Green Party politics: 2008 and beyond. 

Green Party politics: 2008 and beyond.  greg gerritt 2/24/07

The Green Party always has a strategy, run more candidates, run campaigns to attract attention, build local parties, get the message out.  Run campaigns to win. Some Greens think doing one or the other is the choice and want the party to focus on one type of thing or another.  Focus on congress, run non partisan races we can win, focus on state legislatures.  Start at the bottom with young folks attracting friends to the campaign, run for Congress because that is where the action is and it is where the big issues can be talked about.

The reality is that we have to do them all, do more of them, do them better.  Maybe a specific articulated strategy would help recruit candidates, but I sort of have my doubts.  maybe a specific strategy would generate more notice, but the reality is that what we really have to do is work.  Train more candidates, train more campaign workers, train more fundraisers, and then put them to work. 

One story I hear occasionally is that as scientists tell us we have 10 years to turn around the climate issue, and therefore the GP needs to have a ten year strategy for taking over the country via the ballot box.  I have learned to be skeptical about overarching strategies and timelines that say you have X time to do Y. 

All that said, I do not know what it will take to pull together a more concerted effort other than people making a more concerted effort.  And I believe that comes from individual people making that decision, the decision that a Green Party is very much a part of what it will take to make the changes, and therefore that is where they will put their energy. 

There are so many things to do, and each person finds those that make sense to them.  And in America we are trained from birth to avoid politics like the plague.  Sometimes it is a wonder that any one runs at all, though power is a powerful magnet.  So the Green Party is overcoming many obstacles. 

We think poorly of ourselves despite the fact that we get more votes, and better percentages of the vote than any other Green Party on the planet. We divide ourselves on ideology, strategy, and personality. We do better than any other Green Parties around the world despite the two party myth that the US has more than any other country.  Despite rigged ballot and campaign finance laws. Despite a more powerful and integrated military industrial complex than exists anywhere else. 

The future is unknowable until it happens.  Does a break through come due to a build up of unrelenting pressure?  Does it come through lucky happenstance?  We do know that you have to be ready to take advantage of it or even when you get a break nothing can be made of it.

In conclusion, it does not matter the strategy.  It does not matter whether we focus on state legislatures, congress, or local races as long as we keep plugging along, learning growing, doing.  Whether the changes will come fast enough to preserve life on earth, no one can say.  But for me, I am going to work even harder to help Green candidates and prepare others to help Green candidates today, tomorrow, and as long as I can.

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