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Parent Article: Anti-Green With Envy |
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Corporate Scandals May Help Greens Party to R |
by Michael Walcher
solaraycer (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
22 Jul 2002
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Corporate Scandals May Help Greens Party to Run in 39 States
by Tom Squitieri
PHILADELPHIA -- Two years after its warnings about corporate greed helped decide the outcome of the presidential race, the Green Party gathered here this weekend with the goal of not just being spoilers, but winners.
With 146 elected officials nationwide, the Greens are running 362 candidates in 39 states this fall. Among them are 16 running for governor, eight for the U.S. Senate, 59 for the House of Representatives, 109 for state legislatures and 38 for other statewide offices.
During a four-day convention that ended Sunday, candidates and delegates listened to prominent speakers such as 2000 presidential nominee Ralph Nader and learned practical skills such as fundraising and publicity.
''We realize that marching in the streets is no longer enough,'' said David Cobb, the Green candidate for attorney general in Texas.
Nader's run for the White House in 2000 may have cost Democrat Al Gore the election, but it also brought the Greens new members, visibility, funding and ballot status across the country. Now, helped by the public furor over corporate financial fallouts, some of this year's candidates are poised to have a major impact in more than a dozen states.
Among the documents party members were given to use in this fall's campaigns was a ''nine-step program for recovering democracy from corporate rule.'' It included calls for ''vigorous criminal prosecution'' of corporate executives who violate the law, stronger protections for employees who blow the whistle on misconduct and public financing of elections to reduce the influence of special-interest money.
''It's hard not to keep saying we told you so'' Cobb said.
Nader, who has not ruled out another run for the White House in 2004, said the corporate scandals have given the party its greatest opportunity. ''Until a few months ago, it was 'white collar' crime. Now, even the Republicans in Congress refer to it as corporate crime, and even those in Congress who were in cahoots with the crooks are now denouncing them,'' he said.
The recent spate of corporate misconduct gives the party a high-profile national issue. But behind the scenes, Greens are building coalitions and trying to elect candidates on local issues such as water conservation, transportation, urban sprawl and workers' rights.
Since 2000, the party has followed a strategy aimed at building itself from the local level, through statehouses, and into Congress by 2008. Party officials have set up field operations, improved communications among state chapters and begun training candidates in basic campaign skills. They also have abandoned their traditional aversion to raising large amounts of money. Though still shunning corporate and political action committee contributions, party leaders quietly remind candidates that it ''takes green to elect Greens.''
Analysts say the Greens appear to be doing the right things to build the foundations of a viable national party.
''A third party cannot be built around a single personality and survive,'' said Jo Streit, producer of the documentary Flirting With Power, about Ross Perot's 1992 independent presidential campaign. ''The Greens' approach to running candidates in local elections and schooling them in the art of campaigning is crucial to their long-term viability.''
In recent years, the Greens have evolved from a loose network of community activists concerned about the environment to a nationally recognized political party with positions on health care, education, energy, human rights and foreign affairs. Last summer, they ended a potentially destructive squabble with another Green organization by melding the other group into the party.
This year, they have learned the value of pragmatic politics. In New Mexico, the Greens decided not to run candidates for two seats in Congress, choosing to concentrate on state races. They spurned an offer of $250,000 from the Republicans to run House candidates who the GOP hoped would drain votes from Democrats.
About 100 of the 362 Green Party candidates -- triple the number from 2000 -- came to Philadelphia to learn campaign skills. More than half were women, more than a dozen minorities -- a sharp rise from two years ago. Reading glasses and bifocals mixed with the usual array of sandals, colorful shirts and graying ponytails.
And for the first time, delegates confronted the need to broaden their image beyond that of a leftist party dominated by whites. Said one: ''We've got to stop planning events that just have folk singing.''
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