The 135-candidate field in the recall election is fast whittling
down to two prominent contenders: blockbuster movie star Arnold
Schwarzenegger on the right and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante on the
left. But a third candidate could have an impact on the election in
a big way ““ not as a potential governor but as a potential
vote-splitter.
The Green Party and its candidate Peter Camejo are making a bid
for incumbent Gov. Gray Davis’ job this October, but
political analysts say that given the unusual mechanics of the
recall election, the largest effect it could have would be on other
candidates.
Considered to be the country’s third party outside of the
Democrats and Republicans, the fledgling Green Party bills itself
as a liberal alternative to “politics as usual” in an
attempt to attract voters from other ideologies.
And with only 150,000 registered Greens in California, the Green
Party will have to rely on getting votes from members of other
political parties if it hopes to win the governorship at all.
Because the Green Party is closer to Democratic ideology than
Republican, it could bode poorly for Bustamante’s campaign if
disgruntled liberals who traditionally vote Democrat vote on the
Green ticket rather than for him.
Tyler Snortum-Phelps, the campaign manager for Camejo, said the
Green Party would be avidly targeting Democratic voters who are
disenchanted with Davis and his showing at the state capitol.
“Those are absolutely the type of people we have to go
after to win,” he said. “We have to.”
Swing votes could be especially critical in the recall election
because, if Davis is recalled, his replacement would only have to
garner more votes than the other candidates, not win a majority or
top a certain percentage.
But even if Democratic voters are angry with Davis, they
won’t necessarily “go green” because they may be
wary of the Green Party’s left-of-the-establishment ideology,
said Lynn Vavreck, a political science professor at UCLA.
“Candidates whose positions are more extreme are so far
away from the middle where most others are,” she said.
“It’s almost like a disenfranchised Democrat is closer
to Schwarzenegger than the Green Party.”
And the interplay between Democrats and Greens goes both ways,
said Bruce Cain, a political science professor at UC Berkeley. If
Camejo doesn’t seem to have a good shot at winning, Greens
could be forced to vote for Bustamante to keep a more conservative
candidate out of office.
“Once again, green and liberal democratic voters are
forced with this tactical choice of voting their hearts or
strategically voting to keep a Republican out of office,” he
said.
Although Republicans may not be overly concerned about Camejo
stealing conservative voters, Michael Wintemute, a spokesman for
the California Republican Party, said that, given the wide-open
candidate field, it could be too early to tell.
“There’s so much at play here that I really
don’t think anyone can reliably predict where the votes are
going,” he said.
This sort of political scenario hearkens back to the 2000
presidential election when Democrats accused Green candidate Ralph
Nader of stealing votes from presidential-hopeful Al Gore, votes
they allege would have given Gore the victory in one of the most
hotly contested presidential elections in history.
The Green Party does not apologize for any alleged
vote-splitting among liberals. Camejo says he believes, given the
two-party system in the United States, people tend to vote not for
the best candidate but for “the lesser of two
evils.”
“There will always be a candidate worse than someone
else,” he said. “By that reasoning, people would have
voted for Mussolini over Hitler.”
Adding to the confusion is Camejo’s announcement this past
week that he would joint-campaign with author Arianna Huffington.
If both sides commit to the strategy, Camejo and Huffington will
run together and then, just before the election, the less popular
candidate will endorse the other.
Although Camejo said the intention of the tactic was to show a
united progressive agenda, analysts were skeptical of its
practicality.
“In theory, it’s a way of preventing a split in the
Green support, but then the question is why bother, because
it’s unlikely a Green is going to win,” Cain said.
No matter which way the votes swing, Camejo’s chances of
winning the governorship are slim given the Green Party’s
limited resources and small voting base.
“It’s going to be very hard for any of these
non-major party candidates to win the election,” Vavreck
said.