…and our fair Commonwealth is unlikely to support either one. Perennial candidate for state office, Dr. Jill Stein, is expected to accept the nomination of the Green Party at their convention in Baltimore today. HuffPo points out that Romney and Stein have previously been candidates in the same race, for Governor in 2002. The goal is to get on the ballot in 40 states (why not 50?) and they have 21 so far, and they do qualify for matching funds according to the linked article. Personally, I think if the Greens want to be credible they focus on the various state legislatures first.
Please share widely!
Tip O’Neil’s famous phrase is almost always apt. The Greens would do well to start at the local level and work their way up. There could be a lot of room for Greens if they ran strong campaigns against lackluster Dems in our statehouses, or perhaps challenged Republicans viewed as ‘safe’ in districts Dems don’t bother competing in. Either way if they keep this in 10-20 years they could be a force at the local level. Its what the Progressive Party did in Vermont and they now have a US Senator (Sanders), they have won the mayoralty of VTs largest city several times, scattered city council and state leg seats throughout that state. Pushing for fusion voting, IRV, and campaign finance reform could also go a long way. While polemical, Bill Kellers book does show the danger of one party rule and many of our Dem state power brokers have become complacent and are certainly not progressive by most estimations. Time to grow the movement and start. Stein won’t even crack 1% nationally, the Green party would do better to gain ballot access by running good state and local races nationally. Its how the Canadian green party emerged as a force I might add.
Is that the PP in VT is pragmatic first and knows it will be a long haul to chip away at the two parties traditional power bases, but in less than 15 years they have 5 state rep seats, 2 state senate seats, and have forced the VT Democratic party to the left on LGBT issues and on creating a state based single payer health care system. The historic civil unions bill signed by Gov. Dean and the soon to be historic single payer system of Gov. Shumlin are both due to this party’s steadfast activism and focus on local issues first and the politics of the possible while keeping the bigger forces honest. MA could definitely use its own version, and I hope the movement that energized Deval Patrick can be reignited after he is gone to advocate more locally and directly at the legislative level and the municipal level. This is where real policies get made that have the most impact.
Any chance you are refering to Jon Keller of WBZ who wrote The Bluest State?