But the demise of the Alliance should give the Greens pause for thought - and not just because they were once briefly part of that multi-party grouping.
The death notice issued by the Electoral Commission was a reminder that when it comes to politics, nothing lasts forever. Nothing can be taken for granted.
And that is even more so for those parties under constant threat of being squashed or squeezed by supposed major party allies.
In the past 12 month, the Greens have learned the hard way to take nothing for granted. Things like Labour's coolness to coalescing. Or losing your best weapon - as witnessed at Russel Norman's resignation press conference back in January.
The faces said it all. The longer Norman talked, the more he smiled as the weight of office visibly lifted from his hunched shoulders.
The longer he talked, the blanker grew the faces of his shell-shocked colleagues. It was as if there had been a death in the family.
And in that respect, there had been. It was the Greens' nadir, the lowest of low points after last September's election, when a party that seemed to have been doing everything right ended up with its share of the vote decreasing in percentage terms on the previous election.
The election result was truly morale-shattering. The internal debate on the party's future direction that was inevitably provoked by the co-leader election has gone some way in ameliorating that dark mood. But only up to a point.
The frontrunners for the job of male co-leader vacated by Norman for family reasons are the urbane James Shaw and the not-so-urban West Coaster Kevin Hague. The first priority of the new co-leadership team - be it Metiria Turei and Hague, or Turei and Shaw - is to re-inject confidence into the party's activist base.
Even allowing for this beneficial side effect, the timetable for replacing a co-leader is now far too long. Norman's replacement will be known this afternoon, when the result of the party-wide ballot is announced at the Greens' annual meeting in Auckland.
While Hague was the initial favourite, the talk late in the week was of he and Shaw being neck-and-neck in the voting.
Neither has much of a profile with the average punter. To counter that, the victor will address tomorrow's annual meeting tomorrow with a speech which will dwell on his background, his beliefs, motives and so forth.
Labour has twice used its new party-wide mechanism for electing its leader as an opportunity to promote the Labour "brand". The Greens initially seemed to be following suit with a series of forums throughout the country.
But a lot of the fizz went out of the contest when Shaw neutralised the vexed question of coalition with National.
Unlike Hague, he was assumed to be far more flexible and amenable to the notion of coalition.
But when challenged by Rodney Hide in his Herald on Sunday column, Shaw made it clear he supported his party's view that it was highly unlikely. Whoever wins is likely to try to work with National on a policy-by-policy basis.
Both would-be leaders know the Greens have to dispel the notion they are permanent hostages to Labour, through operating on that party's left flank. Coalition with National remains a very distant prospect, mainly because the two parties would rip each other to shreds, over social policy in particular.
Hopes of reaching some kind of understanding that might allow the Greens to give confidence to a National administration, but nothing else, would have to be a lengthy process in which both parties got closer together step by very small step.
The idea that the Greens should avoid being ghettoised by becoming an environment-only party is simplistic. Judging from the Alliance's record, the Greens' social justice agenda could be worth half or more of their votes.
There is no guarantee that the environment vote is as large as many pundits assume, especially now the major parties have moved to look softer on environmental matters to hold on to to their own "green" supporters.
What the Greens have to do is reach out from their inner-city metropolitan strongholds, like Shaw's Wellington Central, and start making connections in the suburbs, provincial cities and rural towns plus the special case of South Auckland where their vote is pitifully low. The best punt is the suburbs where voter attachment to the two major parties has weakened.
But this requires the Greens to be tighter and more orthodox in their economic policies. Fortunately both Hague and Shaw fit the bill in this regard. Policies seeking to cut greenhouse gas emissions do not have a strong market in places like West Auckland.
The big worry for the Greens is that the last election result amounted to a rejection of them, suggesting that getting roughly 10 per cent of the vote is the best they can do and that 90 per cent of the electorate regards them as toxic or mad or both.
Eradicating that perception is a real challenge to whichever candidate for the male co-leadership is called up on stage this afternoon as the victor.
