ENVER - Jubilant Green Party members made consumer advocate Ralph Nader their official nominee for president yesterday.
By the time he arrived here the vote was but a formality, a fact reflected in the final tally: Nader, introduced by radio commentator Jim Hightower as ''the lanky, somewhat disheveled, and always true embodiment of reform,'' won 295 votes. His two competitors each won 10 votes.
After Nader was installed as the nominee by unanimous acclamation, and delegates cut loose some of the green, white, and blue balloons overhead, organizers showed an edgy, fast-cut video montage of moments from his 35-year career, which was overlaid with dance music and bold graphics that read ''End Corporate Welfare'' and ''Consumers = Voters.'' The crowd cheered loudest for footage of the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle last fall. It was a sharp contrast to the long, low-key acceptance speech that followed, which stretched on for almost two hours, and was far more typical of Nader.
''Over the next 41/2 months,'' he told the 1,000 party members in attendance, ''this campaign must challenge the campaigns of the Bush and Gore duopoly in every locality by running with the people, not as Bush and Gore do, parading around the country looking for photo opportunities and staged events.'' That brought loud cheers.
Nader, 66, has been campaigning for the nomination since March. He has visited all 50 states, reintroducing himself to some who might have forgotten him, and introducing himself to those too young to remember the man who indicted General Motors's safety record in his 1965 book, ''Unsafe at Any Speed.''
He has been pushing his longtime principles: universal health care, public financing of campaigns, and stronger labor laws, among other issues.
Nader is polling at about 4 percent nationally. In California, his share jumps to 9 percent in some surveys. His profile has risen higher in recent weeks after the United Auto Workers and the Teamsters praised his stand on trade.
Green Party politics have been mostly fractious until now. But more state Green parties have joined the Association of State Green Parties than ever before, said Tom Sevigny, cochairman of the association. The convention brought together 313 delegates from 39 states. Another national organization of Green parties, Green Parties USA, was also at the convention, but because that group prefers direct action to electoral politics, its members did not participate in the votes. On Friday night, delegates resolved that the two Green organizations meet in the next two months to negotiate and form one national organization.
Nader has stayed away from internal politics and is not a member of the party, preferring, he says, to concentrate on running for office. But his success is also the party's: If he wins 5 percent of the vote in November, the Greens will be eligible for federal matching funds in 2004.
''Nader has attracted so much attention,'' said Stacey Cordiero, cochairwoman of the Massachusetts Green Party. ''We're talking about multiplying the size of our organization in a matter of months.''
Now that Nader has the nomination, he and the party will turn their energies to the presidential debates, the first of which will be held Oct. 3 in Boston. Nader will not be included in the debates unless he polls 15 percent or more nationally. Green Party members have vowed to disrupt the debates if Nader is excluded.
At a press conference before the final vote, Nader was asked if he was worried that his candidacy would take votes from Gore, and, in a close race, hand the presidency to Bush. As usual, he scoffed at the question, arguing that there was no difference between the two candidates.
''Why don't you ask Albert Gore, `Are you worried about defeating Ralph Nader?''' he said. He said the Texas governor's ascension to the White House would be ''a do-nothing replacing a do-little, Tweedledee replacing Tweedledum.''
