Third Party Watch

Pat LaMarche, the Green Party’s former Vice-Presidential nominee, has announced that she will never seek public office again. She’s twice run for governor of Maine, in 1998 and again in 2006. This is unfortunate for the Greens because LaMarche’s 10% showing last year was easily the party’s second best Gubernatorial performance.

Rich Whitney, in Illinois, outpolled her by slightly less than 1%.

The story, from Maine Today...

Green Independent Pat LaMarche, who has run for governor twice and vice president once, said she’ll never run again, though she’s willing to help other Greens take the plunge.

“I’m never running for anything ever again as long as I live, or even longer,” LaMarche said this week.

Her comments came during an interview about a visit to Maine by one of the Green Party’s presidential candidates, former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney.

McKinney, a former Democrat, recently moved from Georgia to California, where Greens are a recognized party. She came to Maine earlier this month on a campaign swing, and is expected to come through again before the Greens caucus in February.

LaMarche said there are seven or eight declared Greens running for president, none of whom are household names.

In 2004, LaMarche ran for vice president on the Green Party ticket. Green presidential candidate David Cobb got 2,936 votes in Maine, finishing behind John Kerry, George Bush and Ralph Nader, yet ahead of Libertarian and Constitution Party candidates.

For her part, LaMarche said her 10 percent draw in the 2006 gubernatorial race sent her a strong signal.

“There’s something about me that doesn’t resonate with the body politic,” she said.

This entry was posted by David Franke on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 2:58 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.