Green Party Watch

The Monterey County Weekly wrote a piece about the swearing in of Bruce Delgado as Mayor of Marina, CA. Delgado is one of three Green Party Mayors currently serving in California:

Delgado, one of three Green Party mayors in the state, wants to steer Marina in a more sustainable direction than the old guard. He expects to sign environmental accords such as the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement and pursue a Styrofoam and plastic-bag ban. He also wants to focus dense development in the downtown area and push alternative energy in the project that replaces Cypress Knolls on Fort Ord.

“We’d like to go as green as we can,” Delgado said. But this vision may only be realized once his mayoral greenness rubs off.

The other two Mayors in California right now are Holly Madrigal of Willits, CA and Gayle McLaughlin of Richmond, CA.

ht/m.feinstein

Stating that enacting a single-payer health care program will boost the ailing US economy, the Green Party of the United States is urging the implementation of a single payer health care system based on Medicare. A single-payer plan would remove the expensive burden of employer-based health coverage providing a major boost to the US economy. Greens are concerned that progressive groups, unions will acquiesce to the Obama’s ‘life-support for insurance industry’ plan.

WASHINGTON, DC — Green Party leaders urged Americans to take up President-elect Barack Obama’s call for discussion on health care and demand a single-payer national health care program, also called Medicare For All.

Greens said that the current financial crisis is an ideal time to introduce single-payer.

“Businesses have been burdened for decades with the high expense and administrative burden of employer-based health care benefits. Single-payer will alleviate the burden and stimulate the economy. It will also cost working people far less than they now pay for private coverage. Businesses large and small, unions, and all middle- and low-income working Americans will benefit from single-payer,” said Sanda Everette, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States.
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YouTube and other online video sites have made releasing promotional videos for causes or candidates or parties a piece of cake. A number of people noted that Ralph Nader’s campaign was exceptional in the use of YouTube videos to promote his campaign. Many videos were put out over the last year for candidates, some of high quality, some hastily thrown together. Some were awesome, some were not so great.

With the Presidential election over, third parties seem to be inwardly focused on party building; the Green Party certainly is. The Green Party has a large financial debt, stagnant donor income, and the need and desire to reach out and broaden its base of support. Under the Obama administration Greens have a great opportunity to pick up support from the millions of liberals who are going to wake up and realize that they elected a Moderate Centrist, not a Leftist. How will the Green Party reach out to these disaffected voters? Is it left to the states to do that? Does a voter in Hoboken interested in the Green Party google “New Jersey Green Party” or “Green Party”? They look up “Green Party” – and the Green Party should be prepared to greet them warmly and welcome them to the fold.

GPUS should make a concerted effort to reach out to new voters and new members with creative, smart, appealing, funny, and short (120 seconds max) videos online. Perhaps a “video Contest” could be held encouraging Greens to submit videos with some kind of prize awarded to the best video. If a great high-quality video comes forward it could even be used to buy television ads at inexpensive slots in targeted regions of the country.

Below the fold I have posted some videos with commentary, some “green”, some from Third Parties.
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Green Party member Tony Palmeri is running for re-election to the Oshkosh Common Council. Tony was first elected two years ago on a platform of greater transparency and accountability. He won 4,704 votes to come in second of six candidates, with the top three winning seats on the all at-large common council.

Palmeri is a Communication Studies professor at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and a well known area media critic who writes a monthly column “Media Rants” for the Fox Valley Scene. He also blogs regularly at “Talk to Tony“. Tony’s election two years ago came from support across the city – Greens, Democrats, University people, working class folks, etc. Tony is seen as an independent voice on the Council that won’t give in to pressure from the Chamber of Commerce, the local newspaper, or any other influence on Municipal issues. He is opinionated, honest, and full of integrity.

On his blog he says:

If the voters bring me back, I would be honored to serve another term on the Oshkosh Common Council. If there are enough candidates, a primary will be held on February 17, 2009. The general election will be held on April 7th (which also happens to by my older brother Frank’s 50th birthday).

Two years ago the message of the Palmeri for Oshkosh campaign was this: “City government at all levels must be held to higher standards of performance and accountability.” I would argue that we have made some progress in that direction, but there’s a long, long way to go.

If you are a supporter and interested in helping the campaign, please email me at tony@tonypalmeri.com or give me a call at 920-235-1116.

As was the case two years ago, I will neither raise nor spend more than $1,000. As a result, and especially if big money candidates get in the race, the only way to win another term will be with grassroots support.

Two years ago we launched his campaign on one of the coldest days of the year in January with a dozen of us driving around with yard signs and power drills with foot long drill bits to drill holes in the frozen ground and place signs out. This year I expect his support to be just as strong, and the election competitive again. Three seats are up for election, and besides Tony, incumbent Democrat Jessica King is running for re-election while Democrat Bryan Bain is not. Bryan Bain was the top vote getter two years ago.

Palmeri previously ran for State Assembly in 2004 as a Green and took 9% of the vote in a four way race.

Analysis of “what happened” with the Malik Rahim campaign has been ongoing since the Dec. 6 election. Some felt disappointed with the 3% turnout given the intense amount of support in terms of money and volunteers. My gut opinion was that the Green Party has a “cap” in votes in a contested House race that contains both a Democrat and Republican on the ballot. If you look at all U.S. House races that Greens have competed in that have both a Democrat and Republican, Greens very rarely top 3% of the vote.

The same holds true for U.S. Senate races, and Gubernatorial races as well (with some notable exceptions) but the dynamics change when it comes to state legislative races and are completely different for local non-partisan races for obvious reasons.

Last week Malik Rahim’s campaign manager Robert Caldwell sent out a “debriefing” report that touches on the campaign’s strengths and weaknesses and goes in depth into the dynamics of the situation on the ground. It is worth reading, and is copied below in its entirety.

December 10, 2008

Dear Supporters of Malik Rahim for Congress:
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The Prairie Green Party, which ran three candidates for the Champaign County Board last fall, has announced three candidates this Spring for Urbana municipal offices.

Just as with the County Board races last fall, they are running on a strong local platform that address local needs and local issues.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – DECEMBER 12, 2008

GREEN CANDIDATES FILE FOR URBANA MUNICIPAL OFFICE

URBANA, IL – Three Green Party candidates for Urbana municipal office filed their paperwork today: Durl Kruse for mayor, Mark Mallon for alderman in Ward 2, and Gary Storm for alderman in Ward 7. This is the first time that the Green Party has placed candidates on the ballot for city office in Urbana, although the party has run candidates for Champaign County Board during the last three campaign cycles. The candidates will work to increase citizen participation and transparency in local government, improve social services, address criminal justice issues, and strengthen environmental policies.
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Madison Common Councilor Brenda Konkel is running for re-election this April. Konkel was first elected to the Madison Common Council in 2001, and was re-elected three times since. Brenda is a well-known and respected Madison community leader and political force, who champions tenant rights, affordable housing and inclusionary zoning ordinances. She served as president of the Madison Common Council in 2004-2005 and today is also the Executive Director of the Tenant Resource Center and on the Board of Directors of the Social Justice Center and Community Shares of Wisconsin. In her spare time, she also helps coordinate the national Green Officeholders Network.

While she has faced no challenger the last two elections, this year there are several potential candidates seeking her seat. Brenda Konkel is a excellent campaigner and has already begun to organize her re-election campaign.

Brenda’s blog “This side of town” keeps her in touch with her constituents and also gives an idea of the deep knowledge she has of Madison municipal affairs.

If you would like to donate to Brenda’s re-election campaign, checks should be made out to Friends of Brenda Konkel and be sent to PO Box 1822 Madison, WI 53701-1822.

Stories from other sources today (it is one of those days!)

Connecticut Green Party sues over dirty “clean election” law (Posted “on the Wilderside“)

Minor parties like the Greens, by contrast, can only get the full grant if they raise the benchmark amount of cash, and if they won 20 percent of the vote for a seat the prior election, or submit valid signatures equal to 20 percent of the vote…

Independent Political Report links to a story about a potential Green Party candidate for Mayor of St. Louis:

The Green Party’s Elston K. McCowan, a preacher and union official, was the first mayoral hopeful to declare his intention to challenge incumbent Francis Slay.

And while he has been stumping for weeks, McCowan is yet to officially file.

McKinney and Sheehan: Human Rights Delegates in Cuba – read their dispatch at “On the Wilderside“:

McKinney: On the morning of December 10, 2008, Cindy Sheehan, Nelson Valdes, Saul Landau, and I signed a declaration as the U.S. delegates to an international conference assessing sixty years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights sponsored by the Network of Networks in Defense of Humanity. Here is our declaration:
We celebrate sixty years of failure…

Lynne Williams, Chair of the Maine Green Party, has announced that she intends to run for Governor of Maine in 2010. Based on the article below in the Bangor Daily News, Williams has a strong resume and could have a major impact in this race.

In 2006 Green Party gubernatorial candidate Pat LaMarche won 9.56% of the vote in Maine. In 2002, Green Party gubernatorial candidate Jonathan Carter won 9.28% of the vote in Maine.

Maine Green party chairwoman to run for governor
By Bill Trotter
BDN Staff

BAR HARBOR, Maine — An attorney who has championed numerous environmental and human rights causes in Maine has announced that she intends to run for governor in 2010.

Lynne Williams, 58, is state chairman of the Maine Green Independent Party and serves on the planning board in Bar Harbor. She has lived in Maine for 10 years, first in Augusta and then in Rockland before moving to Bar Harbor four years ago. In 2004, she ran unsuccessfully for the Maine House of Representatives as a Green party candidate in Rockland.
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The Green Party offered up today six solutions to save the U.S. Economy.

These common sense solutions are not only what America wants, but what America needs.

1. Enact a massive Green Public Works program
2. Bail out towns, cities and states over private corporations
3. Jump start our mass transit system
4. Enact a single-payer universal health care system
5. End the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan
6. End the war on drugs and legalize Marijuana

Greens offer six big steps for economic recovery

• Greens support workers occupying a factory in Chicago after layoff: bailout money isn’t being used to help working Americans

WASHINGTON, DC — Green Party leaders said today that the incoming Obama Administration and Congress should take six major steps to reverse the financial meltdown and restore financial security for Americans.

The steps include a Green public works program, aid for state and muncipal governments, expansion of mass transit, Single-Payer health care, a peace dividend gained by ending the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and an end to the wasteful war on drugs.

Green Party candidates running for local, state, and national office in 2008 promoted many of these ideas even before the crisis precipitated. In September, Cynthia McKinney published a ten-point list of solutions and reforms in response to the Wall Street meltdown, titled “Seize the Time” (http://votetruth08.com/index.php/learn/mckinney-messages).

Greens expressed support for United Electrical Workers union members occupying a Republic Windows and Doors plant in Chicago after the plant was shut down and they were laid off with three days’ notice and told they had no assurance of receiving severance and unused vacation pay. The company’s creditor, Bank of America, received $25 billion from the government’s financial bailout package. Greens said that the bank’s actions, including refusal to allow Republic to give workers 60 days notice (as required by law), demonstrates how bailout money isn’t being used to assist working Americans facing financial hardship.
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Whitney for Governor
P.O. Box 3803, Carbondale, IL 62902
www.whitneyforgov.org

Former Gubernatorial Candidate Rich Whitney on the arrest and criminal charges against Governor Rod Blagojevich

Carbondale civil rights attorney and 2006 Green Party candidate for Governor Rich Whitney has issued the following statement today on the arrest and criminal charges against Governor Rod Blagojevich. Whitney has not formally announced himself as a candidate for governor in 2010 but has publicly acknowledged he is making preparations for such a run:

We’ve all heard the expression, “I hate to tell you but I told you so.” But in this case, I honestly don’t hate to say it: We did tell you so. While I did not make any specific allegations against Mr. Blagojevich during the campaign, every informed Illinoisan knew that pay-for-play was endemic in our State and that illegal job patronage had not stopped but had gone underground. But it was only the Whitney campaign and the other campaigns of the Illinois Green Party that raised the issue of serious campaign ethics reform, front and center. Indeed, one of my campaign themes was to clean up government, along with cleaning up the environment and the budget mess.

Now we’re even deeper in the hole financially and we have truly hit bottom – I hope, anyway – in terms of corruption in government.
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[Yes, we're going to get change all right, but, as James Howard Kunstler says, "The broad American public voted for "change" but they thought that meant a "changing of the guard." Out with the feckless Bush; in with the charismatic Obama... and may this American life now continue just as it ever was. The change actually coming will be much more than they bargained for, namely our transition from a wealthy society to a hardship society."]

In the twilight of the Bush days, in the twilight of the twilight season, a consensus has formed that we are headed into a long, dark passage leading we know not where. Even CNBC’s Lawrence Kudlow has been reduced to searching for stray “mustard seeds” of hope on hands and knees in a bleak and tortured financial landscape. Half the enterprises in the land are lined up for some kind of relief bailout and a blizzard of pink slips has cut economic visibility to zero.
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The following is the official statement from the Illinois Green Party on the arrest of Gov. Rod Blagojevich:

We in the Illinois Green Party are deeply troubled by the arrest of Governor Rod Blagojevich and his chief-of-staff John Harris. The Governor is charged with attempting to personally profit from his power to appoint a person to the U.S. Senate. While we recognize that the accused are innocent until proven guilty, we must also admit that we are not surprised by these allegations. We have seen a long pattern of pay-to-play from Blagojevich, and indeed, a long pattern of pay-to-play throughout Illinois politics for years. The long sordid history of corruption in Illinois must finally come to an end.

The Green Party has always stood for accountability, transparency, and clean government through clean elections. We reject all corporate campaign contributions, advocate for public financing, and have long pushed for at least caps on individual contributions, so that our elections will no longer be pay-to-play.

We call on the Illinois General Assembly to hold an emergency session to:
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Summary:

The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) is in a tough position financially. It is in debt, and struggling to meet its monthly expenses. Below I present a case for implementing a National Membership program for GPUS, attempting to make a case that a National Membership plan for GPUS could rescue it from its financial problems, help in state party and local chapter growth, and bring new voters into the Green Party. By tying Delegate Apportionment to National Membership GPUS could regain its financial footing and grow as a political force in America. Doing nothing will result in no significant change to GPUS Financial Policy and budgeting and lead the party further down the path to indebtedness and financial ruin.

Prelude: A Financial Crisis

The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) is in trouble financially. It still owes money for the 2008 Presidential Nominating convention, and is going deeper into debt with each month that donations don’t add up to monthly expenses for “keeping the lights on”.

GPUS is donor driven, that is the source of its income. There is no membership dues, no corporate donations, no federal or state assistence, nothing. Fund raising and donations is it.

GPUS is technically an association of state Green Parties, thus all membership with the Green Party is at the state level, assuming there is an accredited state party in a given state. No one knows how many “members” the Green Party has due to the differences state by state in membership dues, and what you count as a “green” (dues-paying member, registered Green, green voter, etc.). Some state Green Parties give monthly to GPUS, some don’t.

Setting: There is NO membership with the Green Party of the United States.
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