Green Party VP candidate not sure whether to vote for herself

LaMarche says she will vote for whoever can beat Bush
By Joshua L. Weinstein -- Portland Press Herald
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
----
AUGUSTA — Pat LaMarche, the Green Party's newly nominated candidate for vice president, said Tuesday that her top priority is not winning the White House for her party, but ensuring that President Bush is defeated. She is, in fact, so determined to see Bush lose that she would not commit to voting for herself and her running mate, Texas lawyer David Cobb.
LaMarche, who won 7 percent of the vote when she was the Green Independent candidate for governor of Maine in 1998, said she'll vote for whoever has the best chance of beating Bush.
But "if Bush has got 11 percent of the vote in Maine come November 2, I can vote for whoever I want," she said in an interview with the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram.
And if the state is, as it is now, a toss-up between Bush and presumptive Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry?
She could well vote for the Democrat.
"I love my country," she said. "Maybe we should ask them that, because if (Vice President) Dick Cheney loved his country, he wouldn't be voting for himself."
A spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign said the vice president is certain to vote for his and Bush's re-election.
Larry Sabato, a political scientist who directs the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said, "It's a rare thing, even for a splinter party, to have a nominee for vice president indicate she is not sure for whom she is going to vote."
(...)
"There are huge issues," she said, listing the war, the environment, health care, the economy and jobs.
Health care was one of her central issues when she ran for governor, and LaMarche acknowledged Tuesday that she does not have health insurance.
But most important of all, she said, is "making sure that George Bush is no longer president of the United States."
LaMarche initially did not think the party should field a candidate for president at all. Her feeling was that many people believe the party's candidate in 2000, Ralph Nader, drew votes away from the Democrat, Al Gore, ultimately leading to Bush's win.
(...)
----
Read the rest here.

to enroll voters and buiuld the party. The top of the ticket (Green) will surely not win, but the effort will build voter databases for smaller, local races. I support the Greens progressive efforts (and am running as a Green for the South Carolina State House- against an incumbent GOP'er with no Dem candidate).

I, like many, hope that the Dems will return to progressivism (ala Dean) and I will probably vote Kerry in Nov (in SC it really doesn't matter) but I am ready to help a new party if the Dems don't change their conservative ways.

Where is the power of her convictions?

They gave us Chimpy in 2000 and after four years of disaster --- they are still not sure who to vote for!

As for voting for Kerry where it matters, this leaves the door open for misjudgments, if nothing else --- and letting Chimpy slide by again.

I suppose that it would be asking too much for the Greens to drop their "holier-than-thou" BS for a time, recognize our national crisis and do the obvious thing!

But, no, the Greens have to build for that imaginary future, where, after the Democrats have been destroyed, the Greens will take on and beat the crazies of the far, far right. Yeah... Sure!

a good basic rule to follow!