Harvest Time

"We just want to change what you think a Green Party person ought to be," says Condon, who shaves his head and wears a collarless black suit. "Us young people, we're from the packaging generation, where if it doesn't look good it can't be taken seriously."

Behind him is a guy with matted hair whose feet are as black as his drugstore flip-flops. Three hippies in heated discussion. A woman who has turned herself into a Christmas tree of protest buttons.

"I'm trying to figure out why a 19-year-old person who wants to vote doesn't even know the Green Party exists," Condon says. "There's a disconnect."

The Green Party has been slowly building for 20 years but got its biggest boost when its members nominated Nader as their candidate in 2000. Nader's celebrity brought in thousands of converts; there are now 300,000 members and parties in 44 states. Young new stars emerged: Matt Gonzalez won 47 percent of the vote in the San Francisco mayor's race. Jason West became mayor of New Paltz and the first Green official elected in New York, and then one of the first in the country to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

But the association with Nader also caused hassles and trauma. Many Democrats blame Nader's candidacy for costing them the election and are shocked he would run again. Now the Greens absorb hostile questions about Nader the spoiler. He will pay for that here today.

"I'm at the point where I'm embarrassed to be a Green in front of my family," says Green delegate Joan Strasser. "It's like saying we don't care if George Bush gets elected."

For this budding young party the flirtation with presidential politics is akin to a theater actress who goes out with Ben Affleck and they break up. She leaves the experience starstruck and slightly bitter, her reputation soiled, her inferiority complex exacerbated by the brush with fame.

Stories circulate about Nader's aloofness, his refusal to share his mailing lists with the Greens, his ignoring suggestions from staff. For a man who has dedicated his life to the nitty-gritty of consumer safety, Nader has stirred up a lot of strong passions.

"Nader is an icon in the movement but he does not share my vision of grass-roots democracy," says Anita Rios, who co-chairs the party's diversity committee. "He doesn't understand about working with people, grabbing people by the hand one by one," she says, getting agitated. "We don't need some rich white guy with a Harvard education leading us."

This year Nader decided not to come to the convention; he is running as an independent so he doesn't want the party's official nomination, only its endorsement. Nader chose Peter Camejo, a longtime Green activist who ran in the California recall race, as his running mate. But the no-show is taken as a sign of disrespect "Will he call?" one delegate asks Kevin Zeese, Nader's spokesman.

"I can't promise that," says Zeese.

"So I shouldn't go and tell people he'll call?"

"No," says Zeese, adding, "They just want to know Ralph loves them, that he cares."

After four years it's become clear that Nader and Greens may be a good ideological team but are mismatched in style. If pushed Nader can speak the PC, culture-wars idiom, but in his politics and personality he predates it; his love is consumer protection, after almost 30 years in public life he's said almost nothing about his personal life. He is a stranger to politics as a form of florid, personal self-expression, and all the intricate rules that grass-roots organizers love. "You can't run a presidential campaign by group consensus ," says Zeese.