eet Jonathan Leavitt, a radical 33-year-old community activist from Lawrence, who wants to sweep away the multinational giants of capitalism in favor of small, worker-controlled businesses.
And Betty Zisk, a 69-year-old grandmother, Quaker pacifist, and college professor from Burlington, who bolted the Democratic Party years ago.
They're among scores of Massachusetts footsoldiers for Ralph Nader's Green Party presidential campaign. As the party of FDR convenes in Los Angeles, lefties like Leavitt and Zisk are gnawing into the Democratic Party's progressive wing and Vice President Al Gore's candidacy for the White House.
At some level, it's an odd marriage: Nader, the father of the consumer movement, and the Green Party, a branch of which has roots in anarchism.
''When I introduced him at a conference on biodevastation, I said that when we were looking for a candidate who understands that corporations are the greatest threat to the planet, Ralph Nader was the first name that came to mind,'' Leavitt recalled. ''But when I thought of what a typical Green Party person would look like, he was way off the list. But he's so respectable, he's earned it. The suit coat and tie don't matter,'' said Leavitt, whose fashion sense runs to T-shirts and blue jeans.
Actually, the Green Party is more diverse than its stereotype, Leavitt insists. ''It runs the gamut of lifestyles,'' he said. ''We have people who work completely within the system, and people who reject the system. We have people who work straight jobs, and people who have no jobs.''
Zisk is one of those with a ''straight job;'' she's taught political science at Boston University for 35 years.
''There's an old saw about people becoming more conservative as they get older,'' she said. ''I seem to have done the reverse. ... I've just become disillusioned by the increasingly narrow ideological gap between the [major] parties.''
It is the Betty Zisks out there who worry the Democrats. Not so much in Massachusetts, a Democratic stronghold, but in key tossup states where they fear Nader will be a ''spoiler'' who hurts Gore and helps to elect Republican George W. Bush. They fear Nader's populist stands will draw significant numbers of voters who like his opposition to the death penalty and support for gay marriage, national health insurance, renewable energy sources, and a ''living wage.''
Zisk and Leavitt brush off the spoiler rap.
''Spoil what?'' said Zisk.
''It wouldn't bother me,'' said Leavitt, who then rattled off a string of issues poached from the Republicans by the Clinton-Gore administration.
Zisk was a loyal Democrat into the mid-1960s and supported liberal party candidates at times after that. Leavitt has never been a Democrat, though he did some organizing for Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign while a student at the University of Massachusetts. ''We never really associated Jackson with the Democratic Party,'' Leavitt says.
Zisk represents the Association of State Green Parties, the more moderate wing on whose platform Nader is running. Leavitt comes out of the older extremist wing, the Greens/Green Party USA, but is now affiliated with both groups.
The factions collaborated to gather about double the 10,000 signatures required to put Nader on the Nov. 7 state ballot.
As an electoral force, their numbers are negligible. As of this spring, the secretary of state's office listed fewer than 500 registered Greens out of about 3.8 million Massachusetts voters. Among minor parties, that's well behind the Libertarians (12,690) but way ahead of the Prohibition Party (11).
Leavitt believes the Greens' registration numbers are closer to 1,000 today, and Nader's candidacy and voter registration drives will attract many more. Party activists will also be agitating to get Nader into the first presidential debate in Boston on Oct. 3, attacking the rule that excludes Nader and Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan unless they reach 15 percent in national polls. Both are in single digits now.
Will the local Greens view any of the Democratic National Convention on TV this week?
''If I need a laugh, I guess,'' said Leavitt.
''Nope,'' said Zisk, who couldn't tune in even if she wanted to. ''I don't have a functioning television set at this point.''
