{news} Fw: Final reports

[Clifford Thornton]

This comes from a seasoned veteran.  Please take not of the paragraph that 
talks about
local and state elections.

Cliff

Efficacy
PO Box 1234
860 657 8438
Hartford, CT 06143
efficacy at msn.com
www.Efficacy-online.org

"THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON"

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: "Greg Gerritt" <gerritt at mindspring.com>
To: "Greg Gerritt" <gerritt at mindspring.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 9:22 PM
Subject: Final reports


I am leaving the NC this week, now that my final reports are filed.  The
GPRI will be replacing me eventually.  I am also stepping down from the GPUS
committees I am on, and stepping down from my state party CC.  About  a year
ago I decided to step down from all official positions right after the 2008
election so for the first time in 24 years I will hold no official Green
Party positions or be a member of any committees, not that I ever needed an
official position to make things happen or cause trouble.   In 1979 I heard
about the German Greens, and immediately said we need a Green Party here.
In February 1984 I heard about a Green meeting in Maine and went.  I have
served on various state and national committees continuously ever since, so
I am looking forward to having no official Green duties other than
subscribing folks to my state party list serve.   I will continue to be very
active in Green Politics and the Green Party, and think at this time I can
be much more useful outside the bureaucracy so it is time to rotate out for
a very long time, and hopefully permanently.  I have no doubt others will
continue to step up to keep this grand experiment in politics going.

Over the last few years, starting with the early 2003 beginnings of the 2004
presidential cycle I have played a key role in the political committees of
the GPUS, serving at various times as chair of the Coordinated Campaign
Committee and the Presidential Campaign Support Committee.   This report has
several sections, a section on the CCC and the state of Green campaigns for
office, a section on the PCSC and presidential politics, a section on the
NC, and some additional thoughts.

The CCC

The least place complicated place to start is with the CCC.  Well over 1
million people cast a vote for Green candidates this fall.  Not what we
hoped for, but not something to sneeze at.  Over One Million People cast a
vote for Green candidates.  Over 2.6 million votes in total. 522,000 people
cast votes for Greens for Congress, a new record. Our candidates for
Congress averaged more than 8000 votes, also a record, lead by Abel
Tomlinson in Arkansas with 35000, the most a Green running for Congress has
ever received. A number of other Congressional candidates exceeded 20000
votes, including Titus North in PA.  Rebekah Kennedy lead Senate candidates
with 206,000  votes.  Rick Lass received over 75000 votes in New Mexico
running for Public Regulatory Commission.  Jesse Johnson received over 31000
votes in WV. When we run we continue to do well.

Where we seem weakest is in running for State legislature.  It is what I ran
for twice, getting 16% and 20% in 3 way races the two times I tested the
waters, and it seems a great office for Greens to run for, but we have a
dearth of candidates. The short version of why so few Greens pick state
legislature as to what to run for is this.   Greens love to talk big
picture, especially war and peace.  If you want to talk about that you run
for Congress, even though no one has ever even come close to winning as a
Green.  But it feels good and is a bully pulpit, or at least can be.  At the
other end of the spectrum, Greens win really local races, up to City Council
and Mayor, including water boards, school boards , and sewer districts, so
if you are ready to win, that is what you run for..  While we win some state
reps seats ( usually 1 in an election cycle) the success ratio is very low
even though so many seats are in one candidate districts.  And while the
issues are big, the races get little media coverage, and it is not war and
peace.  It is a great seat to run for to talk about the local economy and
the transformation of the economy to a relocalized Green economy, but that
is tough to talk about in our communities, and often the districts are
pretty large, meaning a big effort is required.  Right now the success to
effort ratio is not very good for the most part, whereas with Congress there
is not yet an expectation of winning so it is psychologically a smaller
barrier.

I have seen several discussions over the years of a legislative strategy or
a House strategy.  I think this is less a strategy and more a doing.  But
good candidates only sometimes lead to more good candidates and it is easy
to run out the string.  We have done a bit of that in a number of states,
with fewer candidates this year than in past years.  Each year some new
states run record numbers of candidates, and others run fewer.  This year AR
and IL lead the way, while CA surprised us with a dearth of candidates and
RI fell flat.

As for the CCC, I would suggest y¹all do not even call for an election this
year and let the committee die.  Its original mission was to give out money,
but it has been years since we had any money to give out.  Understanding
that the committee tried to turn itself into a learning community, trying to
help each other become better at helping candidates, and succeeded well
enough that each year whatever membership we had drifted off to either run
for office or manage a local campaign.  Rick Lass is the prime example this
year. That left the committee with maybe 2 active members, and business
ground to a complete halt.  So the CCC is not a failure, it helped Greens
run better races, but maybe there is a better way to help Greens run better
races.  At the end of this report I will discuss one way I am going to pick
up some of this, and I expect that there are plenty of things the NC or some
other official body could do in this respect as well.  One official duty I
will miss is providing a sounding board for the political director.  I think
I really helped him do his job better, and I know we both learned much
through this regular communication.

Presidential politics

Over the last 5 years I have probably played a big role in determining what
the Green Party process for seeking the presidential nomination.  I wrote
extensively about the 2004 process in Green Party Tempest, then tried to
build upon what we learned in 2004 for 2008. I know my role was not
universally welcomed, I received death threats and threats of violence for
taking on this role.  I tried to give the role away, said to everyone
repeatedly, if you have a better idea, then lets see it and lets put it to
work,  but no one came up with a better idea or at least no one tried to
implement one that lead to an actual nominating process that was open to all
candidates who chose to follow it. So I kept working.

The basic core of how to get the nomination was developed prior to the 2004
presidential campaign by the PCSC. Each state party holds a primary or some
sort of caucus/convention.  The state parties allocate their delegations to
the national convention based on the proportion of votes each candidate
received in their primary or caucus.  Whoever got a majority of the votes at
the national convention would be the nominee.  What it meant was that anyone
seeking the nomination really had to campaign all over the country and
really talk to Greens.

In 2004 state parties were only marginally versed in the process, but
essentially it worked.   Several candidates sought the nomination and David
Cobb out worked and out organized them and was nominated.  The Naderites,
not the Green Supporters of a Nader Green candidacy, but those who wanted
Ralph or nothing,  never forgave us for not nominating the candidate who did
not want the nomination and would not seek it.  They still do not forgive us
for actually setting up a process based on the state parties, in other words
a process based on the GPUS as a federation of state parties in which if a
candidate wants to be nominated they have to actually run for the
nomination.  So be it.

For 2008 the PCSC tried to make sure that the state parties and candidates
were much more prepared.  It did not work out quite as well as we had hoped,
but we produced pretty good manuals for the state parties and the candidates
that laid out what they were expected to do and how it all worked.  The
candidates and state parties that read the manual found it useful, but ask
yourself if your state party used the manual at all and shared it widely or
not. It was sent to every NC delegate and many other Greens around the
country.  We also made sure there were people available to talk to every
state party that had questions and proactively sought the state parties out
to ask them if they were ready and what they needed.

We did the same thing with candidates.  I had primary responsibility for
talking to potential candidates, mostly because no one else was willing to
do it.  The members of the PCSC were regularly encouraged to pick up the
phone and call candidates and talk about the campaign, but most never did.
I ended up talking to about 25 candidates, most of whom had one conversation
with me and were never heard from again.  It was the American dream that
anyone can be president that lead them to consider running.  The reality
check was when they were told what it would actually take to run. The 4
candidates that made it to the convention, Jesse Johnson, Kent Mesplay, kat
swift, and the eventual nominee Cynthia McKinney were the only candidates
willing to actually travel the road. While the role of first person to have
a semi official talk with anyone considering seeking the nomination was
controversial for a small number of people  in the party, it was clear to
me, and I think to anyone else who really thought about it, that the role is
needed.  We need someone to have initial conversations with anyone seeking
the presidential nomination, if for no other reason than to inform them
simply and clearly how the process works.  If this person does a screening,
so much the better.  It probably needs to be a person on the PCSC, but it
does not have to be chair, and in fact it might be better if it is not the
chair.  But it really needs to be someone who knows the process, knows
politics, and has extensive contacts with members of the various state Green
Parties around the country.  It also needs to be someone who can credibly
tell people how difficult it is to run and how much work it is to do it
well. We do not need people who were kidnapped by Aliens and are now
following instructions beamed to them through the wires the CIA implanted in
their  brains publicly announcing they are running for office and
embarrassing everyone. That I screened out such candidates brought me
harassment, but also was good for the party.

None of our candidates in 2008 put together an effective outreach or
fundraising strategy.  None of them were really willing in a timely manner
to pick up the phone and call every member of every state party coordinating
committee, which is exactly how anyone really thinking about getting the
nomination ought to begin.     I get the feeling the whole process is too
long and arduous for those with limited resources, like any Green. An early
nomination does not seem to help us deal with the length of the campaign if
resources are hard are hard to find. The state parties were not ready to
look at candidates 2.5 years into the 4 year cycle, nor are the potential
nominees able to come up with resources early enough to make this
particularly practical.  But starting later is not a real good option
either.  I hope y¹all think about this much more and with more information
in hand.


Our presidential ticket, Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente  are to be
congratulated.  The were road warriors that were really on message the whole
time.  There were many weaknesses in the set up of the campaign, some of
which have been discussed by members of the party on various lists, and we
need to learn from that experience, but let us first remember that the
143000 votes they received is a jump of nearly 20% over the 2004 Green
Presidential vote, and the percentage of the vote also increased by nearly
20%.  Some call it failure, but I consider it forward progress in a very
difficult climate.

Here is the short version of what I think I have learned.

I think we have to realistically assess the state of the outside world, not
in deciding whether or not to run a Green Presidential candidate, I believe
we should always do that, but in preparing ourselves for how well our
candidate will do.  I never drank the 5% Kool Aid, and think we ought to
quit thinking about it, it is a false god.  Something I think I have finally
learned is that really bad Presidents like George Bush make our job much
tougher.  When evil holds that office everyone is looking for a lesser evil.
When a  phony progressive like Bill Clinton holds the office people left of
center in America get so disappointed they look our way.  I think 2012 just
might be a good year for us if we can find anyone willing to seek the
nomination.

I think there is only a limited pool of money available to an actual Green
Presidential nominee.  Not to say any of our candidates have ever set up a
great fundraising effort or learned how to use the internet for fundraising
particularly effectively, but the pool is not real deep and it can be
drained by non Greens who set up shop early.  Expectations of a well funded
campaign are not well grounded in reality, and the campaign plan ought to
reflect that.

This year we did a much better job with internet campaigning than in the
past.  But still not good enough.  We used U tube a lot, but were not very
good at viral messaging.  Even our core membership did not take the actions
necessary to use this medium effectively.  I know I looked at videos and
rated them, but I never did DIGG a video.  I expect we shall be better at
this in 2012, but we shall still be several years behind the curve, chasing
a horizon that is always moving.

On various lists I have seen critiques pointing out that our candidates did
not have a strong organizational structure.  There was no campaign manager,
except for a two week fiasco, no place to go with questions that had a
reasonable chance of getting an answer, no real good calendar, no way to
know if your event was going to get on the schedule.  This happens in
underfunded campaigns, but I also think we could have done a lot better if
Cynthia had let us help her more, and had thought more about how to set up
good communications channels.  Several of us helped pull together a network
of leaders of the various state efforts, but often we had nothing to offer
except commiseration.   The issue of getting confirmations for events and
information on when and where the candidates would be may have hurt the
campaign the most.  Rosa eventually worked out for herself a way to
communicate effectively, via the list serve for state coordinators, but
Cynthia always left us up in the air about the day to day nitty gritty of
campaigning even as she was speaking out so well on the issues.  This is the
bread and butter of campaigns, and a good system might have helped us get
100000 or 200000 more votes.

The critiques of the response to questionnaires was more off base.  We did
develop a writing team, Ann Link worked closely with John Judge to make sure
every questionnaire that came in was put in front of the writers.  We were
not inundated with reliable writers,  the writers who were reliable could
only handle so much, and often questions came in on very short notice.  Yes,
stuff got missed, and this could have gotten off the ground earlier,  but it
worked, even if not to anyone¹s satisfaction.

I know there is going to be a tendency to want to rework the whole
presidential process between now and 2012.  I suggest proceeding with a bit
of caution.  Figure out what actually worked and what worked less well.  Ask
the people who were inside the process as well as those observers from the
outside. Figure out among the things that worked less well if the process is
flawed or the practice was just weak. I strongly urge everyone involved in
the discussions to reread the manuals for state parties and candidates  as a
prelude to this process and to think long and hard about how to improve the
process actually found in the manuals, rather than your impressions of what
the process is, before wholesale tinkering with the process.

Consider the calendar carefully.  I know some  folks are clamoring for an
early nomination, but if we are to ever develop into a major political
party, then we need to get used to the calendar the D¹s and R¹s have worked
out and swim in it.  This means using primaries when ever possible,
respecting state guidelines for conventions, doing things the same day as
the other parties when possible so our activists do not miss out on the
spirit of primaries and caucuses and get tempted to stray.  I think we also
need to consider the length of the campaign versus the resources that are
likely to be available and keep it shorter rather than longer.

The issue of apportionment is one that should not haunt us, but seems to.
One reason we are a federation of state parties is so that no one or two big
states can dominate the process, nor can it be dominated by states in one
stage of evolution or with similar election laws.  Every state party has to
feel they have a real say in the game or it does not work, and we have to
make up for the imbalances in the state laws rather than exclude states
because of bad ballot access laws.

Yes, lots of different kind of apportionments can work and be fair, but our
current one seems to reflect pretty well the mix of what we have to deal
with.  Big states get more votes, little state parties fewer, and it takes a
national campaign to win the nomination.  The best indication that it is a
decent process is that twice in a row the candidate that worked the hardest
and put together the best campaign won the nomination, and then was a good
spokesperson and road warrior from convention to election.

The National Committee

Of all the Green institutions I am leaving the one I will miss the least is
the NC. I helped develop some of the rules we use to govern our actions.  I
had hopes that the NC could be a learning community and a force for
innovation and creativity in the party, and would be a place to train Greens
for dealing with legislative business.    Instead it has become an
incredibly conservative body, stifling innovation and creativity and allowed
itself to become bogged down in minutia and irrelevancies.  The NC still
makes good decisions, recent votes have nearly always shown the overall
common sense of the body, but the process for getting there is beyond
reason.  The slow grind of the NC has mostly wasted folks time and provided
bad examples of how to do politics.  Two recent examples will suffice.  We
held an election for the SC last summer.  We have the process of certifying
the election by NC vote.  It became apparent that one or two votes were
mishandled in some very minor accidental way that in no way cast doubt on
either the integrity of the vote or the results.  The discussion around the
certification included hundreds of emails, primarily from the same 6 or so
people.  The tone of the debate was dire.  But if you looked at the vote,
not a single vote was swayed by the discussion into voting against
certification and the election was certified overwhelmingly.  The 9 people
who voted against certification all made that clear on Day One they were
voting against, so the entire debate added almost nothing to the process
except to let a few people vent over and over.  Something legislators learn
is when and where to expend political capital.  I have brought as many
resolutions before the NC as anyone.  Some you argue for daily, actually
changing people¹s minds, but some are clearly going to be a one sided vote.
Why expend effort on a vote that will not be close, why annoy everyone on
such an issue.  Why not save the political capital to expend when it will
actually do some good?  In addition, think of the NC as being a meeting.  No
meeting would let such a small group dominate the discussion to so little
purpose.

Another discussion that was highly annoying was the effort by Les Evenchick
to convince the TX delegation they did not know the laws of TX and that he
knew better.   A perfect example of the type of discussion that y¹all need a
way to just plain take off the table as a waste of bandwidth.

Beyond this type of bandwidth wasting, the NC seems to draw like flies those
who wish to hear their own voice and do no real work.  Most delegates
approach this work properly, but there are those who would never propose a
real solution, but are happy to carp all day about the work others are at
least willing to do.  The culture of the NC needs to change into one that
welcomes innovation, welcomes initiative, welcomes experiments and has no
patience with critics who do no work.  The best example of this is that Gary
Novosielski is obsessed with Roberts Rules of Order, considering them a
wonderful system for running the Green Party process.  But Gary has NEVER
introduced a resolution laying out the implementation of RROO for the GPUS.
This despite the fact that he has on a number of occasions been specifically
and individually asked to produce said resolution.  He will criticize
everyone, but never put his own work in front of the body.  I consider him a
bully and a coward, a person without the courage of conviction,  willing to
try intimidation every day, but never do a lick of work. No wonder he lobs
the occasional F bomb my way, he has no other tools that he knows how to
use.  But he and a few of his ilk set the tone for the NC, and have turned
it into one of the least effective organizations on the face of the earth.
I will miss some of the messages from my colleagues, but not the
excruciating painful work of the body.

As for myself, I have some great projects coming up.  My new think tank on
economic policy, Prosperity for Rhode Island, is starting to make waves and
helping shift the paradigm of discussion in Rhode Island.  And I was just
funded to help Providence and the surrounding communities come up with a
real composting system, from a to z, including household collection and
returning compost to community gardens and other food growers.  My only real
Green Party project for the next few years is to develop a network/business
focused on helping Green candidates run better.  It will be called something
like the Green Party Candidate Resource Center.  It will consist of a small
number of Greens who are experts in the various arts of campaigns.  We shall
provide services to candidates, essentially consulting services, and get
paid for this work.  I figure that we will get paid only if we provide
enough value to candidates that it helps their campaigns raise enough money
to pay us.  We provide little of value, we do not get paid.  We make a
difference, we get paid.  No fuss, no muss, no bureaucracy.  No NC to answer
to. No critics allowed or paid attention to.  As with most of my recent
Green work, you think you can do it better, I encourage you to show us.  You
think you can help candidates more, set up your own consulting network and
provide better service.  We all know we can use a lot more of this than one
small network can provide, there is plenty of room for growth, and if you do
it really well, I can go on to the next thing that needs doing.  I am
betting the people who like my work the least will complain about this, call
it a rogue operation, but never lift a finger to actually work with a
candidate or do anything else that really needs doing.

So, I bid you adieu.  I may hang out on the list for two or three more days
so I can see the goodbyes and good riddances (knowing I will not read the
good riddances any more than I read all the other recent posts from those
who would feel that way about me).  I know I will be off the lists before I
go away on a short vacation so I do not have hundreds of useless emails to
read when I return, but I have many good friends among the people on the NC
and various committees receiving this, and will continue to enjoy the
comments and correspondence of my friends.  I know I will continue to work
with them on Green politics, and that in 2012 I will be talking to many of
them on behalf of which ever Green seeking the presidential nomination
catches my eye as the one most likely to put the right campaign together.

Greg Gerritt GPRI