Exchange with “Hesiod”, blogger…
I would point out that the co-chair of the Green Party is an African-American gay man from Atlanta, Badili Jones.
Four of the nominees for president in the ISwitched.Org Online Primary are African-American, one is Native American. Five of them are women, including two African American women and one Native American.
The chair of the Lavender Greens Caucus is a working class African-American male. Our Gubernatorial candidate here in CA was a Latino male, our VP was a African-American woman; three of our nominees for the seven statewide constitutional offices were female (vs. zero women for the Democrats and Republicans, who each nominated one Latino male). At least have of the top leadership of the party here in CA is female - including the woman holding a seat on the LA City College supervisory board who represents hundreds of thousands of people (largest Green district in the country), Rebecca Kaplan (AC Transit board, second largest) and Sarah Lipson (first person elected as a Green to citywide office in SF).
Oh, did I mention Matt Gonzalez, Latino head of the SF County Board of Supervisors? Or Matt Sanchez, openly gay Latino Green member of the SF School Board?
If the Green Party consists of white upper class males, what does that make the Democratic and Republican parties? I think our record stands up quite well.
As for marginalization, might I point out that despite continuous attacks and blame from the Democratic Party, for some mysterious reason, the Green Party is MORE relevant, MORE successful (6 million votes nationwide for our candidates in 2002, as opposed to 3 million in 200), has MORE registered voters (including right now, when one might think Greens would be re-registering Democrat to vote in the primary, exactly the opposite is happening), and is getting BETTER results nationwide? This is “marginalization”? Give us more of it. Ten years from now, the Democrats will be the “spoilers”. :)
Finally, I would point out that the GREENs won’t do any such thing. The DEMOCRATS, who consist of the VAST MAJORITY of those voting Green will “doom the country to four more years of George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, and Karl Rove.” by CHOOSING, of their own FREE WILL, to DISREGARD the argument that a vote for a Green is a vote for the Republican, and casting their vote for the candidate they feel best representatives.
And it will be the DEMOCRATS FAULT if they are UNABLE TO CONVINCE THE VOTERS TO DO OTHERWISE, even with GWB to scare them. Not the Greens.
I suggest the Democrats chew on those FACTS a bit, perhaps it might suggest there is a better strategy to take than the one they are pursuing?
If they actually thought about it, they might be able to prevent the loss of 10% of their voters to the Greens in the fall of 2004. … however, all evidence to date indicates otherwise. Unfortunate. Another four years of blaming the Democrats for incompentently managing their campaign and losing the election (vs. the Republicans winning it).
Regards,
Thomas Leavitt
—– Original Message —–
From: Hesiod Theogeny
To: Thomas Leavitt
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2003 1:26 PM
Subject: Re: PRESS RELEASE: Billionaire investor Warren Buffett for President? Some Green Party voters say “Yes”!
The problem is, Graham’s record and policy positions are virtually indistinguishable from Gephardt, Kerry and Dean.
I detect anti-Southerner bigotry in the Green party, which pretty much cements the charicature of their voters as a bunch of white, upper-middle class Northeastern, and left-coast elitists, and unreconstructed hippies.
Clark, incidentally, is also a “Southerner,” but I suspect his former capacity as Supreme Allied Commander during the Kosovo conflict [something most Greens reflexively opposed] has more to do with their opposition to him than the “Venture Capitalist” thing.
What you are basically telling me is that the Greens are going to marginalize themselves even more, and doom the country to four more years of George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, and Karl Rove.
–Hesiod
Thomas Leavitt
Talk to the people at fairvote.org - I think they’ve got a mechanism which allows them to predict congressional races with almost 100% accuracy (if it isn’t them, it is another one of the voting reform folk); when it comes down to it during election night, in all probability less than a dozen states will be in play, and they’ll be easily predictable months in advance. Leaves a ton of room for a Green candidate to run as hard as he can without having a snowball’s chance in hell of spoiling anything. Take California for instance, the likelihood of Bush carrying the state is less than the likelihood of a Democrat carrying Texas.
Iraq War is one tiny factor in a whole host of issues that go into evaluating a candidate. Surely you understand that the Greens are not a single issue party … to put it bluntly, Wesley Clark being “introduced” to the political world via Venture Capitalists is strike one, two and three if you want Green votes (not to mention a bunch of Democratic Party votes - which actually consist of the vast majority of Green votes, if you haven’t noticed)… as for Graham, he’s a southern conservative Democrat, and a DLC member. If the Democrats want to avoid pissing off their progressive wing and making a lot of them look elsewhere for anyone esle, Green or otherwise (such as the Peace & Freedom folks here in CA), then they had better not nominate a DLC type, which is a code word for a Democrat in Name Only (DINO).
The DLC’s I know that are running are Lieberman, Edwards and Graham.
Regards,
Thomas Leavitt
—– Original Message —–
From: Hesiod Theogeny
To: Thomas Leavitt
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2003 10:55 AM
Subject: Re: PRESS RELEASE: Billionaire investor Warren Buffett for President? Some Green Party voters say “Yes”!
Why is Graham among the candidates the Green would “full bore” oppose? Not to mention Wesley Clark?
Both are Iraq war skeptics.
I see some possible merit in running a Green candidate in states where the outcome is not in much doubt,” the only problem being that with the probable exception of Texas, which States would those be?
How about ONLY running in States where Bush has a big lead?
–Hesiod
Thomas Leavitt
Won’t happen; either the Greens won’t run a candidate at all… which there is a decreasing order of probability of, in inverse proportion to how conservative the Dem. is, or they’ll actively run a candidate only in states where the outcome is foreordained (again, the degree to which this happens is inversely proportionate to how conservative the Dem is), or they’ll run a candidate full bore flat out (most likely scenario if Lieberman, Edwards or Graham is nominated, or Wesley Clark).
From the Green perspective, the greatest harm is to accept the status quo for any longer… if it induces some sort term pain, that’s a cost they have no choice to accept. If four or even eight years of Bush gets us Instant Runoff Voting, Clean Money, and an electorate with 80-85% participation instead of 15-40% participation, and one that is much more progressive in character, is it worth it? Kind of hard to say not… a wide open political system where Greens and Dems. can work with each other and trade preferences and sit in coalition, and the “left” has a voice that is truly accountable to that constituency would make a world of difference.
Regards,
Thomas
—– Original Message —–
From: Hesiod Theogeny
To: Thomas Leavitt
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2003 7:02 AM
Subject: Re: PRESS RELEASE: Billionaire investor Warren Buffett for President? Some Green Party voters say “Yes”!
I think the Greens should nominate whoever wins the Democratic Party’s nomination.
First, do no harm.
–Hesiod
Thomas Leavitt
PRESS RELEASE: Billionaire investor Warren Buffett for President? Some Green Party voters say “Yes”!
For Immediate Release
Contact: Thomas Leavitt, co-founder, ISwitched.Org at 408-591-3342 or info@iswitched.org.
July 10th, 2003
SANTA CRUZ, CA - Should the Green Party nominate billionaire investor Warren Buffett for President? It’s worth considering, say some participants in the ISwitched.Org Online Primary, citing the billionaire investor’s strong and principled opposition to repeal of the estate tax and other elements of President Bush’s $550 billion tax cut plan, his modest lifestyle and attacks on excessive executive compensation. Buffett’s ability to self-finance a competitive campaign for President is also a factor, given that the Republican and Democratic nominees are each likely to raise and spend in excessive of $100 million dollars in their quest for the Presidency.
A preliminary tally reveals several other nominations that may surprise those whose image of the Green Party is mostly white and male (and anti-business). These include African-Americans Earl G. Graves (CEO and publisher of Black Enterprise Magazine), Natalie Johnson-Lee (a Green Party Minneapolis City Councilwoman), and no less than four other women, including longtime environmental activist Lorna Salzman and Global Exchange founder/peace activist Medea Benjamin (a past Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate in California).
More “conventional” candidates include 1996 and 2000 Green Party nominee Ralph Nader (and his running mate Winona LaDuke, a Native American social justice activist), former Democratic Party Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (who has been been the subject of a “Draft McKinney” movement within the Green Party since losing office last year), longtime Green Party activists David Cobb and Paul Glover (who have already indicated an interest in running to Green Party officials) and liberal Democratic Party candidates Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean.
Several other candidates (including billionaire media mogul Ted Turner, talk show host Oprah Winfrey, TV actress Susan Sarandon, historian Howard Zinn and TV journalist Bill Moyers) are within reach of the minimum threshold for nomination - a final listing will be posted to the ISwitched.Org Online Primary web site at http://www.iswitched.org/dc03/dcballot.php Thursday evening.
“The diversity of candidates nominated demonstrates the benefits of opening up the process and letting people at the grassroots have a say in who should be considered for the presidential nomination of any party. It also demonstrates that the stereotypical image of the Green Party as exclusively white and male is at odds with the reality on the ground; ‘diversity’ has always been one of the 10 Key Values of the Green Party, and nothing demonstrates it better than the list of candidates selected in this preliminary tally,” said ISwitched.Org co-founder Thomas Leavitt, who is administering the election from his home in Santa Cruz using servers hosted with local ISP Got.net.
Voting begins in the ISwitched.Org online primary at 8 a.m. Saturday the 12th of July, and the polls will remain open until midnight on Monday, July 21st, 2003, giving participants plenty of time to consider their options and activists plenty of time to rally support behind particular candidates. The ISwitched.Org Online Primary uses software designed to handle “ranked choice voting” (otherwise known as Instant Runoff Voting, a system recently adopted by the city of San Francisco and in long use internationally by countries such as Ireland and Australia) and thus will be able to produce a “majority” decision even with a diverse set of candidates, unlike MoveOn.Org’s primary (which used a conventional single-choice “plurality” system that permits “victory” with support from less than a majority of the voters). For more information, visit the ISwitched.Org Online Primary web site at http://www.iswitched.org/dc03/
About ISwitched.Org
Launched in May of 2003, ISwitched.Org is dedicated to telling the stories of progressive Green activists at the grassroots of the party. It can be reached on the web at http://www.iswitched.org/. The site’s co-creators can be reached via email at info@iswitched.org, or telephone at 408-591-3342. ISwitched.Org’s look and feel was designed by Gunilla Leavitt, who is a freelance web designer (samples of her work can be found at http://www.godmoma.com) with over 250 sites to her credit. Submissions to the site are encouraged, and may be sent via email to profiles@iswitched.org for consideration by the editors.
About the ISwitched.Org Online Primary
The ISwitched.Org Primary has three goals: highlighting actual and potential Green Party presidential candidates that were excluded from the MoveOn.org “virtual primary”; allowing Green Party members and sympathizers to demonstrate early support for particular candidates; and demonstrating the use of Instant Runoff Voting, a system which allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference, thereby addressing major flaws in the “plurality” system used by MoveOn.org and in most American elections (such as the potential for a “split” in the “progressive” vote between Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich highlighted in commentary on the MoveOn
“The man who does evil to another does evil to himself, and the evil counsel is most evil for him who counsels it.”
http://counterspin.blogspot.com
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SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
“The man who does evil to another does evil to himself, and the evil counsel is most evil for him who counsels it.”
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