Thursday, December 11, 2008

What the Green Party needs is a Community Organizer


Reuben Navarette's OpEd in today's San Francisco Chronicle considers that there is a greater connection between Barack Obama's campaign for president and Caesar Chavez than most realize... including Navarette himself, it appears. For some it seems only to have translated Si, se puede! into Yes we can.

Today, I received a post election analysis of the Malik Rahim campaign for Louisiana's 2nd Congressional District. It was put sent by Robert Caldwell, Rahim's campaign manager and it underscores with hard numbers, precinct by precinct, the fact that there is nothing more effective than face to face community organizing, a particular style of involvement in issues and enlisting of everyone into taking responsibility for changing the status quo, confident that together, Yes, we can.

If there is a political model for Greens it is this. We do not accept corporate donations. We have almost no money. All we have are a comparatively few people and the best set of values of any US political party. When Bill Moyers told students that "The only answer to organized money is organize people" I felt he was talking to us.




1 comment:

Alex Walker said...

I'd like to know more about that precinct-by-precinct analysis since, frankly, I am shocked that Rahim did not do better than he did in the election. Given his enormous contribution to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the egregiousness of William "Cold Cash" Jefferson's transgressions, I do not think that 3% or 4% of the vote is terribly impressive.

More data. Please!