Elaine Brown is the best Green Party candidate for President

This debate almost appears as if we are talking past each other. You have yet to articulate support for why a traditional candidate is a positive thing. The only thing that comes close to that support would be this argument of experience so I will answer that below. Seeing as how you are now supporting the endorsement of Moore, that makes the issue even more complicated, but I will not bring up third party sectarianism. I want to reiterate here my argument about Elaine Brown's alternate approach to a Green Party election. I feel that her approach (which no other candidates even have on the table) will expand the electorate for the Green Party, in addition to giving her a guarunteed base of support, because she is the only candidate who is specifically designing her campaign toward marginalized folks. This creates both short term gains (might get the 5%) as well as long term gains (where it could potentially create long term stable party building success). That said, your argument seems to assume that a Green Party Candidate is a real and viable candidate. While I would never argue against voting third parties, I understand that many folks don't consider them. Given this reality, the "experience" factor doesn't appear to be very important. While that is a very, very, very important issue to the currently voting population, who is more experienced than Ralph Nader, who drew about 3 percent nationally in 2000. Experience is something to possibly consider when the GP has the luxury to think about that. Right now, it needs to think about how to most effectively make itself a true political force, and in a land where money dominates the majority of politics it needs to go Grassroots. Moore does not appear to have the commitment to run a truly grassroots campaign. From my experience with Socialist organizations, they tend to be very centralized and non-mobile. The GP (and larger progressive movement) needs the exact opposite in terms of electoral campaigns. The campaign needs to be run through the roots while the candidate simply gives aid and direction. This is the exact opposite approach of traditional socialist organizations as well as traditional campaigns. The GP needs to understand that it's not going to raise a ton of money to support a candidate. You need to have committed volunteers that are going to do the groundwork of building a base and candidate support. Moore's not going to be able to do this, but Brown will be. I am currently not deluded into thinking that Brown has a shot in the general election. It unfortunately sounds like you think that Moore's got a shot. I would never tell people not to vote for Moore, (if of course he's the only alternative candidate) but that doesn't mean he has a shot. The Green Party and other progressive third parties need to stop being parties for Democrats that don't like the direction of the party. It's not an electoral party. It's a movement party, and it needs to understand that. We need to evaluate our candidates in terms of how they can build an independent electoral movement, not in terms that the currently ruling classes use to evaluate their candidates. In other words, I don't want people having experience in terms of how to better marginalize folks (not accusing Cynthia of this I have nothing but respect for her). I want people having the knowledge and capacity to build a movement that can challenge the Republicrats in 2-4-6-8-10 years and finally start building power and effecting change. That can only happen with effective base building, and Brown is the only candidate who is talking about that.