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Dissecting the North Coast Greens |
By Philip Murphy
Dissecting the Greens: Part 2
2-14-05
In the last installment of "Dissecting the Greens", we covered the importance of selecting the right race and candidate, two areas that have been problematic in recent years for North Coast Greens. Actually, these two chronic problems are not confined to the North Coast by any stretch of the imagination, and the source of these hobbling dilemmas is the same across the entire nation. Need perfect examples? Look at the Green list serve here in Lake County, or the agenda for the next meeting of the Mendo Greens. See anything there that relates to a local issue in a meaningful way? Of course not, since the vast majority of Greens can tell you all kinds of stuff about the political dynamics in Baghdad or Washington D. C., but haven't a clue as to what is going on in their own county supervisors or city councils meeting this week. And just as importantly in the partisan political sense, they have no idea what is going on in Sacramento, the logical starting point for third parties getting their feet wet in partisan politics.
This is the biggest obstacle the Greens have to overcome, to start thinking about their own backyard as much as they worry over the fate of the rest of the world, something they tend to do in spite of the fact they can do little if anything to change the "big picture" until the far-off day comes when Greens have a presence in Washington DC. Obviously it's great that people have an awareness of what's going on overseas or in the nation's capitol, but there has to be a much better balance between the big and little picture because unlike the "big picture", no one else cares about what happens in our backyards-it's all up to us. It will be a huge undertaking, but before the Greens make a dent in the political dynamics in Sacramento, they need to get their members up-to-speed on what is happening (or not happening) there. Making the problem even more difficult to remedy is the fact that there is a dearth of quality media sources available to follow state political issues, which makes finding out what's going on in the state capitol a time and effort consuming chore. Add to that the fact that most Greens are very loosely connected to anything but the lefty media and you narrow the available data stream down to a trickle, and a rather predictable trickle at that.
Recently a friend of mine interviewed Amy Goodman for our local community radio station, and was stunned by what Amy told her she did on her spare time. It turns out (much to the horror of many lefties like my interviewer friend), Amy spends her evenings watching lots of mainstream TV political shows, while the rest of us are glued to KPFA or one of it's local surrogates for our news-data intake. Why does Amy spend so much time and effort deciphering the badly flawed mainstream media? Because it's an integral part of the real world, that scary place that so many Greens strive to avoid at every turn, and it must be studied and understood in order to interact effectively with it. Plenty of what passes for normal here in America should be shunned, but when it comes to working with the system in place (which is what political parties not wanting to handle explosives must do), we have to pay a heck of a lot closer attention to what the evil empire comprised of the two dominant political parties is doing closer to home. And no, you can't substitute listening to "Democracy Now" for scanning the mainstream media for news nuggets that have meaning to the local Greens, since Amy isn't infallible and she's a "big picture" gal anyway.
Lucky for the Greens we now live in the Internet age, where peeking at the corporate rags is as easy a clicking a mouse, and best of all, it's free! My morning routine includes going to the local paper's website (the Lake County Record-Bee, in my case), and before looking at the Lake County stories, I scan the headlines of the other North Coast Dailies in the same mega corporate media chain ( for once the media consolidation actually works for us!), and get an idea of what's up in Ukiah, Willits and Fort Bragg, among other North Coast communities. Obviously that won't fill all the data gaps (that's where the AVA and the rest of alternative media comes in), but it does give you quick, free and easy access to a broad slice of what the "real world" is up to in a regional sense (which is the context that Greens have to start thinking in if they want to become players in the partisan politics game).
Once Greens get a feeling for what's up in Sacramento they can begin to put together a practical strategy for getting a Green into the state assembly or possibly the senate, which should be the near-term goal for the reasons covered in the first article. The three districts where this could happen are up here on the North Coast and maybe two places in the Bay Area where Greens have a strong presence and could put together a credible effort. The state Green Party structure should realize this and devote all their energy into backing serious candidates running serious campaigns in districts where they can either spoil the race or win it outright, and stop wasting time and money on a slew of far less viable contests in order to simply fill ballot slots. Spoiling a race isn't the optimum result, but it may be the best we can initially manage and would send a huge shockwave through the state Democratic party structure big enough that it would get national attention (even in the "real" media!). There has been a lot of talk about what a fine Green candidate Dan Hamburg would be for the assembly, but why should he consider running if he believes there will be no serious effort made by Greens to support him, because of lack of party focus and organizational skills?
Getting a real candidate like Hamburg, plus the party structure to support him/her is only half the battle though, because Greens have to find a new way to connect with the average Californian (or American, for that matter), before we can get out of the also-ran category. A lot of the things that many Greens think are important aren't even on the radar screens of the average Joes and Janes, and visa-versa. We need to connect with the mainstream here, find out what they want, and either show them how we'll help them get it or why they don't need it. On the short list we have taxes, healthcare, traffic ( in the Bay Area, not here), crime, housing and education. Greens need to succinctly show voters how the two other parties have sold out to special interests, which has lead to higher taxes, more expensive health care and longer commutes, among other avoidable hardships. Greens have to connect for the voters the campaign contributions and the policy we end up with to show why either the Democrats or Republicans have betrayed them, and why we have a better plan that doesn't involve taking money from the people we're supposed to be regulating in one form or another. This of course works better with incumbents, but even first-time Democratic or Republican candidates will have to make themselves venerable by taking out-of-district or other kinds of special interest money that Greens are untainted by.
The Green party in America is at a critical stage now, it has to move decisively forward or risk going the way of the Reform Party and the rest of the third party Dodo birds. After the debacle on the national level courtesy a presidential candidate who suddenly sprang to life AFTER the election, and only then to work on the Kerry campaign's behalf, we can't expect the image of the Green Party nationally to help the process here. If the resuscitation of the party is going to take place we need to get on it fast, and if the Green Party can't make it in Northern California it doesn't stand a chance of doing something meaningful in the rest of the country in our lifetimes. The Greens in Germany are taken very seriously because they have learned to be practical and work effectively within the system instead of trying to fix it by ignoring it, as is the local custom that has been practiced for years with predictable results. We might be able to someday get American Greens the same level of respect the German Greens currently enjoy, but only if we spend less time dealing with the stuff we have so little chance of changing and take responsibility for the things we need to take upon ourselves to change closer to home that no one else will change for us.
1-27-05
Former AVA editor Bruce Anderson summed up the local Green Party leaders last year as well as anyone, when he said that that while he thought they were basically a bunch of nice and well intended people, collectively they sure didn't have a clue as to what running an effective political party entailed. While I'm certain that Bruce didn't endear himself to the persons in question any further with his more critical observations, plenty of evidence exists to support his contentions, and if the North Coast Greens don't take heed and make some big changes they are destined to continue to have zero effect on the political process for the foreseeable future.
Now sure, there's a handful of Greens holding elected office in this general area (including one on a school board running Lake County's biggest school district), but all of these fine folks are in nonpartisan positions, where their greenness is largely unnoticed and irrelevant. What should really count for the Green Party is the three partisan offices that we don't share with the rest of the state, the state senate and assembly seats and the seat in the US house of representatives. Looking at the seat in the house we have Mike Thompson running things, and will for as long as he cares to. Why? Because the republicans have essentially given up on trying to mount credible campaigns to unseat him, and have chosen to spend their money elsewhere in places they might have some hope of seeing some return on it. Thompson gets a fair amount of crossover votes in this rural region, where his close ties to the wine grape industry (he even owns a small vineyard himself) garner him both votes and money from the usually right-of-center farming community. On the left end of the spectrum, Thompson pleases many potential Greens with his staunch opposition to the Iraq war (even before the predictable disaster unfolded), and a consistently fairly good voting record on both environmental and social issues. Broad-based support among the electorate and a campaign war chest that usually runs in the $2 million dollar range makes Thompson by far the most difficult of the three to unseat, and it should be obvious to all Greens by now this is the last place to begin trying to gain a foothold in the arena of local partisan politics.
Next we have the state senate seat, currently filled by Wes Chesbro. Chesbro is little known outside of the far North Coast, even though his gerrymandered district stretches all the way down to Solano County. Chesbro is in his last two years as senator thanks to term limits, and it's hard to say what his next move will be career-wise, other than it's bound to be taxpayer funded as always. Chesbro has plenty of clout in Sacramento, where he heads up the senate budget committee, so getting democratic party backing and money for a number of statewide elected offices is not hard to imagine. Or, Chesbro could swap places with Patty Berg, our alleged representative in the state assembly, who's seat is back up for grabs in ‚06. Looking at the senate seat option reveals several problems for the Greens, one is that the physical size of the district makes campaigning difficult and expensive, and would require cooperation with an even larger and more far flung/diverse Green party structure. Another is the fact that again the money scale is hard to deal with, what with state senate war chests like Chesbro's running in the $1 million dollar range. Chesbro's record in office is fairly weak, and his list of financial backers could effectively be used against him by a third party candidate, but these points are mostly irrelevant to us North Coasters unless he does try to pull a swap with Patty Berg for her state assembly seat. Former assembly woman Virginia Strom-Martin is also a possible candidate for the senate seat that opens in ‚06, and her wide spread name recognition and favorable reputation would make her an extremely difficult candidate to challenge, especially for the Greens due to her relatively progressive agenda.
The last of the three possible targets for Green success is assembly woman Patty Berg , who has one more shot at the assembly in ‚06 before term limits end her wimpy tenure in that position. This is without a doubt the best chance the Greens have at giving the Democrats something to worry about, and where they actually have an opportunity to become something more than a political sideshow act. Berg's voting and bill introduction records are woefully thin, her image and name recognition levels outside of Eureka are dismal, and she's a miserable campaigner. Add to that the fact that her district is far smaller than Chesbro's and she has an itty-bitty stash of campaign funds and it all adds up to a big bulls-eye on her back for anyone with the smarts to exploit the situation. Patty was able to scrounge together a scant quarter million dollars for her last outing, and spent only a paltry $75 thousand or so to run her almost invisible campaign. Her list of contributors is much like Chesbro's, (PG&E, insurance companies, lumber companies, casinos, etc.), and also makes her very venerable to third party candidates untainted by corporate thief's cash. Also, Patty is highly dependent on the financial generosity of other democratic politicos campaigns, who because of their out of the district origins could also be used as ammo against her if the right tactics were employed. No matter who the democrats run for the assembly seat an effective anti-outside the district money campaign could be used by the Greens to somewhat level the playing field, as this is an issue that could resonate greatly with voters who are tired of seeing our local political contests influenced or decided by people who don't live here.
Hopefully by now Greens should be clear on the point that running people for two or even all three of the seats would seriously dilute every precious resource available, from money and organizing talent and energy to the pool of qualified candidates, and would be counterproductive at this point (gotta walk before we run, folks). Which brings us to the choice of candidates themselves, an area where we North Coasters obviously have some work to do. When the Green electorate has a choice in the primary between someone who is highly qualified and dedicated to running a serious campaign and someone who is neither qualified or even aware of what a serious campaign looks like, something is terribly wrong when the far less desirable candidate wins by a convincing margin. It's called poor data dissemination people, and we have to find a way to deal with that problem to keep from shooting ourselves in the foot again before the real race even begins. The most obvious solution is a e-mail list serve that doesn't load a bunch of useless crap into your computer every day, since this is the most cost effective way to reach people. Our Green list serve here in Lake County is bogged-down with stuff that hasn't got anything to do with running a local branch of a political party, and should be used as a model of what not to do, as the rank-and-file Greens should only be pestered when we really need their attention (like when we're trying to tell them who our candidates are). Another thing that must be done is to build a county-by-county support network for our candidate(s), which can get him/her up to speed on local issues and venues for rallies, and to raise funds for their campaign. Other working groups should be organized to draft and submit press releases, especially ones timed to respond quickly to actions or statements made by opposition candidates during campaigns, as this is a great way for lazy newspaper reporters to fill space in their stories and get our candidate some free PR. Other groups should be formed to keep tabs on incumbent's voting records and campaign donors, the idea here is to free up the time and energy of the candidate themselves as much as possible so they can focus on campaigning. Another tactic that can be extremely cost effective and devastating to the opposition is to organize letter writing campaigns to local papers, where the letters to the editor page can be used to a much greater extant than it has been in the past by Greens, who tend to show an aversion to the mainstream media. The fact is we need the support of the people who read those crappy corporate rags if we ever want to grow the party the way we've been dreaming of and claiming we'll do for many years now. This party can't grow if we keep preaching to the choir, which is the rut too many of us have fallen into. Last of all we need to find ways to appeal to and reach people who are habitual democrats and show them why their party has betrayed them, and why we offer a better alternative, something that we've only managed on an occasional basis so far.
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