The difficulties for running for president as a Green

The Green Party is one of two relatively larger third parties in the U.S., along with the Libertarians.

Libertarians have generally helped their relative standing in presidential races by running either rich businessmen with leisure time and money to invest, or former Republicans with high profiles. True-blue Libertarian nutbar Michael Bednarik in 2004 is the only person since Andre Marrou in 1992 to not fit that profile.

Philosophically, Greens aren't running rich business leaders, and in the equivalent of ex-Republicans, former Democratic congresscritter Cynthia McKinney in 2008 is the only one of those.

Greens have instead, with that one exception, generally nominated people of moderate wealth (vis-a-vis the US plutocrats) and some of them with a name recognition level. Ralph Nader had that in 1996 and 2000 of course. Jill Stein had it in her second run in 2016, the name recognition. Both were rich enough to be multimillionaires and to be able to invest a small amount of personal money in their races. David Cobb was the one exception, and he got the Green nomination because of factionalism related to party organizing, or lack thereof, connected to claims that the party was conspiring to block Nader. (I at most halfway disagree with Jeff St. Clair on this. The GP is too disorganized to conspire successfully about anything at a national level, but its non-centralization plank has allowed state parties to run the show, and in many cases, to be overrepresented nationally.)

So, what's a candidate to do?

So far in the 2020 cycle, we don't even have moderately wealthy Greens. Here, Howie Hawkins has the advantage, at least, of being retired. He can hit the hustings for money and general support in person more than any other candidate. This is not to slight Dario Hunter or Ian Schlakman, both of whom interest me as presidential candidates as well, but simply to note the additional hurdles they face.

What Hawkins may do with any leftover funds he has, should he not get the nomination, I don't know. I've not yet donated to him personally, and in the past, all my presidential-related donations have been to the party, not to an individual candidate. But, he is raising the party's, as well as his own, visibility already.

At the same time, his push for ballot access in more and more states, and earlier and earlier, while it will benefit local Greens and will benefit whoever the presidential nominee is, whether Hawkins or not? I can see how some people see it as a Hawkins-party team interface.

I'm not sure exactly where I'm headed with my thoughts, otherwise. I will note that Hawkins is right on better organization all around, not just on fundraising, by the party is important. That includes training sessions on how to launch petition drives. The day before his Dallas appearance, he was in Arizona, and in part to help the party there with a ballot access petition drive.

I also get Hawkins' idea of running a two-prong platform by also seeking, and getting, the SPUSA nod. But, I still think he's breaking party rules.

Update, July 1, 2020: Old Green Party election language confirms that this is indeed the case, so shut up, Howie-haters. And, yes, Howie-haters are out there, and lying in ever greater numbers since he appeared to have clinched the nomination. Even before that, it became clear to me that the rule is a "spirit of" issue, made more clear by the fact that Stein also sought the nomination of smaller third parties, like Peace and Freedom, in 2016. (She didn't get it, but she sought it. She was not a registered member of that party — if it has registered memberships, but she sought the nomination.) So now, more and more, it looks like this is an issue being driven by a technical interpretation of the rule combined with Howie hatred.