My Visit to the National Green Party Conference

If you are reading this, you are probably a crypto-Green, and may not realize it.

Seriously. I think most of my readers would call themselves liberal, or progressive, or at least a Democrat. That means you probably agree nearly 100% with the Green Party (GP) platform. In fact, you likely agree with the GP platform more than you do with that of the Democratic Party, especially as it is filtered through the actual policies and votes of Democratic office-holders. I challenge every reader to click through that link above and actually skim through the GP platform, and then read that mush adopted by the Democratic Party. I guarantee, you’ll prefer the Greens’.

But I certainly won’t ask you to become a Green, or start voting Green, and I certainly am not doing so myself. Why? Because Greens have virtually no electoral power in America (though admittedly it feels like Dems have very little, either). Let’s face it, voting Green is functionally the same (in most places and most races, with very rare exceptions) as throwing your vote away or not bothering to vote, and sometimes means consciously or unconsciously acting as a spoiler and assisting a Republican into office. That’s just electoral reality.

That harsh reality, contrasted with the very appealing, positive, idealistic (in a good way), and progressive agenda offered by the GP is why I seized the opportunity to attend the GP National Convention when I learned that it was to be held in my hometown of Tucson, AZ. I relished the opportunity to speak with the GP’s best and brightest about their political goals, and the often very grubby political reality of the GP in 21st century America.

I had many interesting conversations, but none so interesting as that I had with Brent McMillan, the national political director of the GP. I think I learned quite a bit, and I’d like to share it with you if you follow me over the fold…

I’m constructively critical of GP’s national political strategy. I support nearly all their policy goals, but frankly, I have found their strategy for achieving those goals to be naive and counterproductive. In 2003, I wrote the rough outline of a strategic plan for building the GP as a viable political power in the United States. I still think that strategy is good, though I am somewhat more open now to running top of the ticket GP candidates in some very limited circumstances. My attempt at interaction with a former national political director of the GP, Dean Myerson, was unproductive, at best, and oddly hostile and dismissive on his part.

I’m happy to be able to report that my conversation with the current national political director of the GP, Brent McMillan, was much more productive, resulting in a number of moments of mutual understanding and a meaningful exchange of views. Brent was genuinely open to a different perspective and sensitve to electoral realities of American politics. Part of that may be because Brent came to the GP after the Republican party left him behind. That might surprise some people: the national political director of the GP used to be a Republican. That is not to imply any sort of Republican backing or secret agenda, just the opposite: like St. Paul, he knows the enemy of the faith he now preaches all too well.

The main thrust of my critique of the GP political strategy is that they should run GP candidates only in electoral districts that do not disfavor third parties, or where their support is very high, or in non-partisan races. They should use these offices to groom candidates and create models of more sophisticated electoral systems than the single member majoritarian districts mandated for most federal and state-level offices.

Until more modern democratic electoral systems are adopted locally as a model for higher levels of government, Greens should work within the Democratic party to sponsor candidates, something of the polar opposite of the DLC, to offer candidates at the state and national level. The major parties are coalitional, no one can restrain the views of a party faction or caucus, and the Christian Right shows how much influence a motivated faction in a major party can have. Because so many Democrats believe in the GP’s positions, they could have a great deal of influence, and recruit more credible candidates than they can as a third party.

Brent maintained persuasively that the educative function of running higher level candidates on the GP ticket, even if they had no chance to win, was too high to sacrifice. I still disagree on this point. It would educate far more people about GP policies if GP faction candidates participated in Democratic primaries and, when they could win, as the Democratic party candidate in general elections. There is no reason why a Green Democrat has to hide the fact that he or she is a Green first and Democrat out of neccessity.

A powerful and important opportunity for spreading the GP message isn’t even being used. Arizona’s own Clean Elections law is almost tailor-made to allow a relative small faction of Green Democrats to run a state-wide slate of GP candidates that could educate citizens about the GP’s values and platform. They would be given literally hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote their candidates, if they ran primary candidates for every state office as Green Democrats. This is an opportunity to have a real impact on the public dialog, and Greens are wasting it.

The second powerful argument that Brent, and others, put forward for running GP candidates for state Governor, Congress, and other top of the ticket offices, despite having no chance of winning, is to gain or maintain ballot status under often punative state laws. However, if the only purpose of running candidates is to maintain ballot access so you can run candidates who can’t win, what’s the point of ballot access? It is a circular justification that costs the GP a great deal of effort and resources that would be better spent on intensely local party building, winning local offices where all their current electoral success is anyhow, and building a viable Green Democrat faction.

State ballot access laws were designed to be onerous for third parties in order to drain them of resources and to exclude small minority parties from power. By even agreeing to play that game, the GP is playing right into a trap. The GP will never suddenly win enough offices to be able to change the rules of the game. They must instead create alternative models where they can, and advocate for adopting them at higher levels though their own elected Democratic officials.

In many states, the GP has the ability to put questions of fundamental electoral and constitutional reforms directly to voters. But they aren’t doing so, instead they are stupidly butting their heads against an existing electoral system designed specifically to twart them. The GP needs to begin running initiative campaigns to modernize our democracy, and stop running nobodies for Governor and U.S. Senate, some of who are nothing but catspaws for the Republicans. It’s a shame that the initiative is not a well-worn component of the GP toolbox, given that so many Americans agree with them on the issues, even if they won’t vote for their candidates, or register as members of the GP.

Both justifications, voter educcation and ballot access, are used to justify running GP Presidential candidates. Unless it is an celebrity candidate, like Nader, the GP has no hope of winning enough votes for the ballot access justification (2004 proved that with Corn), and even with someone like Nader, the long-term effect on party building is of questionable value. The spurt of growth Nader’s candidacy created is viewed by many Greens as of questionable value, and as having many negative consequences. The GP simply has no reason to run a Presidential candidate other than to satisfy the political vanity of aspiring candidates. The rancor, infighting, concerns about opportunistic infiltration and the effect of Presidential campaign money on the party are all very good reasons to forego the entire spectacle.

I know I did not persuade Brent to radiclly change the GP’s current (in my view) counter-productive strategy. The GP’s self-image as a national third party, and part of the network of world-wide Green Parties, precludes them organizing themselves as a caucus within the Democratic party at the state and federal levels. There are powerful intangible benefits, which have nothing to do with actually winning electoral power, that keep the GP a separate party.

I hope that, despite the futile flagilation at the top of the ticket, the GP realizes how much good it can do for people with robust local parties, by winning local offices, and by using the Democratic party as the coalitional organization it is, rather than viewing it as a monolithic enemy. They need to focus on creating electoral systems that empower voters: making democratic reform the center of their message, and sponsoring initiative campaigns that will open the doors to real political power to third parties.

Brent and I did have a very productive discussion about the GP agenda as expressed by GP candidates. I argued that all issues of importance to the GP come back to democratic reform. Our out-dated, unfair, and polarizing electoral system stymies political progress on all other fronts. I suggested that the GP be rebranded as the party of democratic reform, rather than the party of the environment. We have a real and growing democratic deficit in this country and the two coalitional parties are largely too complacent to address the problem. At a superficial marketing level, I would swap the secondary GP theme color from yellow of the sunflower for the orange of democratic reform.

That may seem kind of wacky to rebrand the GP, but the environmental ethic has already been largely absorbed by the Democratic coalition (however ineffectively), there is no longer any competitive advantage in that message. Everyone, even many Republicans, now sees the electoral advantage of being environment friendly. By pivoting every issue in the GP agenda, including the environment, into the need for democratic reform, however, the GP is advocating exactly what it needs to grow and succeed as a party, and it pressures the two coalitional parties to adopt its new reform agenda. After I laid out the case to Brent, I saw the idea click together with his own experience and expertise, and he muttered a thoughful and pleased, "Yeah, good point…" He was painfully aware of enthusiastic but undisciplined messaging of his GP candidates, and I saw him recognize an effective cat-herding mechanism.

Most likely, the GP will continue to use the passion and commitment of its activists on such pointless activities as securing state ballot access, running Presidential candidates, and alientating liberal voters and undermining its own strongest message of democratic reform by letting itself be used as a spoiler and a catspaw in close elections, especially those in which the GP serves to protect an onerous incumbent (like the Santorum Senate race), rather than to punish an unresponsive Democrat.

The GP needs to soberly evaluate its political goals and match them with a focus on political actions that are not just tilting a windmills. Focusing on local races in which they are competitive, building an electoral bench through local offices and Democratic party primaries, creating models of democratic modernization through local government and the initiative, and rebranding the GP as the party of democratic reform, are more than enough work for a small third party, and would reap much greater benefits for society, and for the GP, than their current lack of any strategic vision other than a forlorn faith in ‘more of the same that hasn’t worked out in the past’.