Nader as Reform Party Candidate?

According to this article in the New York Times, the Reform Party is not too keen about Pat Buchanan's candidacy. A number of factions have emerged, each supporting a different candidate.

Among the names being thrown around are, of course, party founder Ross Perot, "nobody", and, interestingly, Ralph Nader.

While [New Jersey Reform Party chairman Ira] Goodman has been collecting signatures of support for Mr. Perot, Jim Mangia, the Reform Party's national secretary, has been talking to Green Party leaders about Mr. Nader's interest in running as the Reform candidate. Despite Mr. Nader's leftward leanings, his politics are not so different from the Reform platform on issues like campaign finance reform and permanent trading status for China.

But only 36 states allow a candidate to run with the support of more than one party.

If the issue were purely a Nader presidency, this would be a very encouraging development. In those states where the Greens fail to petition their way onto the ballot, Nader could hitch a ride on the Reform Party's guaranteed spot on the ballot.

Unfortunately, that does nothing for party building: votes for Nader on the Reform ticket would not count towards the Greens' numbers, which doesn't help put the Greens on the ballot for the next go-around. and in the end, the goal is not so much to put Ralph in the White House as to help ensure the Greens a spot on future ballots.

Addendum: The Georgia Green Party's Hugh Esco writes that:

Mr. Bornstein's assessment is accurate. Georgia specifically prohibits "fusion candidates" in the Election Code. It was my understanding that New York was the only state that permitted this, though I'm no expert on the subject. It is generally agreed in Green circles that Fusion is a dangerous strategy. Our Convention Credentialling rules define a "Green Candidate" in a way that includes Registered Greens who were cross-endorsed by other parties who are not the D's or the R's, but excludes other party's candidates who were cross-endorsed by the Greens. And the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from the New Party just a couple of years ago that sought to overturn these restrictions as unconstitutional in their efforts to build a new progressive democratic party. (That decision left the NP without much of a strategy nationally and led to some new interest in the Labor Party locally).

Mangia and others of the Reform leadership approached the leadership of the ASGP two months ago about cooperating around a Nader candidacy. A committee I serve on deliberated on this question very briefly and was mostly in agreement that this would be harmful to our efforts to build the Green Party. We were also assured through private channels that Nader shares our commitment to building the Green Party and was not seriously considering these overtures. Still the rumors persist, fueled apparently by the public statements of Reform Party leadership.

The Convention Planning Committee was approached by the break-away American Reform Party. They are conducting a mail referendum of their members and have asked for ten minutes of Convention Floor time to announce an anticipated endorsement of Nader. But this is not the same as a nomination and would not threaten our capacity to survive this election with our ballot lines intact. We agreed to recommend this in our agenda report to the Convention, IF the ARP actually endorses Nader.

We're proceeding with our own petition drive to secure our own ballot line. If you are not already on board with this effort to place Ralph Nader on Georgia's ballot in 2000, please respond to me personally and let me know you're ready to pick up a clipboard and I will get back with you privately on the details of how you can participate.