The Green Party is on the ballot in Texas, due in no small part, it appears, to the efforts of that noted environmentalist, Gov. Rick Perry. Who says Republicans can’t reach across the aisle?

The state Democratic Party has been in a swivet for months over the Green Party’s efforts to get on the ballot in the November general election. They claim, with pretty good evidence, that the petition drive to put the Greens on the November ballot was headed by an out-of-state Republican consultant with the blessings and covert assistance of the Texas GOP.

News accounts on Wednesday revealed that a GOP operative named Stuart Moss was being paid mileage expenses by Perry’s re-election campaign at the same time he, Moss, was working on the Green Party petition effort.

The Republican Party has been a helpful if secretive ally of the Green Party since 2000, when Ralph Nader, the Harold Stassen of the Flower Generation, leeched enough votes away from Al Gore to be considered a factor in the eventual victory of George W. Bush. Since then, the GOP has been happy to support Green Party efforts to become ballot-eligible, the logic being that throwing the ultra-liberal Green Party into the mix at election time could only harm Democrats.

Wednesday’s revelation will have very little if any practical effect on the Green Party’s ballot status; the issue has been ruled moot by an injunction that will keep the Greens on the ballot even as the Democrats continue to press their civil suit that charges fraudulent collusion between the Greens and the Republicans.

As for the Green Party, we’re willing to believe that its members are naive enough to believe all that financial help they’ve been getting has come from wealthy Republicans who want to outlaw offshore oil drilling and end the whaling trade. The Green Party’s heart has always been in the right place, but its brain has always seemed a little out to lunch — a tofu burger lunch, no doubt.

Texans who don’t think much of Perry to begin with — and there are plenty of them, even within the Republican Party — will only nod grimly at this latest news, but it won’t change many votes.

The stalking horse is, after all, a fine old political tradition, one used by Republicans and Democrats alike over the years. It has been especially effective in party primaries, where front-runners could always expect at least one inept but ideologically similar opponent to file against him, usually at the last minute. That opponent was inevitably financed under the table by the front-runner’s most serious opponent, who reaped the benefits of the stalking horse’s campaign.

We don’t see this latest dust-up having much effect on Perry’s re-election bid. Nobody seems to like him very much, but he always seems to get just enough votes to be re-elected. About the only effect might be some slight degree of embarrassment to the Perry campaign, but it will be negligible, as Perry himself has pretty much proven himself incapable of being embarrassed about anything.