I think maybe I'll cry. The Green Party is thinking about nominating Cynthia McKinney to run for national office.

" THERE’S NO question, then, that selecting McKinney for their presidential or vice-presidential candidate would be risky for the Greens. But it also wouldn’t be without benefits. McKinney has experience as a 'real' politician adept at campaigning — historically a weakness of Green candidates. She knows how to get press coverage and could run a bare-bones campaign propelled largely by free media. Most important, however, is that there’s a palpable hunger on the part of Green activists to run a candidate for president in 2004 who unequivocally opposes Bush’s war on terrorism and who has the credibility to rally the antiwar crowd to his or her side. There can be no doubt that McKinney fulfills both qualifications. "

Despite most of the two pages of the Boston Phoenix devoted to this story being written in the above "wait, this might actually be a good idea" style, Seth Gitell concludes with a resounding rejection.

" A glib but controversial candidate is a false messiah, someone who will draw an immediate and passionate group of supporters and repel everyone else. If this is the direction the Green Party travels in, it will march the party away from the legitimacy for which it has been struggling so hard for so long. "

The seriousness with which McKinney appears to be being taken by Green Party policy makers is quite disturbing. And all of their arguments seem to come back down to publicity and how to get it. This is a very, very, very bad reason to nominate someone as your candidate. Especially when all the mainstream publicity will be negative. What the Greens need is a clear platform, with substantive arguments for changing current policy — which includes an analysis of how things will be different if we somehow elected them. They also need a record of getting things done. What the Greens do not need is failure. Simply, nominating McKinney will destroy the Green Party.