Green Party Doubles Candidate Recruitment Numbers
As of March 11, 2009 the Green Party has 98 candidates so far for office in 2009. Most of these candidates are running in local elections in Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
Compared to past “off years” Green Party candidate recruitment is significantly higher.
According to Brent McMillan, Executive Director of GPUS, by March 11, 2007 the Green Party had 44 candidates, and by March 14, 2005, the Green Party had 35 candidates.
By the end of those years, 2005 saw 200 total Green Party candidates, and 2007 saw 147 Green Party candidates. “Off years”, the odd years between congressional election years, typically have far fewer candidates than even years.
You can search the GPUS Candidate Database here.
I noticed at some point earlier this year that the GPUS candidate database appeared to have been populated with the names of all incumbent elected Greens who are up for re-election in 2009. Some have since been removed, but this procedure was never used in the past.
I tried to post this comment earlier, but for some reason, I seem to be unable to post comments from work.
My impression of the GPUS candidate database is that at some point earlier this year, they added the names of all the incubment Greens who are up for re-election this year, regardless of whether they had announced their intentions. Some names have since been removed, but starting from that point is bound to result in higher numbers earlier in the year.
Sorry Eric, the spam filter picked you up. I’ve been trying to check it twice a day since it has been tagging good comments lately.
I don’t know if what you suggest is happening or not, but I do know that in Wisconsin I had several e-mail exchanges with Brent checking on the status of candidates and potential candidates. We worked together to clarify who was running, who was Green, etc. I had two candidates removed and two candidates added to the database with no problems.
Immediately following the fall election in2008 I went to work contacting green elected officeholders across the country and encouraging incumbents that were up for re-election to run again. I was tired of hearing from incumbents that didn’t run again that they had not been asked to by other greens. So I did something about it. I also connected them up with their own state leadership. This was the new behavior. When was the last time you connected with an elected green officeholder and told them how much you appreciate them?
I think this was a good move. It is very easy for Green organizers to become disconnected from Green electeds and vice versa. We can learn a lot from our elected Greens and we should try to tap them more for educating potential candidates and others on issues they work on.
A loud Hazza! from me. Gotta say, we are not exactly warm and fuzzy when it comes to how we deal with one another.
All of us can do this. How many have tossed even $10 into Brenda Konkel’s race? Or any of the others? I know most of us do what we can, but if you have a bit more to give, now it a great time to do it!