|
Comment on this article |
Email this Article
|
|
News :: Elections & Legislation |
|
It's Not Easy Being Green |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sam Smith
(No verified email address) |
05 May 2004
|
|
Some thoughts and info on issues confronting the Green Party in 2004 |
GREEN PARTY CANDIDATES have a 44% win rate for elections so far this year. 39 Greens ran for office in the first four months of 2004, with 17 victories. Another 255 are in election races this year
Greens tend to win more elections in the spring than in regular state legislative partisan races on Election Day in November. In irregular and special elections, Greens and other third party and independent candidates often face fewer ballot access restrictions.
Wisconsin Green candidate Shwaw Vang was re-elected to his second term on the Madison School Board. Vang received 70% (19,987 votes), beating a well-funded extreme conservative challenger. Vang, who is Hmong, emigrated to the U.S. from Laos, and grew up in Madison, had earlier survived a recall effort by right-wing activists promoted by Rush Limbaugh.
In New Mexico, Fran Gallegos was re-elected as Santa Fe municipal judge on March 2, with 55% of the vote in a four-way election. Gallegos is popular for her innovative sentencing practices that favor community service instead of imprisonment. Gallegos, who is Latina, is currently the only Green judge in the U.S.
THINGS AREN'T LOOKING so bright for the Green national convention where a train wreck is possible over a choice between Ralph Nader, David Cobb and no candidate. The Naderites, mostly concealed behind stalking horses, presently hold a delegate lead over Cobb's backers, who favor a safe states strategy and emphasize building the party's base. The safe states strategy would limit presidential activity in those states in which the Bush and Kerry are in a tight race.
Greens are badly divided over the best approach to the 2004 election. Beyond the Cobb-Nader schism there are those who favor no nominee or even Kerry - as well as threats (including from officeholders) to walk out on the party if things don't go the their way. Already fundraising has been hurt thanks in part to the Democrats' slander that Nader was to blame for the poor 2000 showing of their weak candidate and campaign.
Ironically, Nader, who undeniably helped the Green Party grow in 2000, may do more harm this year to the Greens rather than the Democrats. Local Greens depend upon sympathetic Democrats for money and votes; with a Nader candidacy both will be in short supply. It is entirely possible that Ralph Nader will prove responsible both the rise and the fall of the Green Party, all in just four years.
A strategy that deemphasizes the presidential run, such as Cobb's approach, would be much easier on local candidates. In fact, the most successful third parties in recent American history were those - such as the Populists and Socialists - that concentrated on grassroots organizing and used presidential campaigns as icing on the cake.
To make matters trickier, however, events are not totally in anyone's hands. Continued stupidity on the part of the Bush regime could cause a spurt in the anti-war movement with Nader as primary political beneficiary, much as with the Socialist spurt in Spain. Nader wouldn't win but he easily could make the Democrats' phony excuse for their 2000 debacle come true in 2004. That is if one assumes the Democrats don't still have the choice of finally taking a sensible stand on the Iraq disaster. |
See also:
http://prorev.com/indexa.htm
|
Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
