Why the Greens are also celebrating Election '02 (Buoyed by a handful of grass-roots victories, the Green Party claims the midterms showed the hollowness of its Democratic rival.)By Michelle Goldberg, in Salon.

Nov. 18, 2002 | Republicans aren't the only ones feeling validated by the 2002 elections. For many Green Party leaders, the Democrats' defeat and the conventional wisdom explaining it confirm criticisms they've been making about the Democratic Party for years -- that it lacks backbone and has betrayed its progressive base.

"There's no question that [the] election results demonstrate the structural weaknesses that the Democratic Party has," says Ben Mansky, co-chair of the Green Party steering committee. "It's dependent on corporate money for financing, and therefore the leadership is unable to deliver the political agenda that so many progressives expect." Some pundits are calling on Democrats to reenergize their activist base, but parts of that base may have already defected.

After the messy 2000 election, some liberal Democrats hoped Greens would guiltily defect, or return, to the Democratic Party. There is no evidence that happened. "There were no prominent people who switched or major debates about strategy," says Green Party political coordinator Dean Myerson.

Instead, the party has grown, posting small but significant victories in the midterm elections.