151,000. Democrats lost about 55,000 registered voters over the same period, while the Republicans gained about 120,000. Meanwhile, 2.3 million registered voters declined to state a party affiliation, up from 1.8 million.
According to figures from the Secretary of State, the state electorate breaks down to about 45 percent Democratic, 35 percent Republican and 15 percent who decline to state. Taken together, third parties account for 5 percent of registered voters. Since 1998, the total number of registered voters in the state grew by about a half-million.
Bruce Cain, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, attributed the rise in registered Greens and those who register as decline to state to frustration with the political dominance of Democrats and Republicans.
"A lot of this is a product of people rejecting partisan politics and what they see as either overly liberal or overly conservative politics," Cain said. "It is a disaffection with politics -- not trusting government, not trusting parties, being alienated by the two-party system."
Camejo agreed.
"It's like an earthquake -- it takes pressure for this to happen," he said. "The Green Party's appearance is a crack."
Whether that crack will lead to an earth-shaking Green future or simply go away is a matter of opinion.
Kevin Acebo, California state director of California State Democratic Coordinated Campaign, said that the Democrats don't envy the Greens because of their growth.
"The Green Party still hasn't locked onto (political) infrastructure or its message," said Acebo. "I'm not sure people identify like that and say, 'I'm a Green.' "
The numbers support his assertion that the Greens have not established themselves yet. Nationwide the Green Party fielded 461 candidates this year. Sixty-seven of these were in California. Most were competing for municipal and county offices.
"There are small counties where Greens haven't been all that active," Jan conceded. "Statewide it's going to take a while for changes to take place."
Jeanne-Marie Rosenmeier, who drew about 5 percent of the vote for state treasurer, is the first candidate fielded by the Green Party for the office.
"We are pioneers," she said.
Last weekend, Camejo said he expected 16 Greens to win seats, 11 of which were held by Green incumbents. Shortly after midnight, with about one third of the Greens' races decided, 13 Greens have won election, including seven of the incumbents. Several victorious Greens will assume city-council seats. Greens competed for only five of the state's 53 congressional seats, but lost all five.
"Every year we're running more and more" candidates, Camejo said. "We're just not running as many as we should."
Cain thinks the Greens are here to stay -- at least in the short term.
"As long as the Democratic Party is in the Gray Davis-(Sen.) Dianne Feinstein mode," said Cain, "the Green Party is going to be in business."