Fw: Fw: {news} Initial Reflections on Running for Governor: The Challengesand Opportunities
clifford thornton
efficacy at msn.com
Thu Nov 30 11:26:36 EST 2006
Keep the comments coming. I am hoping that as a groups we can come up with some good suggestions.
Cliff
Efficacy
PO Box 1234
860 657 8438
Hartford, CT 06143
efficacy at msn.com<mailto:efficacy at msn.com>
www.Efficacy-online.org<http://www.efficacy-online.org/>
Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a non profit
501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1997. Your gifts and donations are tax
deductible
----- Original Message -----
From: ken krayeske<mailto:ken at votethornton.com>
To: Patricia Kane<mailto:law_office_kane at yahoo.com>
Cc: clifford thornton<mailto:efficacy at msn.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 10:59 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: {news} Initial Reflections on Running for Governor: The Challengesand Opportunities
Pat
your comments well taken, as are cliff's
at some point, once i get through this week, i will issue a similar look
back at where we succeeded and failed. I met with allan brison yesterday
to discuss his potential run for city council, and it doesn't look
promising. he can't identify a single individual who could be his
campaign manager or his treasurer. ugh.
any discussion of what we are doing should consider this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law>
potential direction:
short term: 1. close out cliff's campaign - eliminate campaign debt
2. finding a slate - a treasurer and secretary to run with cliff and
jean for gp co chairs and determining a strategy that doesn;'t alienate
current gp leadership where they will try to sabotage and sue us for
what we want to do.
mid term: electing people in three or four city races in fall 2007.
long term: we should consider pressing all of our efforts into electing
a secretary of state in 2010 who will work to change the electoral
system in CT - it seems like we could have the most impact that way. we
have the ballot line, and we could start running that person in 2008 -
get people to think about this.
we should all meet at some point in the next few weeks - with caleb and
mike hatchell as well - to discuss.
peace,
kk
Patricia Kane wrote:
> cliff:
> thanks for sending this.
> See my comments below.
> pat
>
> */clifford thornton <efficacy at msn.com>/<mailto:efficacy at msn.com%3E/>* wrote:
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* clifford thornton <mailto:efficacy at msn.com<mailto:efficacy at msn.com>>
> *To:* ctgp-news <mailto:ctgp-news at ml.greens.org<mailto:ctgp-news at ml.greens.org>>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, November 28, 2006 9:46 AM
> *Subject:* {news} Initial Reflections on Running for Governor: The
> Challengesand Opportunities
>
> Connecticut Green Party - Part of the GPUS
> http://www.ctgreens.org/<http://www.ctgreens.org/> - http://www.greenpartyus.org/<http://www.greenpartyus.org/>
>
> to unsubscribe click here
> mailto:ctgp-news-unsubscribe at ml.greens.org<mailto:ctgp-news-unsubscribe at ml.greens.org>
> Comments are welcome as this continues to be a work in progress
> that I
> hope will help future candidates be more effective and help those
> involved with independent politics figure out next steps.
>
> You are welcome to share this with those who you think will be
> interested.
>
> Thanks everyone for their work on the campaign.
>
>
> *Initial Reflections on Running for Governor
> The Challenges and Opportunities*
>
> "I saw youth and young adults in the room standing, cheering, and
> excited about Cliff Thornton. Why does he excite us? Because we
> feel like
> someone is finally listening and courageous enough to build his
> campaign
> around the will of the people with no influence from the
> corporations."
> Derek Maxwell--Professor, Capitol Community Colloge
> "If elections were decided on personality, Cliff Thornton -- the
> Green Party candidate for governor in Connecticut -- would win by
> a landslide. Why? Because he's got one. A personality, that is. He
> has a backbone to match."
>
> "Perhaps because Thornton has nothing to lose and everything to
> gain, he can "afford" to tell the truth. But perhaps, in these
> deeply troubled times, telling the truth is no longer a political
> liability. Who knows? Maybe Americans really have had enough.
> Maybe they want to be adults again, maybe they're sick of the
> sheer wimpiness of the candidates (Republican and Democrat)."
>
> This was from the Hartford Advocate entitled "Memo to all
> candidates of America: Grow a spine!
> By Alan Bisbort."
>
> These were the kind of comments made during my run for Governor in
> Connecticut which made for a great experience. To be honest, I had
> fun.
>
> There were many moments I will never forget -- the first ever
> commercial,
> Students meeting us in Greenwich with a bag of money--then escorting
> us to the gym where there were over three hundred people waiting,
> winning the
> Griswold poll, continuous coverage on CTN every week for four
> months, etc, etc.
> I met a lot of committed people who I am sure will be allies for
> many years.
> My hope is that we can find a way to build an effective
> independent political movement that will give real hope in the
> future --
> by winning elections!
>
> There were a lot of key lessons that I want to share so that future
> candidates will have them before they run for office.
>
> *Debates:* The lesson learned is that getting into the debates is
> only a first step,
> making sure they are televised is equally important./ And, they
> must be
> televised from gavel to gavel.
>
> If the debate is not on TV the third party candidate's role is
> likely to
> be ignored by the media. At least, that was my experience.(Storrs
> debate) It was
> amazing to watch how blatant most of the corporate media was
> excluding me from their coverage. The Hartford Courant may have
> been the
> most aggressive -- headlines only mentioned my opponents,
> photographs only showed my opponents and no substance of my positions
> was given in most of their coverage. There were two major
> articles, one in
> January and the most recent with Ralph N. It was a bold rewriting
> of reality.
>
> A major challenge was the New London Day. They refused to include
> me in the
> debates and as a result redefined the race as a two candidate race
> late
> in the campaign. The New London Day applied the criteria of the
> Commission
> on Presidential Debates to their determination. This criteria was
> developed by the two status quo parties that created the
> Commission to
> keep out alternative voices. The criteria is almost unreachable
> except
> for celebrity or billionaire candidates -- 15% in five polls, and,
> because the New London Day debate was televised and widely covered it
> totally ruined any chance of turning this into a three-way race.
>
> So our challenge is to keep the door open -- indeed open it wider
> -- and
> get the debates of qualified candidates who have ballot
> access covered
> fully on television.
>
> *Media Coverage:* The role of the corporate media in the outcome of
> elections is of utmost importance. We need to realize that when we
> challenge the corporate parties they will have the corporate media
> as an
> ally. This is a very big obstacle because third party candidates
> will
> almost never have enough money to buy enough media time. They
> depend on the
> media to do its job fairly to let the public know that we are running
> and what we stand for. While we were able to get more coverage
> than most
> third party candidates it was still very unbalanced in comparison
> to my
> opponents, incomplete and unfair.
>
> There are many examples, but once again the Hartford Courant
> stands out
> as the worst among the worst! The Connecticut Post did five,
> six articles on the impact
> of the Drug War and education on Connecticut politics. These
> included an A section front
> page story and two B section front page stories.
>
> When the New Haven Register covered my candidacy
> they wrote about my key issues as early as January. The Register
> even had the Dems and Repubs answering questions posed in
> earlier articles by Greens. There were editorials and for the
> most part the Register was fair in its coverage.
>
> An example of television media was WFSB-TV in Hartford and channel
> 30. They did a
> series of stories on various issues -- e.g., the environment,
> economy,
> energy, Iraq -- comparing the Senate candidates. But, they decided to
> only cover the two status quo party candidates. Their rationale
> -- they
> applied the 15 percent standard that was used by The New London
> Day for inclusion in
> debates. If we get WFSB, WCNH and Channel 30 to change it may
> have a broader effect on other
> electronic media. I might mention that Channel 30 had me on
> twice, WFSB once, nothing for channel
> 8--only during the protest and a couple of other times.
>
> I did pretty well regarding radio coverage. But even here there were
> bias problems. WNPR -- the public radio station in Hartford -- did a
> lot of stories on the Senate campaign. Sometimes they covered me but
> too many times they didn't -- repeatedly defining the race as a two
> candidate race. Complaints by my supporters definitely seemed to
> make a
> difference. The Dankosky show did have me on twice, once during the
> primary and once during the general election.
>
> Candidates should not shy away from being very aggressive with the
> media
> when they fail to cover you. They need to hear from you when they
> are
> prejudiced as one thing about prejudice is that those who act
> based on
> it are often unaware of it as it is deeply ingrained. They are
> part of
> a corporate culture that has an attitude that they have adopted.
> Further, it is important to meet face-to-face with the key people
> in the
> media -- and come dressed for the job you want. This made a
> tremendous
> difference in my campaign. After meeting with some key people I at
> least
> got mentioned in the media.
>
> Independent media is very important. It reaches key groups of people
> and is growing in its reach. Further, it provides an opportunity to
> show your views and activities on your website. We need to encourage
> independent media, help expand it and add to its credibility. Every
> year independent media is catching up to the shrinking circulation
> and
> viewership of the corporate media. Soon the tipping point will be
> reached and it will become an equal factor in communication. My hat
> is off to the independent media of Connecticut. They continuously had
> us in the news, TV, radio and print.
>
> The LWV, media and corporate sponsors all conspired to bar new
> party candidates from participating in debates unless they met
> THEIR criteria. We should have an ongoing campaign of protest to
> these organizations and an appeal to the general public to boycott
> organizations that bar legitimate (approved by the Sec. of State)
> candidates.
>
> *Campaign management:* One of the big weaknesses of the third party
> movement is the lack of experience in managing campaigns. This
> includes
> a lack of campaign managers, fundraisers, press secretaries,
> volunteer
> coordinators and other campaign staff. The third party movement
> desperately needs an organization that trains people in these
> areas as
> well as provides support to campaigns. In my case I had three
> dedicated
> staff members who did excellent work but who each had very little
> campaign experience. I'm sure they would agree that if we had one
> experienced campaign manager to direct them we would have achieved
> much
> greater levels of success as each of us (me and my staff) would have
> done better with aggressive direction. This improvement also would
> have
> positively affected the work of volunteers.
>
> The major parties all have training programs for candidates.
> Staffers and potential candidates need training in advance of the
> election. On the job training is too painful. We need to locate
> training programs for our candidates because we cannot provide the
> prof'l level of training in=house right now.
>
> *Fundraising:* The biggest failure of my campaign -- out of things I
> could control (I could not completely control the debates or media
> coverage) was fundraising. I have worked in three significant
> movements
> -- drug policy reform, the anti-war movement and democracy reform
> -- but
> these movements (like most others) are infected with the two party
> virus. They have no confidence in third parties and therefore
> most of
> their participants do not fund them.
>
> We all hate the pay to play system, but we should not run
> candidates who do not have a strategy that included fund-raising,
> plus a commitment of resources from the GP. There are inactive
> members who can write big checks, but they don't. Let's identify
> someone who will commit to this ongoing task. Let's also think
> about some blockbuster event for fund raising.
>
> I was particularly disappointed in the drug policy reform movement
> where
> I have had a fifteen year career. Although there were a few
> exceptions my
> career-long allies, who I have no doubt respect my work, did not
> provide
> major funding for this campaign. Many did not even make token
> contributions as a sign of respect or friendship. Similarly the
> peace
> and democracy movements provided insignificant funding.
>
> Frankly, this is one reason that all these movements (and the union,
> environmental and women's rights movements) are weaker than they
> should
> be. They cow-tow to the Democratic Party even though the
> Democrats do
> very little for them -- indeed often hurt their agenda. They give
> support no matter what the Democratic candidate stands for, thus,
> they
> are taken for granted. As a lifelong feminist and activist, I was
> disappointed to lose out on endorsements by these groups to the
> Dems (males) with no history in the cause. They are all
> Dem-leaning organizations and do nothing for independents. So now
> I just don't contribute to them. And I let them know why. I'm not
> sure how to convince them that this is a failed strategy but we
> need to keep trying. They will not make progress
> on their issues until they get serious about electoral politics --
> putting their agenda far ahead of loyalty to any political party.
> Don't waste your time. Once we start succeeding, they'll knock on
> our doors.
>
> Many in the Green Party that nominated me do not understand the
> importance of money. While I did receive support from some
> members of each party, generally speaking I was disappointed. The
> Greens in
> particular seem very uncomfortable with money as they see it as a
> corrupting influence no matter what the circumstances. We need to
> find ways to convince members of party that funding their
> candidates is THE top priority. There were times I went to Green
> Party meetings and did not even leave with enough money to pay the
> gas bill! Sadly, the media measures potential for success by how
> much money we raise, more than by the strength of our ideas or the
> number of volunteers we
> have. Money is critical and must be made the top priority. It
> should not be feared but welcomed! It is a necessary evil until we
> have equal access to media and public funding. People should
> contribute time or money if they are committed.
>
> *Viability of Third Parties:* There are a lot of people who are
> disgusted with the Democrats and Republicans but they do not see
> anywhere else to go. For those of us who want to see peace,
> justice, environmental transformation as well as a populist
> economic policy, we have two choices (1) change either of the two
> established parties, or
> (2) create an effective alternative to them.
>
> Neither choice is easy. The established parties are very good at
> absorbing insurgents who want to change their party from the inside.
> They let them speak but the primary system is an excellent way to
> kill off any insurgency. The primary is focused on the people
> committed to the party and therefore the voters are more likely to
> support the choice
> of the party leadership. I am not sure what exactly went on in
> Duffey's bid for office so I can not make a clear consice comment
> or evaluation. People showed up at the nominating convention who
> did not know Duffee or his priorities - which were not necessarily
> GP priorities - and they were eligible to vote under our
> "generous" criteria. They were more concerned with Farrell than
> the GP. Since Duffee was such a terrible candidate, I could only
> withdraw my support, both in terms of work and money and vote
> against him. There are too many marginal type people who can act
> impulsively on those rare occasions when they participate. The
> structure of the GP allows for this in the name of grassroots
> democracy and consensus.
> I am not sure if we had insurgents or not as I was concentrating
> onmy campaign and in particular our media thrust. Nope, just our
> own weakness being revealed.
>
> The third party option is also very challenging. The reasons
> above --
> money, media, lack of campaign experience -- are all hurdles to
> overcome. But, the biggest hurdle is the dedication of voters
> associated with their own established party. In my race, The
> Democrats
> did not want to risk getting the mayor elected so most who said they
> would have voted for me did not. I would estimate that I got as many
> Republican votes as Dems.
>
> The "returning to their party" phenomenon is common in the last
> month of
> almost every election with third party candidates unless they are
> showing a chance of winning. Traditionally, half the vote for third
> party candidates is lost in the last month. Polling showing a
> close race is one of the factors, but my sense is that the more
> powerful factor is the sense that "we can't win" is the
> overwhelming factor.
> People want to be represented in government. They feel like they
> are better represented when they vote for someone who wins even if
> they don't agree with what s/he stands for than to vote for
> someone they agree with. That leads me to (2) educating voters on
> the power of voting for what you want. They need to see that they
> can change the course of the government better by voting for what
> they want, rather than voting for a winner who they disagree with.
> As Caleb said, we should also run races we can actually win and
> that will energize people. U.S. history is
> replete with examples of such impact but Americans don't know this
> history.
>
> I see two good signs in Connecticut. First, the African American
> community, a key voting bloc making up 12% of the voting
> population, is tired of being taken for granted by the Democrats
> and distrustful of the Republicans even when they run an African
> American candidate. We need to show them that joining with an
> independent alternative that includes
> disenchanted blacks and whites, anti-war voters and independents
> is the way for them to have the most electoral power. Three-way
> races will increase minority power because we can win with as
> little as 34%. I want to find ways to reach out to the African
> American community and keep building among the other communities.
> I sent an email to Sheila Barney to follow up on your meeting with
> her. I think there is an opportunity to do more with the
> African-American and Latin community here. The Dems have bought
> off some community leaders who have sold out their constituents'
> interests. Some of the people "get it" and are ripe for being wooed.
>
> Secondly, support among independents is rising for the Green
> Party. We are becoming the alternative for independents. My guess
> is this has nothing to do with "Green" (in fact that may even be a
> detriment) but has more
> to do with being tired of the two established parties, seeing
> their corruption and their inability to be effective in response
> to the
> peoples needs. There are going to be opportunities for the
> Greens(or other third parties) to become the second party in some
> areas of the state.Indeed, this seems to already be occurring in
> Willimantic.
>
> We missed an opportunity to lead on the issue of Eminent Domain
> abuse. Drug law reform is certainly a biggy, but ED was THE topic
> and no one ran with the ball on that one.
>
> Pulling people from the two parties requires a bridge. Calab
> Kleppner, Green Party, New Haven has been raising the possibility
> of an
> independent non-partisan voters league that would function as a
> way to educate voters tired of the two parties and unite them behind
> candidates. This could include supporting an independent
> candidate or a candidate of a third party, or a real insurgent
> inside either of the two parties. This kind of flexibility will
> make it easier for those not quite ready to put the two parties
> behind them to consider the
> possibility and perhaps show them that there is a viable third
> alternative.
> We have so much internal work to do that I can't even deal with
> this at the moment.
> This is also consistent with a viewpoint expressed to me by
> Libertarians, who expressed the view that we should all find ways
> to keep working together but it is important that people be able
> to keep their own independent identity with whomever political
> party they prefer. If an independent non-partisan voter league was
> developed in Connecticut successfully then the support of that
> league may provide more credibility of candidates they got
> behind. This could also
> have a very positive effect on media coverage and fundraising. My
> priority is strengthening the GP. You asked if we are a political
> party? I think the answer is not yet. We don't have the structure,
> the strategy or the membership and funding to achieve much. I
> suggest focusing on by-law revision (part 1 - re-organizing the
> info), electing new leadership, by-law revision (part 2 - new
> structure to remedy the weaknesses in process, eg. what
> constitutes membership and eligibility to vote), setting goals
> (1-5 year plans) and reviewing committees and Chapters for
> effectiveness.
>
>
> Clifford Wallace Thornton, Jr.
>
> Efficacy
> PO Box 1234
> 860 657 8438
> Hartford, CT 06143
> efficacy at msn.com<mailto:efficacy at msn.com> <mailto:efficacy at msn.com<mailto:efficacy at msn.com>>
> www.Efficacy-online.org<http://www.efficacy-online.org/> <http://www.Efficacy-online.org<http://www.efficacy-online.org/>>
>
> Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a
> non profit
> 501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1997. Your gifts and donations
> are tax
> deductible
>
>
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>
> Patricia Kane, Esq.
> The Kane Legal Group LLC
> 230 High Ridge Road
> Stamford, CT 06905
> (203 324-3316
> (203) 351-0818 Fax
--
Peace,
Ken Krayeske
Campaign Manager
Thornton for Governor
P.O. Box 1971
Manchester, CT 06045
www.votethornton.com<http://www.votethornton.com/>
860-995-5842
*This message is paid for and approved by Thornton for Governor, Max
Wentworth, Treasurer*
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