Musings on Presidential Politics

I have posted a couple of entries at Green Commons concerning the search for a Green Party presidential candidate. It seem that everyone has a gut feel that we need a candidate with national name recognition and that is a very limiting fact. Those with the name recognition and a real desire to win the presidency will not be likely to abandon the Democratic Party for the Greens. It may be more useful to seek that in a well known disgruntled Republican, like Pete McCloskey.

This week, the speculation arose about a rumored conversation between Nader and Al Gore in which Nader supposedly tried to interest Gore in running for President as a Green. Coming so close to April 1, I would hazard a guess that this was something that was "leaked" earlier than was intended. Still, it did appear in Insight Magazine. It was even discussed at the center of Democratic bloggins, DailyKos.

So, the list of possible candidates with a national name recognition is now:

• Elaine Brown
  
• Al Gore?????
  
• Dennis Kucinich?????
  
• Cynthia McKinney?????
  
• Ralph Nader
  
• Cindy Sheehan

Note: All of those with the ????? are Democrats. While all three have expressed some frustration with the current state of affairs in this country, or even with the Democratic Party, only McKinney has shown any interest in talking to Greens, with Greens on any occasion.

Note 2: Of that list, only Elaine Brown has announced that they are a candidate.

I have my personal doubts that we will have any luck in getting any of those Democrats to actually run as a Green. Based on previous statements and committments, we know that Kucinich will not abandon the Democratic Party. I doubt that McKinney will either. We know that Nader will not join the Green Party.

Maybe the best course is to make this a campaign of issues rather than personalities, to define the issues around which we want to run this campaign, and then to select the candidate who can best articulate those issues. We might field a different candidate if we want to make the Peace the number one issue as opposed to global warming / environment as opposed to corruption and excessive corporate power.

Personally, I would like to have seen Winona LaDuke remain more active in Green Party politics. She is also a candidate that I could very easily support.

Retreat from Sonoma

From all of the anecdotal reports that I have heard, the Strategy Retreat in Sonoma could be considered a success. It even provided a place where Cynthia McKinney could continue her direction of introducing herself to the Green Party. That was timely as we have another Georgia political figure, Elaine Brown, declaring her intent to gain the Green Party nomination for President in 2008.

Maybe that is only the natural way of things as we are inundated by MSM announcements, prognostications, analysis and candidate hype over the entire range of presidential politics. It is not completely a good thing to have this level of media saturation this long before the real events. One of the things that the focus on presidential politics does is to distract us from the energy required just to keep us going.

What I do not understand is the fact that all of this strategy discussion too place without any communication to the grassroots of the Green Party afterward. Yes, everyone was invited to Sonoma. Anyone could have gone. Some did, most did not. I wonder what would have happened had 300 decided to show up rather than the approximately 50 (not confirmed, only what one attendee estimated when I asked.) that actually did. Would Warner and the Campaign and Candidates Working Group have accomplished as much?

I also wonder what might have happened if all of the previous statewide candidates had shown up. I note that at least one candidate who did not show up is questioning the basis for some of the decisions that were made, especially the question as to whether or not input had been solicited from candidates. The irony of that question does not escape me.

One of the elements of effective leadership is the ability to create a sense of shared purpose in an organization. I understand that one of the objectives in choosing the site was to get everyone into an environment where they able to develop a sense of shared purpose with the group. I do not understand how that sense of shared purpose will affect the grassroots of the GPCA if no one is communicating to the rest of the party what happened, what decisions were made, what new actions are going to be required, what we should be doing to implement any new strategic decisions.

There are some who intimate that the GPCA lacks a vision, or at least fails to communicate that vision to the public at large. Maybe the vision is described by the 10 KV, but it would be better to have a single phrase that encapsulates what the values mean. One of the things that Elizabeth May and the Green Party of Canada have accomplished is to establish such a vision at a very simple level. Go to almost any part of the Green Party of Canada web site and you get the message "Welcome to the Future." Just 4 words, but they accomplish a lot. They make you feel like you can be part of building that future. They are inclusive. They invite you in.

The success of organizations like moveon.org is that they invite you to participate, to take action and they communicate that your action will "make a difference." That is surely satisfying to the soul.

So, who is going to tell the rest of us what really happened in Sonoma, or will will allow the good things that (as I have been told) happened there dissipate as we continue our turf fights? I have suggested that the role of the media committee be expanded to include internal communications from events such as plenaries and retreats like this one. One result has been an improved GPCA web site. But there is still a lot of work to do as the lack of input from anyone at Sonoma illustrates.

Are we ready?

There was an interesting comment by David Brooks on the Chris Matthews show this week. Brooks, a very conservitave NY Times Columnist, thought that the American public was more ready to accept an African American as President than they were to accept a woman. This went deeper than just the fact that Clinton has accumulated more baggage than has Obama. Now, I am seeing the first stirring of GP activist interest in another run by white, male Dennis Kucinich.

I find it very interesting that Greens seem to jump up and down to show concern for Democrat Cynthia McKinney, (link soon to disappear) especially after her parting shot introduction of an "Impeach Bush" bill in the House of Representative, and yet I hear so little support for Malik Rahim who seems to be working very hard to make New Orleans into a Greener city. Are Greens more comfortable with McKinney than they are with an ex-Black Panther? Is this only a question of the fact that, like many other Amercans, there is emotional room for only one issue and that is Iraq. It seems to me that Rahim is living Green and that deserves considerable support, now and always.