You reap what you sow. The millions of uninformed voters, undecided until the end, have elected a president (we just don't know who yet) without a mandate, a president who will be forced to fight this election long after the ballots have been recounted.

You can't blame party activists for this ugly spectacle. Both the Democrats and the Republicans voted in lockstep for their respective candidates: in the end, these voters knew that party labels matter. The vast swath of undecided voters -- those who whined on national television that they couldn't make out the difference between the two candidates' plans for Social Security -- have given us this: an election that won't be decided for days, with the very real possibility that Bush could win the electoral vote with Gore capturing the popular vote (by about a quarter-million votes).

But don't let this last blast of adrenaline fool you. Despite the last-minute, edge-of-your-seat excitement, the reality is that Campaign 2000 sucked, and it's going to get worse before it gets better. It will be days before we know who's won, and there'll be weeks of post-election recriminations after that. Already there is talk of litigation over 3500 disputed votes in Palm Beach. The losing party will strive to strip the winner's legitimacy. Either way, there will be no mandate. In other words, the winner will spend his first year in office defending his victory.

Even though many people, including me, have compared the 2000 election to the Kennedy-Nixon nail-biter of 1960, the true comparison is with the stultifying contests of the late 19th century -- contests that produced such do-nothing presidents as Rutherford B. Hayes (himself the product of a disputed election) and Benjamin Harrison (a president's grandson who won the electoral vote but lost the popular vote). For that, nearly everyone has been pinning blame on the candidates, Governor George W. Bush and Vice-President Al Gore. But that's not accurate. Let's put the blame where it belongs: on the lazy voting public.

Let's face it -- uninformed and undecided voters drove the battle plans of each campaign. Karl Rove of Team Bush and Bob Shrum of Team Gore built their campaigns around voters who were incapable of picking up on the subtleties of arguments about Bush's tax plan or Gore's attempts at medical reform. These were the people -- the majority of voters -- who viewed the election as Christmas in November: tax cuts, prescription-drug subsidies, increased Social Security benefits, tuition tax credits, school vouchers, universal pre-school programs, more money for teachers. Since September, the Bush campaign has kept ruthlessly on message, declining interviews with journalists in favor of lighthearted appearances on entertainment shows like Letterman.

It's hard to believe now, but there was a time when I actually looked forward to covering the presidential election. I used to work in Washington, where I pounded out stories about American foreign policy and the Middle East while other reporters raced around town chasing after Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp. After delving into the extraordinary foreign-policy failings of the Clinton White House -- the broken promises ("We have a war on terrorism"), the winks (giving the green light to trade with Iran while officially forbidding it), and the nods (providing billions in aid to Russia as it spread nuclear technology around the globe) -- I hoped that the next election season would put some of these issues on the table.

I thought that Campaign 2000 would surely entail a thorough examination of all the challenges that would face our next president -- in foreign policy and elsewhere. I hoped that the Republican candidate would enumerate the domestic and international failings of the Clinton administration. And Gore, the Democratic candidate, would be forced to defend them, or to alter his own position. Little did I realize that Gore's most remarkable move on that score would be to break with Clinton over the Elián González affair. With the fate of the election resting on Florida, that move doesn't look so dumb now. Campaign 2000 will be remembered -- and studied by political strategists for years to come -- for the way both campaigns managed to avoid substantive discussion of the issues. Sure, there were dust-ups over Social Security and taxes. But these pseudo-mathematical "discussions," particularly during the debates, neutralized any hope of a national discourse. How could the public -- or anyone -- figure out who was right?

Of course, that was the point. Both candidates seemed to have taken Obfuscation 101 from Professor Bill Clinton. Clinton fooled a willing public -- on Middle East peace talks, on welfare reform, on his own battle against impeachment -- by taking advantage of the fact that people have short memories. When partisans of either side tried to make their case in the face of a strong opposing statement, they almost always seemed overly combative -- and as annoying as gnats. Political writer Joe Klein quoted a Gore aide saying as much in the November 6 issue of the New Yorker: "[P]eople don't respond to that. . . . The research showed they wanted the election to be about the future, not the past."

How ironic, then, that the only adrenaline rush of the entire campaign was provided by the revelation of Bush's decades-old drunken-driving arrest. It wasn't a serious "issue" by anyone's standard, but it turned out to be the only thing that got the country talking. Of course, the Bush DUI story -- which the Texas governor handled in a Clintonesque fashion -- represented the culmination of a decade of destructive personal politics.

Another reason Campaign 2000 blew? The candidates pursued the presidency the same way General Mills markets a new breakfast cereal: figure out what the people want and tell them what they want to hear. Both parties spoon-fed focus-group-tested promises to demographic niche groups. The Democrats focused on specific programs that appealed to large voting blocs -- Social Security, prescription drugs, and Medicare. And the Republicans dressed up their candidate in cheap packaging: "compassionate conservatism." Both sides strove not to say anything more than what was absolutely necessary.

Each candidate knew he could depend on his party's base -- with a little more trouble for Gore, who faced a challenge on the left from Nader. That meant that uncommitted voters would decide -- and did decide -- the election. As a result, both the Democratic and the Republican campaigns explicitly targeted voters in Rust Belt states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Missouri, as well as in Florida. If you didn't live in one of these states, you might have been able to get almost through the fall without realizing it was a presidential-election year. Think about it. How many campaign bumper stickers or lawn signs has anyone seen in these parts?

Like any successful marketing push, the campaigns worked desperately not to offend anyone. The Bush people got off to a great start by doing absolutely nothing. For months following his successful gubernatorial re-election bid in November 1998, when national GOP activists began talking about Bush as presidential timber, he remained holed up at the governor's mansion in Austin. Party activists, policy advisers, and major campaign donors trekked down to Texas to meet with "the governor" (as his aides never tired of calling him in a weak attempt to give stature to a shallow man). Rove, the campaign guru, devised the plan based on William McKinley's 1896 "front porch" strategy. He also crafted the governor's message, Bush would position himself as a leader -- after all, he had led one of America's largest states -- who could attract a diverse array of voters to the GOP. Bush's communications director, Karen Hughes, allowed tidbits of these meetings to leak out, but Bush himself remained silent.

Gore, meanwhile, stumbled. He couldn't seem to stay on message -- or to find one in the first place. Before moving his campaign to Nashville, Gore was still in strictly Beta Male mode. He traveled around the country promoting a "livability agenda" that focused on sprawl and suburban-planning issues. When that didn't catch on with the public, Gore moved into populist mode.

The bottom line? Both candidates were lacking in a certain . . . snap, crackle, and pop. As someone who followed their moves closely, I was convinced that the public would see right through them, as I did. And I found it hard to believe they'd be successful.

But they were. And we can thank the voters for that. Just when it looked as if things might get interesting -- in January and February, when Republican senator John McCain and former Democratic senator Bill Bradley were waging their campaigns of substance -- voters allowed themselves to be manipulated.

McCain electrified the electorate with his hundreds of town meetings and trounced Bush in New Hampshire. Bradley, meanwhile, gave Gore a run for his money with his steady concentration on health care and campaign-finance reform. But then came South Carolina, where Bush showed he was no "uniter"; in fact, he was a "divider." First, Bush went to the racist, anti-Catholic, paleo-conservative Bob Jones University. Then there were the mysterious phone calls that warned evangelical voters about Warren Rudman, a McCain ally. Other Bush pals, such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, recorded anti-McCain phone messages. Bush's allies even accused McCain of abandoning veterans. In the end, GOP activists and religious conservatives united to destroy the most interesting candidate the Republicans had offered in at least two decades.

It's still a mystery why voters bought the lies and innuendo. But then, it's a mystery why we buy the new offerings from General Mills, Nabisco, and Kellogg's when we've already got about 150 cereals clogging our grocery aisles. The fact is, most people believe what they read and hear, even if it's a lie. I'd like to believe that had the voters been more informed and engaged, they wouldn't have made Bush the GOP presidential candidate. But most likely, South Carolina voters broke the way they did for regional reasons: the South wants rock-solid conservatives in the White House, not quixotic reformers, even if the rock-solid conservative in tow is a lightweight daddy's boy. Even that doesn't explain why Bush's disgraceful actions in South Carolina didn't become a major issue during the general campaign, as most reporters and political observers believed they would. Again, the culprit had to be an uninformed and disengaged electorate.

The cynicism merely intensified with the conventions. The Republican National Convention in Philadelphia set a high-water mark for disingenuousness with its touchy-feely trade show for a product it wasn't selling. Former Massachusetts state representative Andrew Card orchestrated a magnificent multicultural parade to show Americans that the Republicans were a different kind of political party and that George W. Bush was a "very different kind of conservative." The Republicans called upon an adorable Latina girl with a powerful voice to sing the national anthem, and coined corny slogans for each night of their convention -- "Leave no child behind," "Safe in our homes and the world," and "Prosperity with a purpose."

Never mind the corporate wingdings sponsored by Philip Morris and US Tobacco; never mind the convention seats reserved for big-money donors instead of party activists. Rather than becoming a party of ideas, a party that could go toe-to-toe with Clintonism, the Republicans turned back into what they always are in times of plenty -- the tax-cut/fat-cat party. Many observers, myself included, were appalled. But the GOP stage-managed its convention better than the most elaborate Broadway production, and the public didn't seem to see anything wrong with it. Bush's poll numbers rose.

The Democratic convention was just as bad. It didn't seem to register with the public that the Democratic Party nominated one of Hollywood's biggest critics to serve in its number-two spot just as Hollywood celebrities were preparing their big-donor bashes. Actually, it didn't seem to register with the moneybags in Hollywood, either. As LA celebrities warmed to Lieberman, the Connecticut senator quickly relinquished the policy stances that made him unique -- on affirmative action, school vouchers, Social Security reform. For all the perceived excitement in Los Angeles -- the kiss, Gore's strong convention speech -- a campaign that would speak to the nation, and not just to senior citizens on Social Security and middle-class families with college-age children, failed to materialize.

At any point, the public could have changed all this. Voters -- those citizens who participate in focus groups and actually answer pollsters' phone calls -- could have stopped responding to the candidates' audacious pandering. But any hope that these people would demand a real campaign evaporated with the debates. During the first debate, in Boston, a combative Gore demonstrated control of the issues. Yet the public gave the win to Bush: apparently, a Simple Simon approach appealed to the voters. During the second debate, when Gore excoriated Bush for using his budget surplus in Texas on a tax cut for the wealthy as opposed to health care for poor children, I thought he'd scored a home run. But the public didn't see it that way. All the voters seemed to care about was that Gore's demeanor in this debate was entirely different.

It's hard to say what caused this disconnect. At the risk of sounding elitist -- I know, too late -- I'd say the voting public's reaction to the debates makes sense only if we assume that most voters know nothing about national issues. We live in a country where you can find detail-laden Web sites about the most arcane subject -- kung fu movies, '70s-era cartoon shows, obscure pop music. But in one recent NBC News report, prospective voters could more easily identify Colonel Harlan Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken than either of the two presidential candidates. And when you have a public more familiar with Colonel Sanders than Vice-President Gore, it becomes easier to understand why the public would give Bush (Clinton sans brains) more debate points than Gore (Clinton sans charm). Maybe the electoral college can vote for Colonel Sanders to break the deadlock.

The home stretch saw both candidates repeat poll-driven sound bites. By early November, Gore's campaign had become one big Social Security fetish. It made for a hilarious Saturday Night Live sketch, but not for such a great presidential-campaign effort. As late as the Friday before the election, Gore -- bereft of the pseudo-populist packaging he'd appropriated at convention time -- was falling back on the great battle to preserve Social Security. His campaign actually sent around an e-mail to be forwarded to "10 undecided voters" that focused exclusively on what the Gore camp sees as the defining question of our day: "What are Bush's plans for Social Security?"

The question of Social Security, to be sure, is complex and important. But what can be said about a campaign with no greater vision than keeping Social Security in a lock box? How is such a campaign supposed to excite the passions of broad masses of Americans or help to reinvigorate the system? The short answer is that it can't. But Gore had backed himself into a corner. In his steadfast refusal to campaign with Clinton, the vice-president made a very clear statement about his relationship with the president. By doing so, however, he removed himself from the larger issues -- defending the Clinton legacy or defending the policies of the administration that he himself was a part of for eight years.

The cautious, one-dimensional Bush, in turn, never articulated any idea that required more than one-, or two-, or (on rare occasions) three-syllable sound bites. When in doubt about a complex policy issue, Bush tried to split the difference by creating his own infantile mumbo-jumbo. Rather than restating the conservative position opposing affirmative action or boldly embracing affirmative action, for example, Bush split the difference by saying he supported "affirmative access."

There's an old adage that says, "When the people lead, the leaders will follow." In a perverse way, that's surely what happened in this election. In campaign 2000, a disengaged, uninformed, and uninterested public got the result it deserved. Remember that when the public starts bitching about the razor-thin election result.

Anyone expecting a granola fest at this past weekend's Green Party presidential nominating convention would have been disappointed. Sure, there were plenty of Birkenstock-clad conventioneers, but they were overshadowed by those shod in wingtips and loafers. If this convention was about anything, it was about sartorial image. There were suits on the presidential candidate. Suits on the candidate's aides. And suits on the advance people.

Advance people? Yep. This isn't your groovy mother's Green Party. This political movement, which grew out of the grassroots anti-nuke environmental activism of the 1980s, is maturing as it grapples with global trade policies and political reform. The Green presence at last fall's Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization boosted the party's public profile. And when party leaders, including members of presidential candidate Ralph Nader's campaign, know they need to dress in suits and employ advance people, that says as much about where the Greens are going as the party's platform and policy positions.

The organizers of the Association of US Green Parties (ASGP) convention clearly set out to put a new face on their brand of progressive politics. The controversial decision to hold the convention in the tony Renaissance Hotel -- with its Brasserie Restaurant, glass elevators, and space to host the national press corps (which included CNN, NBC, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post) -- was a deliberate break with Green tradition. And the convention, which drew 2000 delegates and supporters, even featured a slick five-minute movie featuring catchy music and photos of Nader in his early days.

That's not to say the Greens are all about style sans substance: the Green Party is on the brink of a major growth spurt at the local and national levels, and both mainstream political parties would be foolish to ignore it. Unlike other US third parties -- and even, to an extent, the Republican Party in Massachusetts -- the Greens are hustling to turn themselves into a credible alternative by running candidates for elective office across the country. "Our sustainability as a long-term party will depend on the municipal level," explains Ross Mirkarimi, the convention's smooth media coordinator.

At a pre-convention press conference designed to showcase some of these local Green politicians, Mirkarimi introduced Michael Feinstein, a Santa Monica city councilor. Both Mirkarimi and Feinstein were impeccably dressed -- Feinstein sported a blue suit and yellow power tie, with his long hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. "We're showing the credibility of people in office who show they can govern," Feinstein said. The numbers tell the story: in 1996, the Greens had 43 elected officeholders; today that number is near 80. The Reform Party, by contrast, lists just eight officials nationwide, and their highest-ranking one -- Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura -- abandoned the party. The sparsely attended press conference -- the press cares about Nader only as a November spoiler -- also featured Elizabeth Horton Sheff, an African-American city councilor from Hartford, Connecticut; Art Goodtimes, a county commissioner in Colorado; Julie Jacobson, a member of Hawaii's county council; and Gail Dixon, a member of the Washington, DC, Board of Education.

An even bigger sign of credibility is that Nader's Green Party effort is fueled with political veterans -- most of them refugees from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Steve Cobble, the former delegate director of Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential effort, serves as Nader's informal strategist. Steven Schmidt, an aide to Michael Dukakis in 1988 and a former senior adviser to Jerry Brown's 1992 presidential campaign, worked as the chairman of the platform committee. Nader and the Greens aren't fooling around this year; they hope to build on the unexpected success that both Jackson and Brown had when they ran. Jackson won close to a third of the primary vote in Pennsylvania, Oregon, and California, and won some Southern states outright; Brown won Connecticut and shaped the public debate during the summer months of his campaign.

The Greens may never be as successful as they've been in Germany, where the party was once synonymous with angry protests against the placement of American missiles and where Joscha Fischer, a Green Party member, is now foreign minister. To be sure, Germany's system of parliamentary politics makes it easier for marginal parties to succeed than America's two-party system does. Nevertheless, Ralph Nader figures he'll draw support from voters fed up with Al Gore and George W. Bush -- and the parties they represent. He may also get a boost next month, when activists sympathetic with Green Party principles try to embarrass the two major parties at their conventions in Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

Perhaps the most newsworthy aspect of all this is that none of it -- from the dress of the party aides to the venue of the convention to the party platform -- happened by accident. While the Reform Party has devolved into chaotic internal feuding, the Green Party has been quietly planning for its moment -- and this may be it.

"We have a complex strategy," explains John Rensenbrink, a professor of political science and ecology at Bowdoin College, in Maine. Rensenbrink, who founded the Maine Green Party, is considered one godfather of the movement in America. Rensenbrink relates, in abbreviated form, the chronicle that makes up the bulk of his 1999 book Against the Odds: The Green Transformation of American Politics (Leopold Press). During the first part of their history -- from 1984 to 1990 -- the Greens concentrated on building local groups that would focus on energy waste sites, nuclear development, and tenants' rights. Beginning in the 1990s, the Greens entered the electoral realm, running for municipal offices in California and New Mexico. Then, in 1996, the Green Party put forward Nader for the first time. "This year Nader is a better candidate. He's connecting with our basic themes," says Rensenbrink. "If he gets us five percent of the vote, which is not unlikely, we will be in a new situation." Indeed. If Nader pulls five percent of the vote in November, the Green Party will be eligible for about $13 million in federal matching campaign funds.

Nader just might pull it off. And if he does, he can thank Bill Clinton. The Green Party would not be where it is today without the rightward shift taken by the Democratic Party in 1992. Clinton's election as a "New Democrat" -- a pro-business centrist -- provided an opening further to the left, in much the same way that the GOP's seeming moderation has advanced the Christian Coalition and groups further to the right. The Clinton administration is a steadfast supporter of free trade, anathema to labor and other progressives. Clinton lobbied hard to get the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement passed, and, more recently, pushed through permanent normal trade relations with China.

Clinton has also placed fundraising at the center of the Democratic agenda. The excesses of this system -- as has been exhaustively reported -- have alienated many voters, whom Green Party strategists hope to lure to their party. To do this requires emphasizing Green Party principles that speak to American voters while downplaying those that would make the Greens seem like a nutty movement ready to declare it "Year One" as soon as they got into power. Hence the suits, the Renaissance Hotel, and the presence of Steve Schmidt.

Schmidt's official job was to act as chair of the platform committee of the ASGP convention. Unofficially, his job involved forging a platform that Nader could run on. He took 18 months to craft just such a platform -- one that emphasizes labor rights, health care, and campaign-finance reform. Perhaps his most significant success, however, was organizing things in such a way that when delegates came to Denver to debate the platform, there was little they could do to change what was presented to them.

Schmidt, a youthful 51, worked on Jerry Brown's 1976 presidential campaign. In 1988, he joined Dennis Thomson -- then Dukakis's deputy chief of staff -- on the Dukakis presidential effort. In 1992 he became a senior adviser to Jerry Brown's campaign. It's all but forgotten now, but in 1992, Clinton's most energetic challenge late in the campaign came from Brown, not Paul Tsongas, who quickly faded after Florida. Brown developed a populist appeal with the "Take Back America" platform crafted by Schmidt, who says he wanted to focus on running a campaign based on "comprehensive political reform." And he learned a lesson even more important than the need to build a broadly appealing platform. Near the height of Brown's popularity in the campaign, New York Times columnist A.M. Rosenthal asked the candidate how he thought he could govern given the amount of criticism he had leveled at Congress. Brown answered that Congress was ungovernable. Political pundits and the media immediately took the answer as a sign that Brown was not a serious candidate. "The mistake in that campaign was, when we were the frontrunner, not stepping up to the level of credibility we needed," Schmidt recalls. It's a mistake he vows he won't make again. "Getting leverage and not being marginalized are part of our strategy," he says.

Soon after Clinton secured the nomination in 1992, Schmidt approached Ron Brown, then the head of the Democratic National Committee, to discuss policy. Schmidt urged him to embrace campaign-finance reform. The Democrats could never get nationwide health-insurance reform or achieve anything else of substance without taking money out of the political system, Schmidt said. Not surprisingly, Ron Brown, a fundraiser par excellence, rebuffed Schmidt. The rest, as they say, is history. The Democratic Party moved right, and Schmidt joined the Greens.

In 1994, Schmidt ran for lieutenant governor in New Mexico as a Green Party member. He lost. Undaunted, he took the ideas that had been at the center of Jackson's presidential effort in 1988 and Jerry Brown's in 1992 and made that the basis for the New Mexico Green Party platform. By December 1994, Schmidt was working with Green Party members in California to launch a major presidential effort based on a serious platform. In 1996, the Greens met at the University of New Mexico to strategize for the presidential effort. The group came up with a shortlist of candidates for president that included Jim Hightower and Ralph Nader. Hightower remained a Democrat; Nader agreed to let the Greens put his name on the ballot.

The ensuing campaign was a disaster. Although Nader was on the ballot in 21 states, he didn't campaign for office and garnered only one percent of the vote. Green Party insiders attribute this to lack of time and resources and insist this year will be different. And so far, it has been. One reason is that Schmidt has been joined by Steve Cobble, who is volunteering his services as a political strategist for Nader.

Cobble got his start with the 1972 McGovern campaign -- the same one that Clinton worked on. Now a political consultant in Arlington, Virginia, Cobble made his political reputation as a top aide to Jesse Jackson in 1988. As Jackson's delegate coordinator, Cobble figured out how to get the candidate the most delegates -- and clout -- at the '88 Democratic convention. One particularly well-known victory for Cobble came with the Texas delegates. Although Dukakis won the Texas primary, Jackson won its caucuses, giving the two candidates virtual parity in delegates. Cobble was impressed with the way Jackson reached beyond blacks to progressive whites, union members, and working-class people to form his coalition. "It was a much broader quilt than anyone would have thought," he says.

It's such a coalition that Cobble and Schmidt now hope to put together for Nader. The Greens want to build on some of the successes of Jackson, Brown, and even Ross Perot and Senator John McCain. The Nader campaign plans to target young people, the independents who came out in such large numbers for McCain, and the eight million people who voted for Perot in 1996. With Buchanan now the presumptive Reform Party head, the Nader people see that party as having moved too far to the right to appeal as a credible third-party alternative.

The goal now is to get Nader into the political debates, which currently restrict participants to those polling at least 15 percent of the vote. The Boston law firm Palmer & Dodge is representing Nader in a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission challenging the corporate sponsorship of presidential debates. If Nader succeeds, he could become a vehicle for American disgust with the two-party system, à la Jesse Ventura.

"The more the two parties are driven by money, the more mainstream turf that's ready to be occupied by a new leader or new party," Cobble says. "With globalization and campaign finance, it's easier now to be a new voice and be mainstream at the same time. A vast number of Americans are not being represented on these issues. You can write a Green Party platform that is mainstream in America."

The Green Party platform that passed in Denver reflects this. The first section calls for a "real reform, accountability, and responsiveness in government." The platform lays out key areas of focus -- democracy, economic justice and labor rights, human rights, health care, and the environment. Though all these sections are far more left-leaning then anything to be found in the Democratic or Republican platforms, there is language aimed at the solidly middle class. For example: "we acknowledge the many challenges responsible SMALL BUSINESS must overcome to remain competitive with big business."

By Monday, June 26, it became clear that the Green Party and Nader had accomplished many of the convention's goals. CNN had broadcast a report on Nader's nomination, focusing on the challenge it posed to the two major parties and Nader's push to participate in debates. Writing in the New York Times, Michael Janofsky led with Nader's "blistering attack against Republicans, Democrats, Congress, corporate America and the commission that sets the rules of presidential debates." In the Boston Globe, Yvonne Abraham quoted Nader attacking "the Bush and Gore duopoly." Most press reports focused on the supposed corruption of the two-party system -- the exact message that the convention's media planners hoped would get out to the mass public.

Not all the delegates, however, were pleased. Members of the Massachusetts delegation were particularly irate with the way the convention was organized; by coincidence, they're also the delegates most opposed to the direction in which the ASGP has taken the Green movement. Massachusetts is the home of the Greens/Green Party USA, a national group based in Lawrence that was founded in 1991 and eschews the more traditional approach being taken by the ASGP. Jonathan Leavitt, 33, is the co-chair of the Massachusetts Green Party -- a group affiliated with both national Green organizations -- and an official in the Greens/Green Party USA. Leavitt, shaved head and all, dressed down for the convention and objected to its being set at a major hotel.

"This is a lot different than what Greens usually do at these kinds of events," said Leavitt. "When we have gatherings we have them at organic fields, at farms, local halls." He also objected to the appearance of people who looked just like classic political operatives within the ranks of the Green Party. "There's a certain ethic that goes with the uniform. I've never trusted people in suits and ties, and I don't think I'm going to now," said Leavitt, who successfully sponsored a resolution calling on both wings of the Green Party to begin negotiations aimed at ironing out differences. "I think a lot of those people think of themselves as movers and shakers." Leavitt criticized the lack of real platform discussion during the convention, and complained that it was planned by a small group of people who are "conservative within the Green Party." "They're going to hear about it. It's never going to happen again," he vowed.

Finally, Leavitt took issue with the most successful Green Party in the world -- the Germans -- for selling out. And he warned that the same thing is happening here.

"I think Joscha Fischer is an insult to Green values. He exemplifies what compromises people make to remain in power," he said, a circle of Green Party USA members beating on various kinds of drums around him. "You've got people who see an opportunity and take it."

Perhaps trying to deflect some of this tension, Green Party officials paired Nader, himself not an official member of the party, with a person much beloved by the Green rank and file: Winona "No Nukes" LaDuke. The vice-presidential nominee roused the delegates at the Friday-night opening reception, which was held before most national press had arrived. A native Ojibwe activist who lives on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, LaDuke began her speech in her native tongue: "I greet you in my language," she said. "That's my response to English-only." LaDuke then addressed the crowd on her themes of "diversity" and "reconciliation."

First, she blasted the devastation of the Great Plains -- a subject that resonates in Denver, which is surrounded by the parched desert-like country -- and the buffalo that used to live there. "It's time for America to stop killing buffalo," LaDuke said. "We need the courage to talk about the buffalo commons." LaDuke also criticized the Vatican for backing an American move to use a Native American sacred site for an astronomical observatory. "The Vatican maintains that if there are actually aliens out there, they want to be the first to know. It is incredibly difficult to have a sacred site desecrated by the Vatican," she said.

Turning her sights on American law-enforcement policy, LaDuke exclaimed, "We need to end the COINTEL period. We need to let Mumia out of jail." (COINTELPRO was the CIA's illegal program of domestic spying on radicals during the 1960s. Mumia Abu-Jamal is a death-row prisoner in Pennsylvania.) She likened the plight of Native Americans to that of the Jews, who received reparations for slave labor, and argued that the American government should back similar funding for Native Americans. "I know these are difficult issues to talk about. I know they make some of you uncomfortable," LaDuke concluded, to chants of "Go, Green, Go."

Interestingly, when LaDuke spoke on Saturday at a press conference with Nader, she gave a watered-down version of her Friday-night talk. Gone were the shots at the Vatican and the call for reparations. Instead, in much more subdued tones, she talked about the need to "raise the minimum wage in this country to a living wage" and to bring an end to "an energy policy based on corporate welfare."

By Sunday -- the day the Nader-LaDuke team was officially nominated -- Nader's running mate had disappeared. Hightower gave a rousing speech calling for Nader's nomination. The Green Party showed a five-minute movie featuring clips of Nader's crusade against General Motors and appearances on The Phil Donahue Show and The Mike Douglas Show during the 1970s. The movie had all the pizzazz of the DNC's famous "Man from Hope" biography of Bill Clinton. When Nader finished his dense two-hour speech -- "Castro without the charisma," quipped one wag -- he was led off the stage by a sharply dressed entourage. There was even a handler wearing a dark official-looking windbreaker with SECURITY OFFICER marked on the back.

With its polished political operatives, snappy movies, and impeccably timed release of blue, white, and green balloons upon the conclusion of Nader's speech, the Green Party convention was a hit. And the party took a significant step toward becoming a viable threat to the two major parties. But to be successful this year, it will need great discipline to keep both of its candidates on track with messages that will speak to the left as well as to America's growing mass of disenchanted voters from the middle.

Although getting into the national debates will be difficult, it may be even harder for Green Party leaders to keep their candidates on message given LaDuke's instincts and the dissent within the Green Party. The wild card is the Green-allied protesters who plan to target both major parties' national conventions next month, as well as the national debates. The Massachusetts Green Party's Leavitt has vowed that national debate organizers will need helicopters to get Bush and Gore into the October 3 debate at the John F. Kennedy Library. How televised footage of these mêlées plays in Peoria could either help or hurt the Green Party come November.

For all the polish on display in Denver, one thing is unsettling about the nomination of Nader -- the party's reticence about his background beyond the boilerplate details about his education and consumer activism. Like Michael Dukakis, Ralph Nader is the son of immigrants. He grew up outside Hartford with Lebanese-born parents, and is the first Arab-American presidential candidate in American history. To most Americans, these details resonate; isn't this the quintessential American story? That there was no mention of these facts -- and no family photos from Nader's youth -- seems to reflect the European-left origins of the American Greens.

Riding in the elevator after Nader's valedictory were his mother, Rose, carrying a large sunflower, and his sisters. Any other political party would have made much of Nader's personal story and trumpeted his family support. That the Green Party didn't suggests both the promise and peril of this important new political movement.

Seth Gitell can be reached at sgitell@phx.com.

The next president is sure to nominate at least two Supreme Court justices. John Paul Stevens, 79, and William Rehnquist, 75, are widely expected to step down within the next four years. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had colon-cancer surgery last year, and Sandra Day O'Connor, who is nearing 70 and was treated for breast cancer a decade ago, could also step down. If they do, the new president could get four picks (see "Balancing Justice," below right).

With George W. Bush one election away from the presidency -- and from shaping the direction of the US Supreme Court for the next generation -- why have we heard so little about his record with the judiciary in Texas? Left-leaning court watchers, including Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, say the Texas court system is one of the most pro-business, anti-labor, and anti-plaintiff systems in the country. Furthermore, they say, this is a new development. There was a time when down-home Texas populism was reflected in judicial elections and in jury verdicts that awarded plaintiffs large sums of money. In recent years, however, the Texas courts have come to exhibit a rock-ribbed conservatism. And at every juncture, Bush has sided with conservative initiatives to roll back plaintiffs' rights in favor of big money and big business.

"That whole court system in Texas bears his imprimatur -- every court level in Texas," Dershowitz says.

Senator Ted Kennedy, the second-highest-ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which vets Supreme Court nominations before the vote in the Senate, says that the issue of Supreme Court appointments is paramount. In a statement provided to the Phoenix, he says: "A president's appointments to the Supreme Court are among the longest-lasting legacies of any administration. The current court is often closely divided on key issues, and poor choices could easily result in judicial retreats on civil rights, women's rights, criminal justice, privacy, and the First Amendment."

Representative Barney Frank, the second-highest-ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, agrees. "You have some important doctrinal questions that are undecided," he says. "The abortion question is up for grabs. Gay and lesbian rights. Church-state issues. Nothing is more important than the Supreme Court justices the next president will pick."

A Bush presidency, Frank warns, would surely mean the appointment of justices who "substantially erode" the separation of church and state. Bush is, after all, the governor who authorized his attorney general to challenge a legal ruling that banned school prayer at school football games. That case is currently before the US Supreme Court.



The best predictor of the kinds of choices Bush would make for the US Supreme Court, though, is the direction he's taken with the Texas Supreme Court. Although Texas high-court judges (who hear only civil matters) are elected to office, the governor of Texas is responsible for filling vacancies when sitting justices step down. Bush has done this four times. His picks: Deborah G. Hankinson, Greg Abbott, James A. Baker (no relation to the James Baker who served as President Bush's secretary of state), and Alberto R. Gonzales. These appointees come from mainstream conservative backgrounds. Like Bush, they present a happy, diverse image of conservatism. One of them, Gonzales, is Latino. Another, Abbott, gets around in a wheelchair. Hankinson is a woman. But make no mistake: they come from big-business backgrounds and support efforts to limit plaintiffs' rights.

On the campaign trail, Bush has said he would appoint "strict constructionists" to the Supreme Court -- justices who would "strictly interpret the Constitution and not use the bench as a way to legislate." This type of strict interpretation is a conservative touchstone, but if Bush's Texas high-court picks are any indication, he'd choose justices who would apply just the opposite philosophy -- in pursuit of conservative ends. James Harrington, the director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, says that Bush's picks have made it harder to "litigate civil rights, consumer rights, workers' rights." He adds that these justices care more about conservative political correctness than legal reasoning. They are, in Harrington's words, "results-oriented" -- conservative judicial activists hiding behind the constructionist label.

In fact, the rollback of plaintiffs' rights in Texas is what Bush is talking about when he calls himself a "reformer with results." Which raises the question: who, exactly, is Bush reforming the legal system for? The Texas governor's credibility as a reformer rests partly on his record of tort reform. He seldom talks about the subject, but Bush's appointees to the Texas Supreme Court have orchestrated the Lone Star State's transformation from one of the best places for an individual to sue a big company into one of the worst. This transformation is a big part of Bush's conservative appeal; it's one of the main things that make him so attractive to nationwide business and legal-defense circles -- which is where he got much of the $70 million he so easily raised. (Of course, the Democrats -- i.e., Clinton and Gore -- have done well with lawyers too, but the bulk of their money has come from the plaintiffs' bar, trial lawyers, and personal-injury attorneys.)

David Van Os, former chairman of Texas's Travis County Democratic Party and a vocal Bush critic, says Bush has earned his "reformer with results" moniker at the expense of the working people of Texas. "Bush appointees have been part of the trend of much that goes under the rubric of tort reform," he says. "The trend is to try to reverse jury verdicts and deny access to the courts for people that have been injured. These people are not strict constructionists. This is a judicial activist court. They use the `strict constructionist' code word to get the votes of conservative voters."

Phil Hardberger, the chief justice of the Fourth Court of Appeals in Texas and an award-winning legal scholar, captured the prevailing conservative mood of the Texas legal environment in his starkly titled article "Juries Under Siege," published in 1998 in St. Mary's Law Journal. Hardberger wrote that by the end of the 1980s, business and manufacturing interests had teamed up with physicians' groups and the insurance industry to roll things back for defendants in Texas.

According to a report produced by Court Watch, a nonprofit consumer-advocacy group set up by former journalist Walt Borges to monitor the Texas court system, the Texas Supreme Court decided for defendants 60 percent of the time between 1998 and 1999. The report, written by Borges, lists 10 cases that exemplify the court's pro-defendant bent. In one case, the court held that an insurance company did not have to pay for the care of a child who had a genetic disease because her uncle was diagnosed with that disease during the exclusion period. In other cases, the court ruled against workers exposed to asbestos, against car-insurance holders injured in accidents, and against the family of a murder victim who had not been warned by the killer's psychologist, although the psychologist was aware of the killer's intentions.



In Bush's Texas, workers get screwed by the courts. Two years ago Van Os ran -- unsuccessfully -- against the Bush-appointed Abbott on a platform of moving the Texas Supreme Court back to the center from the right. During his campaign, Van Os turned again and again to the case of Texas Mexican Railway Company v. Bouchet.

Lawrence P. Bouchet had the misfortune of working for a railroad company that didn't subscribe to a workers'-compensation plan -- and then getting hurt on the job. Generally, injured employees collect workers' compensation instead of suing their employers for on-the-job injuries, but that wasn't an option for Bouchet. He sued Texas Mexican Railway for compensation, and the company responded by firing him. And what did the Texas Supreme Court find under the leadership of Bush's appointee Abbott? That Bouchet had no rights. In what can only be described as a case of circular reasoning, the Texas Supreme Court -- in a decision penned by Abbott -- held that because the railroad company didn't belong to a workers'-compensation plan that prevented companies from firing workers who file claims, the railroad company was free to fire Bouchet.

Van Os says the Bouchet case is a perfect example of justice, Bush-style. Bush's "reformers," led by Abbott, have made life in Texas harder for ordinary people. "What they've actually done is proceeded to take the court system in Texas away from the people," he says. "The people that Bush appointed were all corporate lawyers before they became judges. They are out of touch with reality."

To be fair, some court observers and Bush watchers say that although the Bush judges are pro-business and pro-defendant, they are far more "moderate" than their more conservative predecessors. "His judges tend to be moderate-conservative judges," says Anthony Champagne, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. "Bush has quite an impressive record when it comes to Texas. His appointees have been a moderating force on the Texas Supreme Court. They are pro-defense, but not extremely so. They tend to often be well regarded by people on both sides." Even Court Watch reported that "a contingent of four justices initially appointed by Gov. George W. Bush appear to be intent on eliminating the excesses of the GOP old guard elected between 1988 and 1994." Still, Texas conservatives understood that Bush's judges would follow the lead of those parked further to the right. During Abbott's 1998 election run, he raised money from business and defense interests under the "reform" banner. One of his fundraising letters reads: "His election to a full six-year term is critical to continue the reform movement that has done so much to return balance, fairness, and impartiality to the Supreme Court."



Texas courts, with Bush's blessing, have also pushed a socially conservative agenda. One of the best examples of the damage that conservative politics can inflict when they team up with a similarly conservative judiciary came in 1996, when Bush looked to his court appointees to get him out of trouble with the religious right. Bush, midway between his successful 1994 gubernatorial bid and the 1998 re-election that set him up to run for president, found himself in a jam: the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay political group, had successfully applied for a booth at the state's Republican convention. When Republican officials rescinded their approval in late May, just a month before the convention, the state president of the Log Cabin Republicans, Dale Carpenter, took the state GOP to court. He won in Travis County district court. But then the case took an odd legal twist: the state Republican Party appealed the lower-level court decision directly to the Texas Supreme Court, bypassing the court of appeals. If the Republicans had turned to the court of appeals in the widely Democratic district, it's likely that they would have lost. The convention would have started before they had time to appeal again -- and the Log Cabin Republicans would have set up their booth. By bypassing the appeals court, the Republican Party won a chance to have the Log Cabin suit thrown out altogether. In general, the Texas high court, like the high courts of other states, is difficult to reach; getting there requires a time-consuming appeals process. But not, apparently, when it comes to defending against suits filed by gay Republicans.

"I am not aware of another instance in the history of Texas jurisprudence where a party [in a lawsuit] has done this," Carpenter says. "You'd expect that the [state] Supreme Court would tell them no. Instead the Supreme Court granted a hearing for [the following] Monday [after the appeal was filed]. On Wednesday the court ruled against us. Justice in Texas has never been so swift."

Again, the opinion was written by Bush's Judge Abbott. Only nights later, the Republican leadership fêted Abbott and the others at a reception at the convention.

But the swiftness with which the Texas high court acted wasn't the only disturbing aspect of the case: the opinion itself reflected the extent of Abbott's socially conservative judicial activism. The Log Cabin Republicans had based their claim on the Texas Constitution, under which they thought they had a better chance of winning. Unlike the US Constitution, the Texas Constitution gives individuals affirmative rights to free speech. The relevant provision of the Texas document reads: "Every person shall be at liberty to speak, write or publish his opinions on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that privilege." The Log Cabin Republicans believed that this guarantee of an individual's rights could also be legally extended to cover the rights of a private group. Similar suits brought on a federal level had failed, based on the US Constitution, which says more narrowly that Congress "shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." This was the first case of its kind for the Texas Supreme Court.

Though Abbott and the other judges paid lip service to the idea of doing the politically correct conservative thing -- strictly interpreting the state's constitution -- they actually did the exact opposite (one judge agreed with the decision but wrote his own opinion instead of joining the majority). "When interpreting our state Constitution, we rely heavily on its literal text," Abbott wrote, and then proceeded to examine the central question in the case -- whether the Texas Bill of Rights could be applied to private groups -- without looking at the direct language in the Texas free-speech provision. In other words, the Bush justices did everything but "strictly interpret" the state's constitution.

What those judges did, in fact, flew in the face of what so-called strict constructionists generally do. But, under Bush, this kind of conservative activism from the judiciary is nothing new. For example, the Texas Supreme Court has devised a new legal concept: "legal sufficiency of the evidence." This means that even if a jury finds in favor of a plaintiff, the court can throw out the verdict on the grounds that the evidence that convinced the jury did not satisfy the high court. Generally, juries decide questions of fact; judges decide questions of law. (A question of fact is one like: "Did the driver's negligence cause the accident?" A question of law might be: "What standard does a jury apply to determine negligence?") Under the Texas system, the judges now get to decide both.

Van Os says the Log Cabin suit isn't the only case in which the Texas Supreme Court has reached far beyond its mandate with the state constitution. "They've been reviewing and throwing out jury verdicts. They are really violating the Texas Constitution by reviewing decisions of fact," he points out.



The bottom line? Like Bush, his judges are slick. They want to have things both ways, appealing to the middle ground and conservatives alike. Cases tossed out are not done so with the kind of stark, blunt language that sticks in voters' craws. Rather, the wording of their decisions comes across as measured and reasonable.

The goings-on in Texas very much reflect the lurches to the right that have gotten Bush in trouble in his presidential campaign. They are the legal equivalent of Bush declaring Jesus Christ his most influential political philosopher and going to Bob Jones University to launch his presidential effort in South Carolina. Bush's symbolic actions have direct legal consequences. Bush has pushed -- and is pushing for -- a tough parental-notification provision regarding abortion. He made sure Texas intervened in a controversial school-prayer case, on the side of prayer. He benefited when his judges kept the Log Cabin Republicans out of the state party convention in 1996. This record suggests that Bush will look to presentable but conservative justices to fill up his Supreme Court. If he's elected to the presidency, his picks are sure to carry out a socially conservative agenda and do his dirty work, as his appointees in Texas did in the Log Cabin case.

Just last month, one of Bush's justices -- Abbott again -- sided with religious conservatives on an abortion issue. He ruled with the conservative minority in a six-to-three decision that ended up affirming a teenager's right to file a court appeal for a waiver of the parental-notification requirement. Expect a Bush-stacked Supreme Court to roll back abortion rights. Expect it also to limit the ability of plaintiffs to sue large corporations the way they've been doing recently, with suits against tobacco companies and gunmakers.

Bush's first term as president would probably not differ much from his first term as governor, during which he felt he had to appease the right wing. He would keep one eye on his re-election in 2004 and do what he could to keep the religious conservatives happy. The record of Bush's picks in Texas demonstrates that his idea of reform comes at the expense of working people -- and that he is anything but a compassionate conservative.

Seth Gitell can be reached at sgitell@phx.com.