Green Revolution on the Golden Gate
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You’re the Spoiler Now, Dog; McCloskey Blames Democrat Spoiler as Greens Continue to Grow in Bay Area
November 10, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO - Reactions to the result of the Congressional election in California’s 11th district have been, to say the least, mixed. Yesterday Democratic leader and likely soon to be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a statement regarding the performance of Democrat Steve Filson in his resounding defeat by incumbent Richard Pombo in the Central Valley district. Pelosi said that the loss in CA-11 still stung despite the massive gains the Democrats made elsewhere in the country. Pelosi blamed Filson’s loss on the third party campaign of Pete McCloskey and the backing behind it. She said that if Democrats had been united behind Filson, Pombo would have been resoundingly rejected.
However, today Pete McCloskey made a strong statement countering the Democratic leader’s assertion. The Green candidate struck back at Pelosi’s accusations, claiming that it was Steve Filson, not he, who was the real spoiler in the race. Surprisingly, McCloskey’s statement appears to have been born out with the release of the final tally of votes in the 11th district. Pombo finished well ahead of both his challengers, but still only garnered 44.7% of the vote and fewer than 90,000 votes out of the over 201,000 cast. The race for second turned out very close, with the remaining votes being almost evenly split between Filson and McCloskey. However, in the final result McCloskey received 56,122 votes, nearly one thousand more than Filson’s 55,156. This puts Pete McCloskey and the Greens nearly 0.5% ahead of the Democrats in the 11th district race, and gives much needed credibility to the Green Party. McCloskey’s complaint of a Democratic spoiler may have turned out to be right! As one popular California politics blog put it, “You’re the spoiler now, dog.”
Pete McCloskey’s performance in the 11th district easily plants him as one of if not the single most successful Green Party candidate to date and the closest to winning a major race. It is certainly the best result for the Greens in any House election. However, other results in the elections indicate that McCloskey’s success in central California is not a fluke. The Green Party has done very well in the Bay Area in other races as well. In two other House races in the state, the Green Party received over 10%. Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, running as the only opposition to Democrat George Miller in the 7th district, won 14.3%. In San Francisco, Todd Chretien received over 20,000 votes, chalking up 11.9% of the vote against Nancy Pelosi. Like McCloskey, Chretien finished second ahead of a major party candidate, as Republican Mike DeNunzio received less than 10% of the vote in that race[1].
Chretien’s performance is only a further indicator of the growing strength of the Green Party in San Francisco and the wider Bay Area. In Oakland, Aimee Allison defeated Pat Kernighan in the runoff for the District 2 seat in the Oakland city council. In Richmond, Green candidate Gayle McLaughlin unseated incumbent mayor Irma Anderson. In Berkeley, Dona Spring was reelected and Merrilie Mitchell joined her on the city council, giving the Green Party two of the eight council seats. In San Francisco itself, two Green member candidates were elected to the Board of Supervisors. Jane Kim scored a surprising win for the District 6 seat vacated by Assemblyman Elect Chris Daly, and Barry Hermanson defeated Jaynry Mak[2] in the final round of the District 4 runoff. This brings the Green Party’s presence in the County Board to 3 out of 11, and will make mayor Gonzalez’s job a little easier next year.
Additionally, the Bay Area showed strong results for both Barbara Becnel in the gubernatorial race and Peter Camejo in the Senate race. Those counties were all in Becnel and Camejo’s top five counties. Camejo received over 10 percent in San Francisco, and three of Becnel’s five best counties - San Francisco, Alameda, and Santa Cruz - are all in the Bay Area. Similar results for the Greens showed up in the state legislative races as well, which demonstrates the growing support for the party may indeed be consistent and lasting. Susan King in the 12th, Lisa Feldstein in the 13th, and Laura Wells in the 16th all received over 10% in their Assembly races. In the State Senate, Krissy Keefer also won over 10% in the 8th district against Leland Yee, who has been a vocal critic of mayor Matt Gonzalez and the Green Party. These performances cement the Bay Area as one of the mainstays of support for the Green Party within California and nationally. With the growth of the party in mind, Pelosi may want to watch how much she criticizes the Greens in the future lest she find her hold on San Francisco’s House district in jeopardy!
***
New House, Senate Leadership Confirmed
November 12, 2006
WASHINGTON - The final recounts of the House of Representatives elections are finished and we can now confirm the extent of the Democratic gains in Congress. The nation’s eyes were on two races specifically, and the results ended in mixed reactions for the Democrats. They were hoping to gain both seats still in contention, but lost out in Connecticut. In the Nutmeg State’s 2nd district, Democrat Joe Courtney was leading incumbent Republican Rob Simmons by 54 votes when the votes finished tallying on election night. However, the closeness of the race triggered an automatic recount. The recount showed several errors in the original vote, and in the end Simmons won reelection by a mere 30 votes. While the loss in Connecticut was a disappointment for the Democrats, the win they did manage could be considered a vastly better gain. For the first time since 1978, the state of Wyoming will send a Democrat to Congress. Businessman Gary Trauner ran a very strong campaign against incumbent Barbara Cubin. Cubin was beset by a number of scandals, such as her refusal to return campaign money from Tom DeLay’s ARMPAC and an alleged incident during a debate where she used a slur against Libertarian candidate Thomas Rankin, who is in a wheelchair[3]. Trauner also had the support of Democratic governor Dave Freudenthal, who also won reelection this year with over 70% of the vote. Boosted by Freudenthal’s support, Trauner barely unseated Cubin by just over 100 votes.
Gary Trauner’s victory gives the Democratic Party a total of 234 seats in the House, giving Speaker-Elect Nancy Pelosi a majority of 33 seats. With the confirmation of Democratic control of both the House and Senate, the Democratic leadership in both houses was also voted on today. For Pelosi, it was a referendum on her control of the party, as both the Majority Leader and Majority Whip positions saw challengers to Pelosi’s supported candidates, and revealed deep divides within the Democratic Party. Pelosi supported Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha for Majority Leader. However, she was unable to muster up enough support among her party, and Steny Hoyer defeated Murtha 150-84. Pelosi selected Murtha based on his advocacy for troop withdrawal from Iraq, but the vote for Hoyer appears to be a rejection of Pelosi’s blunt push for Murtha and a recognition of Hoyer’s long service in Congress.
The race for House Majority Whip was even more contentious. Rahm Emanuel, chair of the DCCC and Representative from Illinois’ 5th district, was quickly named as a leading contender for Majority Whip for his role in securing the House for the Democrats. However, Pelosi supposedly tried to dissuade him from running in favor of Deputy Whip Diana DeGette[4]. Part of the reasoning behind Pelosi’s decision was a desire to put a woman in the position, just as Pelosi herself was the first female party whip three years ago. The vote was even more contentious than the Majority Leader vote, with many Democratic House members wanting to reward Emanuel for his campaign role. However, Diana DeGette won out 126 to 108 against Rahm Emanuel, and will enter the role in January at the beginning of the next session of Congress. Compared to the infighting among Democrats in the House, the Senate leadership selection was very unified. Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Harry Reid of Nevada will continue on as party leader and whip, presiding over a Democratic majority in the Senate for the third non-consecutive time. With Daschle reprising his role as Senate Majority Leader, the rumors of Daschle making a presidential run in 2008 have begun to swirl again.
***
“A Life Beyond Nader” - Green Operative Discusses 2008
November 17, 2006
WASHINGTON - The successes achieved by the Green Party in the 2006 midterm elections cannot be overstated. They have become the first third party to achieve any real significance above the local level in a long time. The Greens gained state legislative seats in two states, holding three in Maine and one in Massachusetts, while recording many significant results in Congressional and gubernatorial elections. While the Green Party has been successful in these areas, the presidency is a far tougher nut to crack. And while gains at the local and state level are all well and good, many political scientists agree that for a party to gain continued success, it needs to remain visible and vibrant at the presidential level.
One national Green Party committee member, Wisconsinite Ben Manski, has spoken about this conundrum at length following the 2006 midterm results. The key in looking forward to the 2008 presidential race, Manski said, is that the party needs to successfully evolve from an organization based around a single personality. He pointed to Ross Perot and the Reform Party as an example of how a political movement primarily centered on a single person can fail and collapse. “For the last three presidential elections the Green Party has looked to Ralph Nader as its standard bearer,” Manski said. While he acknowledged the awareness and attention that Nader brought to the Green Party nationally and Nader’s role in building some of the roots of the party, Manski state that “we as a party do need to look at a life beyond Nader for 2008.”
Manski asserted that with the wins and strong performances across the country in 2006, the Green Party had indeed grown strong enough to look to its own for a 2008 presidential candidate. Already a few names have been bandied around, Manski revealed, including Maine state senator John Eder, New York gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins, and even Pete McCloskey. A small Draft McCloskey group has already sprung up on the web following his second place finish in the 11th district race calling for “one last ride” from the former Congressman who famously challenged President Nixon in the 1972 Republican primary.
However, Manski did not rule out attempting to court another high profile candidate such as Nader to run, even if they were coming from outside the existing cadre of Green Party members. Again, Manski cited the example of McCloskey’s Congressional performance as well as Eric Eidsness in Colorado’s 4th district. Other names the Green spokesman tossed out included former Vice President Al Gore - possibly the cream of the crop for hypothetical Green presidential candidates - along with former California governor Jerry Brown, soon to be ex-Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of Georgia[5], and Ohio Congressman and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. While the chances of the Green Party getting any of these candidates for the 2008 presidential race are slim, they still have a decent bench of home grown candidates to choose from. Already two candidates, Texas party co-chair Kat Swift and Jesse Johnson of West Virginia’s Mountain Party, have expressed interest in running for the Green presidential nomination in 2008.
***
Nader Says He “could have beat Lieberman”, Regrets Not Running
November 20, 2006
HARTFORD, CT - In a rare return to his home state of Connecticut from Washington, D.C., three-time Green presidential candidate and consumer advocate Ralph Nader gave an interview about the upcoming wide release of the new documentary about him, An Unreasonable Man. The documentary, directed by Henriette Martel and Steve Skovan, covers Nader’s rise to national prominence as a consumer advocate through his activism on auto safety as well as his controversial 2000 run for president. Nader is interviewed in the film along with Pat Buchanan, Phil Donahue, and others about the 2000 campaign and Nader’s run for president.
Of course, the interview quickly turned to current politics as well. Ralph Nader discussed the recent success of Green Party candidates in several races around the country. He congratulated the victorious candidates for the state houses in Maine and Massachusetts. However, Nader veered away from any questions regarding whether he would run for president in 2008, saying he was still considering the decision to run for a fourth time.
While Nader avoided talk of future presidential ambitions, he did openly express one regret regarding the 2006 midterm elections. Nader claimed he had considered running for Senate for Joe Lieberman’s seat, and came close to entering the race after Lieberman lost his primary and switched to an independent candidacy. Nader said “I could have been Lieberman, definitely. As another Independent, or as a Green.” Nader ultimately sat out of the Connecticut Senate election, and Lieberman eked out a close victory as an independent.
An Unreasonable Man premiered at the Sundance festival early this year, and is slated for an upcoming wider release in late January. It has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary[6], but it is not seen as a favorite to win. The favorite for Best Documentary would be, in an ironic twist, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.
[1] DeNunzio only won 10.7% in OTL and Krissy Keefer, who ran against Pelosi in 2006, won 7.4%. So this actually came close to happening.
[2] Ed Jew, Ron Dudum, and Jaynry Mak were all within 3 percent in the first round for the District 4 election in OTL. With Hermanson in the race and strong, the IRV order is shuffled around and Mak gets further.
[3] Cubin was a very flawed incumbent in 2006, and did make an off-mic gaffe during the debate. She allegedly told Thomas Rankin, who was in a wheelchair, that "if you weren’t sitting in that chair, I’d slap you across the face." In OTL Cubin won reelection by 1,012 votes.
[4] Pelosi in OTL was successfully able to dissuade Rahm from running for Majority Whip, but in favor of Jim Clyburn instead. DeGette also considered running in OTL but declined to in favor of Clyburn.
[5] Yes, the Greens were courting McKinney to run for a while. They first tried to get her to be Nader's running mate in 2000, and again tried to convince her to run for president as a Green in 2004.
[6] An Unreasonable Man was shortlisted for Best Documentary that year but didn't get nominated in OTL.
The election master list has been updated.
November 10, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO - Reactions to the result of the Congressional election in California’s 11th district have been, to say the least, mixed. Yesterday Democratic leader and likely soon to be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a statement regarding the performance of Democrat Steve Filson in his resounding defeat by incumbent Richard Pombo in the Central Valley district. Pelosi said that the loss in CA-11 still stung despite the massive gains the Democrats made elsewhere in the country. Pelosi blamed Filson’s loss on the third party campaign of Pete McCloskey and the backing behind it. She said that if Democrats had been united behind Filson, Pombo would have been resoundingly rejected.
However, today Pete McCloskey made a strong statement countering the Democratic leader’s assertion. The Green candidate struck back at Pelosi’s accusations, claiming that it was Steve Filson, not he, who was the real spoiler in the race. Surprisingly, McCloskey’s statement appears to have been born out with the release of the final tally of votes in the 11th district. Pombo finished well ahead of both his challengers, but still only garnered 44.7% of the vote and fewer than 90,000 votes out of the over 201,000 cast. The race for second turned out very close, with the remaining votes being almost evenly split between Filson and McCloskey. However, in the final result McCloskey received 56,122 votes, nearly one thousand more than Filson’s 55,156. This puts Pete McCloskey and the Greens nearly 0.5% ahead of the Democrats in the 11th district race, and gives much needed credibility to the Green Party. McCloskey’s complaint of a Democratic spoiler may have turned out to be right! As one popular California politics blog put it, “You’re the spoiler now, dog.”
Pete McCloskey’s performance in the 11th district easily plants him as one of if not the single most successful Green Party candidate to date and the closest to winning a major race. It is certainly the best result for the Greens in any House election. However, other results in the elections indicate that McCloskey’s success in central California is not a fluke. The Green Party has done very well in the Bay Area in other races as well. In two other House races in the state, the Green Party received over 10%. Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, running as the only opposition to Democrat George Miller in the 7th district, won 14.3%. In San Francisco, Todd Chretien received over 20,000 votes, chalking up 11.9% of the vote against Nancy Pelosi. Like McCloskey, Chretien finished second ahead of a major party candidate, as Republican Mike DeNunzio received less than 10% of the vote in that race[1].
Chretien’s performance is only a further indicator of the growing strength of the Green Party in San Francisco and the wider Bay Area. In Oakland, Aimee Allison defeated Pat Kernighan in the runoff for the District 2 seat in the Oakland city council. In Richmond, Green candidate Gayle McLaughlin unseated incumbent mayor Irma Anderson. In Berkeley, Dona Spring was reelected and Merrilie Mitchell joined her on the city council, giving the Green Party two of the eight council seats. In San Francisco itself, two Green member candidates were elected to the Board of Supervisors. Jane Kim scored a surprising win for the District 6 seat vacated by Assemblyman Elect Chris Daly, and Barry Hermanson defeated Jaynry Mak[2] in the final round of the District 4 runoff. This brings the Green Party’s presence in the County Board to 3 out of 11, and will make mayor Gonzalez’s job a little easier next year.
Additionally, the Bay Area showed strong results for both Barbara Becnel in the gubernatorial race and Peter Camejo in the Senate race. Those counties were all in Becnel and Camejo’s top five counties. Camejo received over 10 percent in San Francisco, and three of Becnel’s five best counties - San Francisco, Alameda, and Santa Cruz - are all in the Bay Area. Similar results for the Greens showed up in the state legislative races as well, which demonstrates the growing support for the party may indeed be consistent and lasting. Susan King in the 12th, Lisa Feldstein in the 13th, and Laura Wells in the 16th all received over 10% in their Assembly races. In the State Senate, Krissy Keefer also won over 10% in the 8th district against Leland Yee, who has been a vocal critic of mayor Matt Gonzalez and the Green Party. These performances cement the Bay Area as one of the mainstays of support for the Green Party within California and nationally. With the growth of the party in mind, Pelosi may want to watch how much she criticizes the Greens in the future lest she find her hold on San Francisco’s House district in jeopardy!
***
New House, Senate Leadership Confirmed
November 12, 2006
WASHINGTON - The final recounts of the House of Representatives elections are finished and we can now confirm the extent of the Democratic gains in Congress. The nation’s eyes were on two races specifically, and the results ended in mixed reactions for the Democrats. They were hoping to gain both seats still in contention, but lost out in Connecticut. In the Nutmeg State’s 2nd district, Democrat Joe Courtney was leading incumbent Republican Rob Simmons by 54 votes when the votes finished tallying on election night. However, the closeness of the race triggered an automatic recount. The recount showed several errors in the original vote, and in the end Simmons won reelection by a mere 30 votes. While the loss in Connecticut was a disappointment for the Democrats, the win they did manage could be considered a vastly better gain. For the first time since 1978, the state of Wyoming will send a Democrat to Congress. Businessman Gary Trauner ran a very strong campaign against incumbent Barbara Cubin. Cubin was beset by a number of scandals, such as her refusal to return campaign money from Tom DeLay’s ARMPAC and an alleged incident during a debate where she used a slur against Libertarian candidate Thomas Rankin, who is in a wheelchair[3]. Trauner also had the support of Democratic governor Dave Freudenthal, who also won reelection this year with over 70% of the vote. Boosted by Freudenthal’s support, Trauner barely unseated Cubin by just over 100 votes.
Gary Trauner’s victory gives the Democratic Party a total of 234 seats in the House, giving Speaker-Elect Nancy Pelosi a majority of 33 seats. With the confirmation of Democratic control of both the House and Senate, the Democratic leadership in both houses was also voted on today. For Pelosi, it was a referendum on her control of the party, as both the Majority Leader and Majority Whip positions saw challengers to Pelosi’s supported candidates, and revealed deep divides within the Democratic Party. Pelosi supported Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha for Majority Leader. However, she was unable to muster up enough support among her party, and Steny Hoyer defeated Murtha 150-84. Pelosi selected Murtha based on his advocacy for troop withdrawal from Iraq, but the vote for Hoyer appears to be a rejection of Pelosi’s blunt push for Murtha and a recognition of Hoyer’s long service in Congress.
The race for House Majority Whip was even more contentious. Rahm Emanuel, chair of the DCCC and Representative from Illinois’ 5th district, was quickly named as a leading contender for Majority Whip for his role in securing the House for the Democrats. However, Pelosi supposedly tried to dissuade him from running in favor of Deputy Whip Diana DeGette[4]. Part of the reasoning behind Pelosi’s decision was a desire to put a woman in the position, just as Pelosi herself was the first female party whip three years ago. The vote was even more contentious than the Majority Leader vote, with many Democratic House members wanting to reward Emanuel for his campaign role. However, Diana DeGette won out 126 to 108 against Rahm Emanuel, and will enter the role in January at the beginning of the next session of Congress. Compared to the infighting among Democrats in the House, the Senate leadership selection was very unified. Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Harry Reid of Nevada will continue on as party leader and whip, presiding over a Democratic majority in the Senate for the third non-consecutive time. With Daschle reprising his role as Senate Majority Leader, the rumors of Daschle making a presidential run in 2008 have begun to swirl again.
***
“A Life Beyond Nader” - Green Operative Discusses 2008
November 17, 2006
WASHINGTON - The successes achieved by the Green Party in the 2006 midterm elections cannot be overstated. They have become the first third party to achieve any real significance above the local level in a long time. The Greens gained state legislative seats in two states, holding three in Maine and one in Massachusetts, while recording many significant results in Congressional and gubernatorial elections. While the Green Party has been successful in these areas, the presidency is a far tougher nut to crack. And while gains at the local and state level are all well and good, many political scientists agree that for a party to gain continued success, it needs to remain visible and vibrant at the presidential level.
One national Green Party committee member, Wisconsinite Ben Manski, has spoken about this conundrum at length following the 2006 midterm results. The key in looking forward to the 2008 presidential race, Manski said, is that the party needs to successfully evolve from an organization based around a single personality. He pointed to Ross Perot and the Reform Party as an example of how a political movement primarily centered on a single person can fail and collapse. “For the last three presidential elections the Green Party has looked to Ralph Nader as its standard bearer,” Manski said. While he acknowledged the awareness and attention that Nader brought to the Green Party nationally and Nader’s role in building some of the roots of the party, Manski state that “we as a party do need to look at a life beyond Nader for 2008.”
Manski asserted that with the wins and strong performances across the country in 2006, the Green Party had indeed grown strong enough to look to its own for a 2008 presidential candidate. Already a few names have been bandied around, Manski revealed, including Maine state senator John Eder, New York gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins, and even Pete McCloskey. A small Draft McCloskey group has already sprung up on the web following his second place finish in the 11th district race calling for “one last ride” from the former Congressman who famously challenged President Nixon in the 1972 Republican primary.
However, Manski did not rule out attempting to court another high profile candidate such as Nader to run, even if they were coming from outside the existing cadre of Green Party members. Again, Manski cited the example of McCloskey’s Congressional performance as well as Eric Eidsness in Colorado’s 4th district. Other names the Green spokesman tossed out included former Vice President Al Gore - possibly the cream of the crop for hypothetical Green presidential candidates - along with former California governor Jerry Brown, soon to be ex-Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of Georgia[5], and Ohio Congressman and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. While the chances of the Green Party getting any of these candidates for the 2008 presidential race are slim, they still have a decent bench of home grown candidates to choose from. Already two candidates, Texas party co-chair Kat Swift and Jesse Johnson of West Virginia’s Mountain Party, have expressed interest in running for the Green presidential nomination in 2008.
***
Nader Says He “could have beat Lieberman”, Regrets Not Running
November 20, 2006
HARTFORD, CT - In a rare return to his home state of Connecticut from Washington, D.C., three-time Green presidential candidate and consumer advocate Ralph Nader gave an interview about the upcoming wide release of the new documentary about him, An Unreasonable Man. The documentary, directed by Henriette Martel and Steve Skovan, covers Nader’s rise to national prominence as a consumer advocate through his activism on auto safety as well as his controversial 2000 run for president. Nader is interviewed in the film along with Pat Buchanan, Phil Donahue, and others about the 2000 campaign and Nader’s run for president.
Of course, the interview quickly turned to current politics as well. Ralph Nader discussed the recent success of Green Party candidates in several races around the country. He congratulated the victorious candidates for the state houses in Maine and Massachusetts. However, Nader veered away from any questions regarding whether he would run for president in 2008, saying he was still considering the decision to run for a fourth time.
While Nader avoided talk of future presidential ambitions, he did openly express one regret regarding the 2006 midterm elections. Nader claimed he had considered running for Senate for Joe Lieberman’s seat, and came close to entering the race after Lieberman lost his primary and switched to an independent candidacy. Nader said “I could have been Lieberman, definitely. As another Independent, or as a Green.” Nader ultimately sat out of the Connecticut Senate election, and Lieberman eked out a close victory as an independent.
An Unreasonable Man premiered at the Sundance festival early this year, and is slated for an upcoming wider release in late January. It has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary[6], but it is not seen as a favorite to win. The favorite for Best Documentary would be, in an ironic twist, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.
[1] DeNunzio only won 10.7% in OTL and Krissy Keefer, who ran against Pelosi in 2006, won 7.4%. So this actually came close to happening.
[2] Ed Jew, Ron Dudum, and Jaynry Mak were all within 3 percent in the first round for the District 4 election in OTL. With Hermanson in the race and strong, the IRV order is shuffled around and Mak gets further.
[3] Cubin was a very flawed incumbent in 2006, and did make an off-mic gaffe during the debate. She allegedly told Thomas Rankin, who was in a wheelchair, that "if you weren’t sitting in that chair, I’d slap you across the face." In OTL Cubin won reelection by 1,012 votes.
[4] Pelosi in OTL was successfully able to dissuade Rahm from running for Majority Whip, but in favor of Jim Clyburn instead. DeGette also considered running in OTL but declined to in favor of Clyburn.
[5] Yes, the Greens were courting McKinney to run for a while. They first tried to get her to be Nader's running mate in 2000, and again tried to convince her to run for president as a Green in 2004.
[6] An Unreasonable Man was shortlisted for Best Documentary that year but didn't get nominated in OTL.
The election master list has been updated.
Last edited:
Bookmark1995
Banned
Sad that McCloskey didn't win, but at least he gave it a good try.
But I wonder who could be the nominee for 2008? Who will Nader pass the torch too?
But I wonder who could be the nominee for 2008? Who will Nader pass the torch too?
Canada Greens Stun in London North Centre By-Election
November 27, 2006
LONDON, ONTARIO - “The Green Party has arrived.” That was the statement Elizabeth May, who was elected leader of the Greens not four months ago, gave following the results of the London North Centre by-election yesterday. May, who served as executive director for the Sierra Club of Canada for seventeen years prior to her election as Green Party leader, jumped into the by-election despite being not from the region and already making a pledge to run in Cape Breton-Canso in the next general election. Normally this might prove a setback, but apparently not for Elizabeth May. The Green leader received an astonishing 27.16% in the by-election[1]. This pushed the Green Party to second in the by-election, coming in with nearly one thousand more votes than the Conservatives’ Dianne Haskett. However, Glen Pearson will retain the seat for the Liberals with just over 34 percent of the overall vote.
The by-election was triggered by the resignation of Joe Fontana on October 22 to run in the London mayoral election. He lost the election, but the Liberals kept the seat. However, it was much closer than anyone expected. The Liberals lost over 5 percent in the seat from their federal election performance in January. Additionally, it appears Elizabeth May and the Green Party took votes from all the major parties in her extraordinary rise in London. The Conservatives, on the cusp of 30 percent in January, also slipped down 5 percentage points yesterday. However, the biggest losers to the Green surge, perhaps not surprisingly, were the New Democrats. They fell over 10 percent from the general election vote in London-North Centre.
As Pearson takes his seat in Parliament, he may feel a bit overshadowed as all eyes will continue to be on Elizabeth May and the Greens. They have broken records by a mile in the London North Centre election, both in vote numbers and in fundraising. May’s 27.16% vote get is more than 10 percent higher than the previous Green Party record of 16.71% Andrew Lewis received in Saanich-Gulf Islands in 2004. What this means for the next federal election remains to be seen, however. May previously stated she would run in Cape Breton-Canso, but in a statement following yesterday’s result she said her mind was not made up on where to run. “Cape Breton is my home and I would love to run there, but we’re still looking at other feasible seats.” The Greens are certainly hoping to keep the momentum here in London, but it is doubtful they can without the stature of Elizabeth May as a candidate.
***
Is the Country Ready For a Third Party?
December 18, 2006
WASHINGTON - With the results of the midterm elections a month ago, voters sent a powerful signal to the leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties: they are tired of the two major parties dominating politics. Three independents will now sit in the Senate in Washington. Texas, the second most populous state in the country, rejected both the parties of Ann Richards and George W. Bush to send Carole Keeton Strayhorn to Austin as the state’s first independent governor since Sam Houston. In three states, voters sent members from third parties to the state legislatures - Greens in Maine and Massachusetts and the Constitution Party in Montana - and elected a handful of independents to state houses in several states across the country. With this rise in rejection of the two party system at multiple levels of office, it is time to ask two big questions. Is the country ready for a strong third party, and is the country ready for a third party president?
The first question may already be in the process of being answered. While some may see the victories of the Green Party in local and state elections over the past four years as a flash in the pan, a few pundits see it as the beginning of a new era in American politics. They have possibly reached the organizational ability to the point that the Green Party can finally stand on its own. However, the Greens are not the only party who have been making gains as of late. The Constitution Party, with Rick Jore’s election to the Montana state house, now has its first office holder above the local level since former US Representative Robert C. Smith’s brief flirtation with the party in 1999 while serving New Hampshire’s 1st district. If they can continue to build their organizational and fundraising capabilities and run electable enough candidates, the Constitution Party could become as big a thorn in the Republicans’ side as the Greens currently are for the Democrats.
While the idea of a prominent third party is unrealistic in the idea of many political scientists, the latter question posed above - of a third party president - is more interesting and certainly more immediately relevant. Not even a decade and a half ago, Ross Perot’s 1992 candidacy present a very real shot of a third party winning the presidency. And while opinions of presidential candidates running outside the Democrat and Republican lines may have soured since then, here are several reasons why the right third party candidate could stand a real chance in two years. First, a recent Gallup poll has found that more Americans identify as independents; neither Democrats nor Republicans. The poll, conducted from December 11 to the 14th, found that 42% of Americans identify as independents, 31% as Democrats, and 27% as Republicans[2]. Additionally, President George W. Bush’s approval rating has dipped back just 33 percent. While this is not as low as the record Gallup saw of just 31 percent in May, it is not a good sign for the Republican Party, especially in light of the midterms.
These factors both point to an opening for a third party candidate in 2008, but the question then becomes who? One possibility, and one that has gained a following among the left, is for former Vice President Al Gore to run, either for the Green Party or as an independent. While a Green Party run for Gore seems unlikely, it would be a huge coup for the Greens if they nabbed him. An independent run may be more likely, but it would still be more sensible for Gore to run for the Democratic nomination - if he runs at all. Currently, the field seems more palatable for a more centrist candidate, likely an independent. Recently, four possible candidates have come into the fore. Three are sitting senators. Lincoln Chafee and Joe Lieberman, both of whom switched to independent affiliations after having been primaried by their respective parties earlier this year, have been occasionally mentioned as possible candidates for president. Focus has especially come on Lieberman now with his surviving reelection, as he was Gore’s running mate in 2000. The other senator who has been occasionally talked up as an independent candidate is Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel. Hagel has been at odds with members of the Bush administration including Vice President Cheney and Karl Rove, and has been a frequent critic of the president’s handling of foreign policy and the War in Iraq in the past couple years. Hagel also was one of the few Republicans who voted against the Patriot Act reauthorization in 2006. Recently, a poll of Nebraskans showed Hagel with a higher approval rating among Democrats than among Republicans.
Aside from those three senators, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has also been reportedly considering a run for president. Bloomberg, a moderate Republican, as a third party candidate would be firmly in the model of Ross Perot. The billionaire financial mogul has governed the city in what has been called “calm, coherent centrism”[3], and after a rough patch in his first years in office has seen his popularity numbers in New York soaring to as high as 70 percent this year. Bloomberg could have a shot, especially as an independent since his chances at the nomination within his own Republican Party seem difficult. The Republican path is hampered by the fact that Bloomberg would be joining two other moderate New York Republicans who have already announced exploratory committees. With both Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki likely to enter the Republican nomination, Bloomberg could find himself squeezed out if he goes that route, and like Chuck Hagel, might find a clearer path to the White House through an independent run. If any of these candidates run third party or independent, they will definitely upset the current order of the 2008 election and be garnering echoes of 1992 as soon as their hat goes into the ring. But who knows. There were points when the American public appeared ready for a third option when Perot ran, maybe enough are ready now to send that option to the White House.
***
San Francisco Mayor Matt Gonzalez Announces Reelection Bid
January 3, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - As he begins the final year of his first term as mayor of San Francisco, Matt Gonzalez reflected on what he has accomplished. Gonzalez burst onto the scene in 2003 when his election as mayor thrust him into the position of the highest profile Green Party officeholder in the country. Since then, Gonzalez has overseen the start of several city developments such as the Transbay Transit Center. Now, in a speech marking the beginning of the 2007 term, Mayor Gonzalez announced his intention to run for reelection and serve a second term as mayor.
In his campaign announcement, Gonzalez highlighted the programs he has spearheaded so far as mayor. The Rincon Hill and Transbay developments in particular, which surprised commentators in a break from the Green Party’s usual anti-development bent, were a key focus. Gonzalez lauded the increase in housing supply the developments will bring and the increased access to mass transit that revamping the Transbay into a hub for BART and CalTrain will bring to San Francisco. These areas, Gonzalez noted, were complex long term investments requiring a steady hand in government to see them through. In announcing his bid for reelection, the mayor certified his intent to be the person to do just that and see the project to their fruition.
However, Gonzalez is certain to face strong opposition from prominent Democratic Party figures in the city in his bid for reelection. His victory over fellow county supervisor Gavin Newsom in 2003 was a blow to the Democratic Party in one of their safest cities, and a desire to recapture the mayor’s office is going to make Gonzalez a prime target. Gavin Newsom has recently been vocal against Gonzalez, all but announcing an intent to run against the mayor again. Other than Newsom, Leland Yee and Fiona Ma could also arise as potential Democratic challengers to Gonzalez.
While several Democrats are likely to challenge Gonzalez for mayor, the results of the election will be hard to predict. This is due to the switch in the system in which the mayor of San Francisco is elected. In 2003, when Matt Gonzalez won, San Francisco still used a second round runoff in case no candidate received a majority in the nonpartisan blanket primary. However, this year will use the instant runoff voting method enacted by voters in 2002. Instant runoff voting has been used in 2004 and 2006 for county supervisor and city officials elections, but 2007 will be the first year it will be used for the mayoral election. Mayor Gonzalez was confident about his prospects under the new system, lauding its use in other city elections since its enactment and how “[it] has empowered voters like never before and for the first time given San Franciscans a real choice in who governs them.” The system has had its critics, however. Several city advocates including Newsom and former Common Cause San Francisco director Charles Marsteller called for the repeal of the “failed experiment” in Marsteller’s words. Newsom claimed it hurt voter participation, citing the complications in filling out ballots and reports that it was difficult to explain to non-English speaking voters, particularly impacting minority voters. As Gonzalez was a major proponent of the switch while county supervisor, the debate over the instant runoff is likely to be one of the major issues of the campaign, along with the continuing rise in housing prices and the city’s homelessness. Whether Mayor Gonzalez will continue the momentum the Green Party saw in 2006 with two new county supervisors is up in the air, but the Greens have definitely made their impact on the city in many ways over the past three years of Gonzalez’s mayorship.
***
California Greens Say Next Step is the State
January 14, 2007
SACRAMENTO - There is a curious discrepancy between the Green Parties on the west coast and the east coast. While New England and California have been two of the most successful regions for the Green Party’s growth, there is a stark difference in where they have found that success. In New England, this year the Green Party made astounding breakthroughs at the state level, increasing their representation in the Maine State House from 1 to 3 members and gaining a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. In California, however, the Greens have struggled at the state level, while making great inroads in local representation. While this has been particularly in the North Coast and the Bay Area with winning mayoral and city council elections, the Greens have even won a city council seat in San Diego, demonstrating their appeal across the state.
Despite this success in local elections, Greens gains at the state level in California remain elusive. California Green Party chairman Mike Feinstein acknowledges this, and told us that the state assembly and state senate will be a prime focus for the party’s efforts over the next election cycle. Feinstein certainly has the experience for state legislature elections. The former mayor of Santa Monica ran for the 41st assembly district last year. While he only won 6.3 percent of the vote in the race, it was one of the best showings by a Green Party candidate in southern California. Feinstein said he wants to lead the California Greens to emulate the success of the parties in Maine and Massachusetts. He admits he is not likely to win a race any time soon, but said there were promising developments further north.
Take the 12th and 13th assembly districts for example. Both are in San Francisco, which is quickly becoming a stronghold of the California Green Party as the party manages to regularly rival Democrats in mayoral and county level elections. Candidates Susan King and Lisa Feldstein received over 10% of the vote for the 12th and 13th districts. The success of them as well as Kristy Keefer for the state senate last year owes a lot to the building up of the local Green Party, which now holds three county supervisor seats and the office of mayor of San Francisco. However, the Greens still struggled to transfer from the local to the state level. Supervisors Fiona Ma and Chris Daly were elected with over 70% of the vote to the assembly, and that will certainly be a difficult wall of support to break down. Indeed, while San Francisco is the most nationally notable area of Green success in California, another region may quietly be elevating itself. Mendocino and Humboldt counties, on the rural north coast of the state, were the earliest area where the Greens found traction, and that continues today. Bill Meyers, former Point Arena school board president, won over 18 percent in the race for the 2nd senate district, one of the best state legislative performances by any Green candidate in California.
In his efforts to elevate Greens to the state legislature in 2008, Mike Feinstein has already been in talks with newly minted Maine state senator Benjamin Meiklejohn. Meiklejohn, who was chair of the Maine Green Party before entering the state legislature this month, gave him some tips, but Feinstein was quiet on what they were. There will likely be some difficulties in Feinstein’s wishes though. While he might want to focus on the California state legislature, 2008 will without a doubt require greater attention paid to the presidential race. With Bush leaving office, and Vice President Cheney frequently reiterating he will not run, the Greens will certainly want a strong national candidate for the presidency to take advantage of an open race. In addition, the new Senate and House campaign committees mean the national Green Party will want to present well in Congressional races, and the California House races could be ripe for showing how far the Greens have come. So Feinstein or whoever is leading the California Green Party next year could have much more on their plate and the state legislative races may have to be a lower priority.
[1] Only a slight increase from the Greens' 25.9% showing in OTL.
[2] The party affiliation numbers are a month or so early from OTL, I took them from Gallup's poll for January 2007.
[3] That quote comes from this New York Magazine article, which is supposedly the first time Bloomberg was mentioned as possibly running for president.
[4] A mix of some of the people and quotes from this article on San Francisco's ranked choice voting.
November 27, 2006
LONDON, ONTARIO - “The Green Party has arrived.” That was the statement Elizabeth May, who was elected leader of the Greens not four months ago, gave following the results of the London North Centre by-election yesterday. May, who served as executive director for the Sierra Club of Canada for seventeen years prior to her election as Green Party leader, jumped into the by-election despite being not from the region and already making a pledge to run in Cape Breton-Canso in the next general election. Normally this might prove a setback, but apparently not for Elizabeth May. The Green leader received an astonishing 27.16% in the by-election[1]. This pushed the Green Party to second in the by-election, coming in with nearly one thousand more votes than the Conservatives’ Dianne Haskett. However, Glen Pearson will retain the seat for the Liberals with just over 34 percent of the overall vote.
The by-election was triggered by the resignation of Joe Fontana on October 22 to run in the London mayoral election. He lost the election, but the Liberals kept the seat. However, it was much closer than anyone expected. The Liberals lost over 5 percent in the seat from their federal election performance in January. Additionally, it appears Elizabeth May and the Green Party took votes from all the major parties in her extraordinary rise in London. The Conservatives, on the cusp of 30 percent in January, also slipped down 5 percentage points yesterday. However, the biggest losers to the Green surge, perhaps not surprisingly, were the New Democrats. They fell over 10 percent from the general election vote in London-North Centre.
As Pearson takes his seat in Parliament, he may feel a bit overshadowed as all eyes will continue to be on Elizabeth May and the Greens. They have broken records by a mile in the London North Centre election, both in vote numbers and in fundraising. May’s 27.16% vote get is more than 10 percent higher than the previous Green Party record of 16.71% Andrew Lewis received in Saanich-Gulf Islands in 2004. What this means for the next federal election remains to be seen, however. May previously stated she would run in Cape Breton-Canso, but in a statement following yesterday’s result she said her mind was not made up on where to run. “Cape Breton is my home and I would love to run there, but we’re still looking at other feasible seats.” The Greens are certainly hoping to keep the momentum here in London, but it is doubtful they can without the stature of Elizabeth May as a candidate.
***
Is the Country Ready For a Third Party?
December 18, 2006
WASHINGTON - With the results of the midterm elections a month ago, voters sent a powerful signal to the leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties: they are tired of the two major parties dominating politics. Three independents will now sit in the Senate in Washington. Texas, the second most populous state in the country, rejected both the parties of Ann Richards and George W. Bush to send Carole Keeton Strayhorn to Austin as the state’s first independent governor since Sam Houston. In three states, voters sent members from third parties to the state legislatures - Greens in Maine and Massachusetts and the Constitution Party in Montana - and elected a handful of independents to state houses in several states across the country. With this rise in rejection of the two party system at multiple levels of office, it is time to ask two big questions. Is the country ready for a strong third party, and is the country ready for a third party president?
The first question may already be in the process of being answered. While some may see the victories of the Green Party in local and state elections over the past four years as a flash in the pan, a few pundits see it as the beginning of a new era in American politics. They have possibly reached the organizational ability to the point that the Green Party can finally stand on its own. However, the Greens are not the only party who have been making gains as of late. The Constitution Party, with Rick Jore’s election to the Montana state house, now has its first office holder above the local level since former US Representative Robert C. Smith’s brief flirtation with the party in 1999 while serving New Hampshire’s 1st district. If they can continue to build their organizational and fundraising capabilities and run electable enough candidates, the Constitution Party could become as big a thorn in the Republicans’ side as the Greens currently are for the Democrats.
While the idea of a prominent third party is unrealistic in the idea of many political scientists, the latter question posed above - of a third party president - is more interesting and certainly more immediately relevant. Not even a decade and a half ago, Ross Perot’s 1992 candidacy present a very real shot of a third party winning the presidency. And while opinions of presidential candidates running outside the Democrat and Republican lines may have soured since then, here are several reasons why the right third party candidate could stand a real chance in two years. First, a recent Gallup poll has found that more Americans identify as independents; neither Democrats nor Republicans. The poll, conducted from December 11 to the 14th, found that 42% of Americans identify as independents, 31% as Democrats, and 27% as Republicans[2]. Additionally, President George W. Bush’s approval rating has dipped back just 33 percent. While this is not as low as the record Gallup saw of just 31 percent in May, it is not a good sign for the Republican Party, especially in light of the midterms.
These factors both point to an opening for a third party candidate in 2008, but the question then becomes who? One possibility, and one that has gained a following among the left, is for former Vice President Al Gore to run, either for the Green Party or as an independent. While a Green Party run for Gore seems unlikely, it would be a huge coup for the Greens if they nabbed him. An independent run may be more likely, but it would still be more sensible for Gore to run for the Democratic nomination - if he runs at all. Currently, the field seems more palatable for a more centrist candidate, likely an independent. Recently, four possible candidates have come into the fore. Three are sitting senators. Lincoln Chafee and Joe Lieberman, both of whom switched to independent affiliations after having been primaried by their respective parties earlier this year, have been occasionally mentioned as possible candidates for president. Focus has especially come on Lieberman now with his surviving reelection, as he was Gore’s running mate in 2000. The other senator who has been occasionally talked up as an independent candidate is Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel. Hagel has been at odds with members of the Bush administration including Vice President Cheney and Karl Rove, and has been a frequent critic of the president’s handling of foreign policy and the War in Iraq in the past couple years. Hagel also was one of the few Republicans who voted against the Patriot Act reauthorization in 2006. Recently, a poll of Nebraskans showed Hagel with a higher approval rating among Democrats than among Republicans.
Aside from those three senators, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has also been reportedly considering a run for president. Bloomberg, a moderate Republican, as a third party candidate would be firmly in the model of Ross Perot. The billionaire financial mogul has governed the city in what has been called “calm, coherent centrism”[3], and after a rough patch in his first years in office has seen his popularity numbers in New York soaring to as high as 70 percent this year. Bloomberg could have a shot, especially as an independent since his chances at the nomination within his own Republican Party seem difficult. The Republican path is hampered by the fact that Bloomberg would be joining two other moderate New York Republicans who have already announced exploratory committees. With both Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki likely to enter the Republican nomination, Bloomberg could find himself squeezed out if he goes that route, and like Chuck Hagel, might find a clearer path to the White House through an independent run. If any of these candidates run third party or independent, they will definitely upset the current order of the 2008 election and be garnering echoes of 1992 as soon as their hat goes into the ring. But who knows. There were points when the American public appeared ready for a third option when Perot ran, maybe enough are ready now to send that option to the White House.
***
San Francisco Mayor Matt Gonzalez Announces Reelection Bid
January 3, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - As he begins the final year of his first term as mayor of San Francisco, Matt Gonzalez reflected on what he has accomplished. Gonzalez burst onto the scene in 2003 when his election as mayor thrust him into the position of the highest profile Green Party officeholder in the country. Since then, Gonzalez has overseen the start of several city developments such as the Transbay Transit Center. Now, in a speech marking the beginning of the 2007 term, Mayor Gonzalez announced his intention to run for reelection and serve a second term as mayor.
In his campaign announcement, Gonzalez highlighted the programs he has spearheaded so far as mayor. The Rincon Hill and Transbay developments in particular, which surprised commentators in a break from the Green Party’s usual anti-development bent, were a key focus. Gonzalez lauded the increase in housing supply the developments will bring and the increased access to mass transit that revamping the Transbay into a hub for BART and CalTrain will bring to San Francisco. These areas, Gonzalez noted, were complex long term investments requiring a steady hand in government to see them through. In announcing his bid for reelection, the mayor certified his intent to be the person to do just that and see the project to their fruition.
However, Gonzalez is certain to face strong opposition from prominent Democratic Party figures in the city in his bid for reelection. His victory over fellow county supervisor Gavin Newsom in 2003 was a blow to the Democratic Party in one of their safest cities, and a desire to recapture the mayor’s office is going to make Gonzalez a prime target. Gavin Newsom has recently been vocal against Gonzalez, all but announcing an intent to run against the mayor again. Other than Newsom, Leland Yee and Fiona Ma could also arise as potential Democratic challengers to Gonzalez.
While several Democrats are likely to challenge Gonzalez for mayor, the results of the election will be hard to predict. This is due to the switch in the system in which the mayor of San Francisco is elected. In 2003, when Matt Gonzalez won, San Francisco still used a second round runoff in case no candidate received a majority in the nonpartisan blanket primary. However, this year will use the instant runoff voting method enacted by voters in 2002. Instant runoff voting has been used in 2004 and 2006 for county supervisor and city officials elections, but 2007 will be the first year it will be used for the mayoral election. Mayor Gonzalez was confident about his prospects under the new system, lauding its use in other city elections since its enactment and how “[it] has empowered voters like never before and for the first time given San Franciscans a real choice in who governs them.” The system has had its critics, however. Several city advocates including Newsom and former Common Cause San Francisco director Charles Marsteller called for the repeal of the “failed experiment” in Marsteller’s words. Newsom claimed it hurt voter participation, citing the complications in filling out ballots and reports that it was difficult to explain to non-English speaking voters, particularly impacting minority voters. As Gonzalez was a major proponent of the switch while county supervisor, the debate over the instant runoff is likely to be one of the major issues of the campaign, along with the continuing rise in housing prices and the city’s homelessness. Whether Mayor Gonzalez will continue the momentum the Green Party saw in 2006 with two new county supervisors is up in the air, but the Greens have definitely made their impact on the city in many ways over the past three years of Gonzalez’s mayorship.
***
California Greens Say Next Step is the State
January 14, 2007
SACRAMENTO - There is a curious discrepancy between the Green Parties on the west coast and the east coast. While New England and California have been two of the most successful regions for the Green Party’s growth, there is a stark difference in where they have found that success. In New England, this year the Green Party made astounding breakthroughs at the state level, increasing their representation in the Maine State House from 1 to 3 members and gaining a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. In California, however, the Greens have struggled at the state level, while making great inroads in local representation. While this has been particularly in the North Coast and the Bay Area with winning mayoral and city council elections, the Greens have even won a city council seat in San Diego, demonstrating their appeal across the state.
Despite this success in local elections, Greens gains at the state level in California remain elusive. California Green Party chairman Mike Feinstein acknowledges this, and told us that the state assembly and state senate will be a prime focus for the party’s efforts over the next election cycle. Feinstein certainly has the experience for state legislature elections. The former mayor of Santa Monica ran for the 41st assembly district last year. While he only won 6.3 percent of the vote in the race, it was one of the best showings by a Green Party candidate in southern California. Feinstein said he wants to lead the California Greens to emulate the success of the parties in Maine and Massachusetts. He admits he is not likely to win a race any time soon, but said there were promising developments further north.
Take the 12th and 13th assembly districts for example. Both are in San Francisco, which is quickly becoming a stronghold of the California Green Party as the party manages to regularly rival Democrats in mayoral and county level elections. Candidates Susan King and Lisa Feldstein received over 10% of the vote for the 12th and 13th districts. The success of them as well as Kristy Keefer for the state senate last year owes a lot to the building up of the local Green Party, which now holds three county supervisor seats and the office of mayor of San Francisco. However, the Greens still struggled to transfer from the local to the state level. Supervisors Fiona Ma and Chris Daly were elected with over 70% of the vote to the assembly, and that will certainly be a difficult wall of support to break down. Indeed, while San Francisco is the most nationally notable area of Green success in California, another region may quietly be elevating itself. Mendocino and Humboldt counties, on the rural north coast of the state, were the earliest area where the Greens found traction, and that continues today. Bill Meyers, former Point Arena school board president, won over 18 percent in the race for the 2nd senate district, one of the best state legislative performances by any Green candidate in California.
In his efforts to elevate Greens to the state legislature in 2008, Mike Feinstein has already been in talks with newly minted Maine state senator Benjamin Meiklejohn. Meiklejohn, who was chair of the Maine Green Party before entering the state legislature this month, gave him some tips, but Feinstein was quiet on what they were. There will likely be some difficulties in Feinstein’s wishes though. While he might want to focus on the California state legislature, 2008 will without a doubt require greater attention paid to the presidential race. With Bush leaving office, and Vice President Cheney frequently reiterating he will not run, the Greens will certainly want a strong national candidate for the presidency to take advantage of an open race. In addition, the new Senate and House campaign committees mean the national Green Party will want to present well in Congressional races, and the California House races could be ripe for showing how far the Greens have come. So Feinstein or whoever is leading the California Green Party next year could have much more on their plate and the state legislative races may have to be a lower priority.
[1] Only a slight increase from the Greens' 25.9% showing in OTL.
[2] The party affiliation numbers are a month or so early from OTL, I took them from Gallup's poll for January 2007.
[3] That quote comes from this New York Magazine article, which is supposedly the first time Bloomberg was mentioned as possibly running for president.
[4] A mix of some of the people and quotes from this article on San Francisco's ranked choice voting.
Bookmark1995
Banned
It is interesting that this isn't going to be a Green-wank: not only are the gains by the Greens gradual, but other political parties and independents are gaining ground as well.
Rick Jore winning is actually OTL, and his position is even weirder. He was elected to one term in the Montana state house in 2006 on the Constitution Party, and entered when the state house was 50 R, 49 D, and him. The house GOP courted his favor and deciding votes by making him head of the Education Committee.
Hillary Clinton Declares Candidacy for President in Already Crowded Democratic Field
January 20, 2007
WASHINGTON - Today, after much speculation and amid an increasingly crowded Democratic field, one of the more obvious front runners has formally announced her candidacy for president of the United States. Former First Lady of the United States and current senator from New York Hillary Clinton today announced through her website that she is forming an exploratory committee for a run for president. Clinton, who has been speculated as a presidential candidate even since before her husband left the office in 2001, now joins a growing field of five other candidates.
The other candidates currently in the race for the Democratic nomination are Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, former senator John Edwards of North Carolina, former senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, and former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack. However, Clinton’s entry into the race marks the first real major candidacy for the 2008 nomination. Former senator John Edwards, who was also John Kerry’s running mate in 2004, has some potential, but his campaign has faced difficulty early on in squaring the circle of a campaign around the working class and labor interests with Edwards’ personal wealth. Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign has immediately jumped to the front of the pack in terms of 2008 candidates, and she has timed her entry well. While the announcement went up on her campaign website earlier today, the full announcement - with a firm “I’m in to win” from the former First Lady, is set to be made tonight shortly following the end of President Bush’s State of the Union address[1].
However, while Clinton announces her entry into the race, several candidates, some who are widely expected to give Clinton a tough race, are expected to announce in the coming weeks. Both Delaware Senator Joe Biden and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson have said they are running but has not yet made formal announcements. The two candidates the Democratic Party is most waiting on, however, are Illinois Senator Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Obama’s inspiring keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention rocketed him into presidential speculation early, but he has delayed in making a decision on whether to run so far. Daschle, who ultimately rejected a 2004 bid to focus on running for reelection, is expected to make an announcement in early February according to sources close to him. Some pollsters have said that Daschle’s entry into the race could spell further trouble for John Edwards. While Edwards has recently been leading Iowa caucus polls, his numbers have flagged with Vilsack in the race to just 25% from the 37% he was enjoying two months ago[2]. If another Plains state candidate like Daschle enters the race, he could tip the scales on the Iowa caucus and make it anybody’s game. Of course, it’s still nearly a year out from the caucus and anything could happen between now and then.
While Clinton’s presidential announcement and the Democratic primary has dominated the headlines today, it is important to remember that the race for the Republican Party nomination is also heating up. With the number of exploratory committees at nearly double digits, the Republicans will no doubt have a wide selection to choose from. However, only Kansas Senator Sam Brownback has made a formal entry thus far, but more are likely to join him in the next two months. The candidates to keep an eye on are former New York governor George Pataki and Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in the more moderate wing of the party, and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Virginia Senator George Allen joining Senator Brownback in the conservative wing of the party’s race for the nomination. Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York, and his balance between the two wings make him another very strong contender for the nomination. Other Republicans who have made noises about running lately are another Virginian, former governor Jim Gilmore, as well as Alan Keyes and Tom Tancredo, though their chances seem slim at best. For the moment, however, among the major candidates for the GOP the race appears wide open.
***
Study On Congestion Pricing Released, Plans to Be Implemented Beginning in 2008
February 21, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - One of the key initiatives from Mayor Matt Gonzalez, the city of San Francisco is about to go forward with one of the most radical attempts at solving the problem of city traffic. A few major cities such as Singapore and London have implemented forms of urban congestion pricing, but San Francisco is the first city to trial such a system in the United States. In 2005, the San Francisco County Transit Authority set up a six month trial of congestion pricing tolls added on to the existing toll for the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge entrances to San Francisco. The end of the trial period marked the beginning of an extensive study on the effect of the pricing scheme over the last year. Now, the SFCTA has released its report on the effect of the study, and its recommendations on the implementation of congestion pricing in the city going forward.
The transit authority’s report is good news for Mayor Gonzalez and the Green Party, who have been some of the major proponents of importing a congestion pricing to San Francisco. The report estimated 130,000 daily crossings of the Golden Gate Bridge and 248,000 daily crossings of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The report found that with congestion pricing during peak hours on both the Doyle Drive access toll to the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge Toll Plaza, traffic at these points could be reduced by up to 6% during peak times. The report also added that as more drivers in the Bay Area use the FasTrak system - currently slightly less than half of drivers on the bridge crossings use it - the pricing scheme would become even more effective and toll revenue would increase. Based on those results, the report recommended the bridge congestion be expanded and implemented as a Gateway cordon, raising peak hour tolls at the San Mateo County line on Highway 101 and I-285, with a likely addition of the larger non-highway crossings such as Skyline Boulevard later on[4]. As an initial implementation, this would be the easiest to understand and adjust to for the public, but would have less of an impact on the traffic within the city than other more directed zone proposals.
After the release of the report, Mayor Matt Gonzalez applauded its findings, and indicated he will try to get support from the Board of Supervisors for the Gateway Plan by the beginning of next year. While several members of the county board have supported the congestion pricing, the path to its realization is still facing a number of stumbling blocks. The biggest of these is undoubtedly the opposition of County Supervisor and Gonzalez’s foremost mayoral challenger Gavin Newsom. Newsom, whose district 2 covers much of the northern coast of the city including the SF side of the Golden Gate Bridge and its approach, said his district was negatively affected by the trial of the congestion pricing. Newsom attacked the plan, claiming the peak pricing on the bridge toll saw a negligible impact on vehicle traffic and most hurt the commuters coming into and out of the city on a daily basis. Of course, the removal of the increased Golden Gate Bridge toll would have the largest impact on Newsom’s district, which is already one of the richest areas of San Francisco. Newsom did not attack the congestion pricing as a whole, however. Rather, he proposed the adoption of a smaller zone concentrated on downtown San Francisco on the northeast corner of the peninsula. A smaller cordon centered on the financial district would remove the proposed Golden Gate Bridge toll and benefit Newsom’s district, but the report did mention a number of benefits to that proposal as well. With traffic as one of the major issues facing San Francisco today, the implementation of the congestion pricing scheme could be one of the biggest fights in the mayoral election and in the county board this year.
***
With Governor Blanco Bowing Out, Louisiana Gubernatorial Race Wide Open For Dems
March 30, 2007
BATON ROUGE - While the Democrats have had much to raise their spirits about in the last several months, the outlook for them in Louisiana is looking increasingly gloomy. As the state continues the slow path to recovery from Hurricane Katrina, many in the state say the recovery has taken too long. Though many in the state have placed the blame on President George W. Bush for the lack or languishing of aid to many areas of Louisiana, Democratic governor Kathleen Blanco is also shouldering much of this blame. In the first few months of 2007, Governor Blanco’s poll numbers have plunged in the wake of continually slow distribution of federal and state disaster aid. In one recent poll, the governor trailed Congressman Bobby Jindal, the most prominent Republican candidate so far in this year’s gubernatorial race, by over twenty points. Facing a flagging approval, ten days ago governor Blanco announced she would not run for reelection as governor. In the days since then, candidates scrambled to make their decisions on whether to jump into the race or not as Democrats attempt to find a candidate who can pose a credible challenge Jindal in the state’s jungle primary in October.
Mitch Landrieu, possibly the most anticipated potential candidate to replace Blanco, was the first to make a quick denial that he will run for governor. The mayor of New Orleans said he was devoted to serving the city in “the long road to recovery” from Hurricane Katrina, and he did not want to be distracted by a gubernatorial campaign just a year into his time as mayor. While Landrieu is out, two Democrats so far have announced they are running for governor. The first is Foster Campbell, a longtime state senator from Bossier Parish who was elected public service commissioner in 2002. The second, and likely better known candidate for the Democrats, is former Senator John Breaux. Breaux announced a few days following Blanco’s decision to bow out, and so far has polled the best against Jindal. Even so, the “best” has still been 24% to Jindal’s 35% in a poll released yesterday. Breaux may also face opposition regarding his brief lobbying career since leaving the senate in 2005. Reports have surfaced that Breaux continues to list his residence and voter registration as in Maryland, which could prompt a legal challenge to his candidacy for governor.
While the Democrats struggle to rally around a suitable candidate, Jindal may also face significant challenges from his own side thanks to Louisiana’s blanket primary. Republican State Senator Walter Boasso entered the gubernatorial race in February, and New Orleans businessman John Georges has indicated he may also enter the race as a Republican[4]. While Boasso has only served in the state legislature for three years, he gained renown after Hurricane Katrina hit with the passage of a bill he proposed to consolidate the Greater New Orleans seven levee boards into one board. Georges, meanwhile, could bring a strong self-funded campaign, which could give him a leg up against Jindal as the Democrats struggle to fundraise for their candidates. Another hindrance to the Democrats could come from the Green Party campaign of Malik Rahim, the activist and founder of the Common Ground Collective who earned over nine percent in the New Orleans mayoral primary last year. Rahim has continued to be vocal in decrying the slow recovery from Katrina especially in New Orleans, and has positioned himself as the only black voice in the gubernatorial election. While Rahim has almost no chance at making a runoff, the votes he pulls in the October primary could be the kingmaker on who comes in second and advances to a runoff if Jindal gets under 50 percent.
***
Vilsack At Last Makes Endorsement Month After Primary Exit
March 31, 2007
DES MOINES - It has been over a month since Iowa governor Tom Vilsack ended his brief candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president. At the time of his candidacy announcement, it looked like governor Vilsack might throw a wrench in the nomination process similar to 1992. In that race, Iowa Senator Tom Harkin ran as a favorite son and effectively nullified the first contest of the Democratic race. With Vilsack’s entry into the 2008 Democratic primary, it appeared he would do the same. However, soon after entering governor Vilsack saw his poll numbers stagnate at about 15 percent in Iowa and gained little traction elsewhere in the country. After a month of sitting at zero or one percent in national polls, Vilsack dropped out of the primaries citing poor fundraising.
However, when he had dropped out of the race, governor Vilsack made no endorsement. Arguably, this in fact increased his stock, and his voice is actually worth more than when he was actually running. Now out of the race, Vilsack could make a key endorsement to any number of candidates who were hoping to launch their candidacy with a win or high placing finish in the vaunted Iowa caucus. There were many options who Vilsack reportedly considered. One, the only fellow governor in the Democratic race, was New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. Richardson arguably had the most to gain from Vilsack exiting the race, as it left the governor of New Mexico as the only Democratic candidate with executive experience[5]. While Richardson could have certainly used the endorsement, it was likely far more enticing for Vilsack to endorse one of the four main contenders for the Iowa race, especially now that Vilsack’s departure heightens the importance of doing well in the Iowa contest.
So it was down to Clinton, Daschle, Edwards, or Obama. Any one of them could have received a much needed boost to their campaigns. Edwards had been leading in most recent Iowa polls with Daschle and Clinton nipping at his heels and occasionally topping him by a percentage point or two. Obama could have used the endorsement to make an early impression in a state that would be groundbreaking for the freshman Senator to launch his optimistic campaign. In the end, however, governor Vilsack stuck close to home with his choice of endorsement. Yesterday appearing at a joint rally in Des Moines, Vilsack gave Daschle a strong endorsement, lauding the South Dakota Senator’s “commitment to solutions that reach beyond party, and the quiet energy [he] puts into his job every day leading the Democrats in Washington.” Vilsack’s endorsement, on top of a recent highlight of Daschle’s work for agricultural policy, should give the Senate Majority Leader a welcome boost in the neighboring Great Plains state as the 2008 primary campaign goes into full swing.
[1] Clinton timing her announcement to be after the State of the Union is OTL.
[2] Yes, in early 2007, John Edwards was still leading regularly in Iowa caucus polling. In fact, he was even leading an occasional Iowa poll as late as December 2007.
[3] The Gateway Plan is roughly the Gateway proposal from this 2010 MAPS study for San Francisco's congestion pricing, just with a staggered implementation of the San Mateo County border points.
[4] Walter Boasso did originally enter the 2007 LA governor's race as a Republican, but the Democrats convinced him to switch parties in April that year.
[5] Ah that brief time when people thought Bill Richardson had a chance. Also because I found it while researching and want to share, here's the old 2007 era WaPo article where I found this part.
January 20, 2007
WASHINGTON - Today, after much speculation and amid an increasingly crowded Democratic field, one of the more obvious front runners has formally announced her candidacy for president of the United States. Former First Lady of the United States and current senator from New York Hillary Clinton today announced through her website that she is forming an exploratory committee for a run for president. Clinton, who has been speculated as a presidential candidate even since before her husband left the office in 2001, now joins a growing field of five other candidates.
The other candidates currently in the race for the Democratic nomination are Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, former senator John Edwards of North Carolina, former senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, and former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack. However, Clinton’s entry into the race marks the first real major candidacy for the 2008 nomination. Former senator John Edwards, who was also John Kerry’s running mate in 2004, has some potential, but his campaign has faced difficulty early on in squaring the circle of a campaign around the working class and labor interests with Edwards’ personal wealth. Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign has immediately jumped to the front of the pack in terms of 2008 candidates, and she has timed her entry well. While the announcement went up on her campaign website earlier today, the full announcement - with a firm “I’m in to win” from the former First Lady, is set to be made tonight shortly following the end of President Bush’s State of the Union address[1].
However, while Clinton announces her entry into the race, several candidates, some who are widely expected to give Clinton a tough race, are expected to announce in the coming weeks. Both Delaware Senator Joe Biden and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson have said they are running but has not yet made formal announcements. The two candidates the Democratic Party is most waiting on, however, are Illinois Senator Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Obama’s inspiring keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention rocketed him into presidential speculation early, but he has delayed in making a decision on whether to run so far. Daschle, who ultimately rejected a 2004 bid to focus on running for reelection, is expected to make an announcement in early February according to sources close to him. Some pollsters have said that Daschle’s entry into the race could spell further trouble for John Edwards. While Edwards has recently been leading Iowa caucus polls, his numbers have flagged with Vilsack in the race to just 25% from the 37% he was enjoying two months ago[2]. If another Plains state candidate like Daschle enters the race, he could tip the scales on the Iowa caucus and make it anybody’s game. Of course, it’s still nearly a year out from the caucus and anything could happen between now and then.
While Clinton’s presidential announcement and the Democratic primary has dominated the headlines today, it is important to remember that the race for the Republican Party nomination is also heating up. With the number of exploratory committees at nearly double digits, the Republicans will no doubt have a wide selection to choose from. However, only Kansas Senator Sam Brownback has made a formal entry thus far, but more are likely to join him in the next two months. The candidates to keep an eye on are former New York governor George Pataki and Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in the more moderate wing of the party, and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Virginia Senator George Allen joining Senator Brownback in the conservative wing of the party’s race for the nomination. Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York, and his balance between the two wings make him another very strong contender for the nomination. Other Republicans who have made noises about running lately are another Virginian, former governor Jim Gilmore, as well as Alan Keyes and Tom Tancredo, though their chances seem slim at best. For the moment, however, among the major candidates for the GOP the race appears wide open.
***
Study On Congestion Pricing Released, Plans to Be Implemented Beginning in 2008
February 21, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - One of the key initiatives from Mayor Matt Gonzalez, the city of San Francisco is about to go forward with one of the most radical attempts at solving the problem of city traffic. A few major cities such as Singapore and London have implemented forms of urban congestion pricing, but San Francisco is the first city to trial such a system in the United States. In 2005, the San Francisco County Transit Authority set up a six month trial of congestion pricing tolls added on to the existing toll for the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge entrances to San Francisco. The end of the trial period marked the beginning of an extensive study on the effect of the pricing scheme over the last year. Now, the SFCTA has released its report on the effect of the study, and its recommendations on the implementation of congestion pricing in the city going forward.
The transit authority’s report is good news for Mayor Gonzalez and the Green Party, who have been some of the major proponents of importing a congestion pricing to San Francisco. The report estimated 130,000 daily crossings of the Golden Gate Bridge and 248,000 daily crossings of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The report found that with congestion pricing during peak hours on both the Doyle Drive access toll to the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge Toll Plaza, traffic at these points could be reduced by up to 6% during peak times. The report also added that as more drivers in the Bay Area use the FasTrak system - currently slightly less than half of drivers on the bridge crossings use it - the pricing scheme would become even more effective and toll revenue would increase. Based on those results, the report recommended the bridge congestion be expanded and implemented as a Gateway cordon, raising peak hour tolls at the San Mateo County line on Highway 101 and I-285, with a likely addition of the larger non-highway crossings such as Skyline Boulevard later on[4]. As an initial implementation, this would be the easiest to understand and adjust to for the public, but would have less of an impact on the traffic within the city than other more directed zone proposals.
After the release of the report, Mayor Matt Gonzalez applauded its findings, and indicated he will try to get support from the Board of Supervisors for the Gateway Plan by the beginning of next year. While several members of the county board have supported the congestion pricing, the path to its realization is still facing a number of stumbling blocks. The biggest of these is undoubtedly the opposition of County Supervisor and Gonzalez’s foremost mayoral challenger Gavin Newsom. Newsom, whose district 2 covers much of the northern coast of the city including the SF side of the Golden Gate Bridge and its approach, said his district was negatively affected by the trial of the congestion pricing. Newsom attacked the plan, claiming the peak pricing on the bridge toll saw a negligible impact on vehicle traffic and most hurt the commuters coming into and out of the city on a daily basis. Of course, the removal of the increased Golden Gate Bridge toll would have the largest impact on Newsom’s district, which is already one of the richest areas of San Francisco. Newsom did not attack the congestion pricing as a whole, however. Rather, he proposed the adoption of a smaller zone concentrated on downtown San Francisco on the northeast corner of the peninsula. A smaller cordon centered on the financial district would remove the proposed Golden Gate Bridge toll and benefit Newsom’s district, but the report did mention a number of benefits to that proposal as well. With traffic as one of the major issues facing San Francisco today, the implementation of the congestion pricing scheme could be one of the biggest fights in the mayoral election and in the county board this year.
***
With Governor Blanco Bowing Out, Louisiana Gubernatorial Race Wide Open For Dems
March 30, 2007
BATON ROUGE - While the Democrats have had much to raise their spirits about in the last several months, the outlook for them in Louisiana is looking increasingly gloomy. As the state continues the slow path to recovery from Hurricane Katrina, many in the state say the recovery has taken too long. Though many in the state have placed the blame on President George W. Bush for the lack or languishing of aid to many areas of Louisiana, Democratic governor Kathleen Blanco is also shouldering much of this blame. In the first few months of 2007, Governor Blanco’s poll numbers have plunged in the wake of continually slow distribution of federal and state disaster aid. In one recent poll, the governor trailed Congressman Bobby Jindal, the most prominent Republican candidate so far in this year’s gubernatorial race, by over twenty points. Facing a flagging approval, ten days ago governor Blanco announced she would not run for reelection as governor. In the days since then, candidates scrambled to make their decisions on whether to jump into the race or not as Democrats attempt to find a candidate who can pose a credible challenge Jindal in the state’s jungle primary in October.
Mitch Landrieu, possibly the most anticipated potential candidate to replace Blanco, was the first to make a quick denial that he will run for governor. The mayor of New Orleans said he was devoted to serving the city in “the long road to recovery” from Hurricane Katrina, and he did not want to be distracted by a gubernatorial campaign just a year into his time as mayor. While Landrieu is out, two Democrats so far have announced they are running for governor. The first is Foster Campbell, a longtime state senator from Bossier Parish who was elected public service commissioner in 2002. The second, and likely better known candidate for the Democrats, is former Senator John Breaux. Breaux announced a few days following Blanco’s decision to bow out, and so far has polled the best against Jindal. Even so, the “best” has still been 24% to Jindal’s 35% in a poll released yesterday. Breaux may also face opposition regarding his brief lobbying career since leaving the senate in 2005. Reports have surfaced that Breaux continues to list his residence and voter registration as in Maryland, which could prompt a legal challenge to his candidacy for governor.
While the Democrats struggle to rally around a suitable candidate, Jindal may also face significant challenges from his own side thanks to Louisiana’s blanket primary. Republican State Senator Walter Boasso entered the gubernatorial race in February, and New Orleans businessman John Georges has indicated he may also enter the race as a Republican[4]. While Boasso has only served in the state legislature for three years, he gained renown after Hurricane Katrina hit with the passage of a bill he proposed to consolidate the Greater New Orleans seven levee boards into one board. Georges, meanwhile, could bring a strong self-funded campaign, which could give him a leg up against Jindal as the Democrats struggle to fundraise for their candidates. Another hindrance to the Democrats could come from the Green Party campaign of Malik Rahim, the activist and founder of the Common Ground Collective who earned over nine percent in the New Orleans mayoral primary last year. Rahim has continued to be vocal in decrying the slow recovery from Katrina especially in New Orleans, and has positioned himself as the only black voice in the gubernatorial election. While Rahim has almost no chance at making a runoff, the votes he pulls in the October primary could be the kingmaker on who comes in second and advances to a runoff if Jindal gets under 50 percent.
***
Vilsack At Last Makes Endorsement Month After Primary Exit
March 31, 2007
DES MOINES - It has been over a month since Iowa governor Tom Vilsack ended his brief candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president. At the time of his candidacy announcement, it looked like governor Vilsack might throw a wrench in the nomination process similar to 1992. In that race, Iowa Senator Tom Harkin ran as a favorite son and effectively nullified the first contest of the Democratic race. With Vilsack’s entry into the 2008 Democratic primary, it appeared he would do the same. However, soon after entering governor Vilsack saw his poll numbers stagnate at about 15 percent in Iowa and gained little traction elsewhere in the country. After a month of sitting at zero or one percent in national polls, Vilsack dropped out of the primaries citing poor fundraising.
However, when he had dropped out of the race, governor Vilsack made no endorsement. Arguably, this in fact increased his stock, and his voice is actually worth more than when he was actually running. Now out of the race, Vilsack could make a key endorsement to any number of candidates who were hoping to launch their candidacy with a win or high placing finish in the vaunted Iowa caucus. There were many options who Vilsack reportedly considered. One, the only fellow governor in the Democratic race, was New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. Richardson arguably had the most to gain from Vilsack exiting the race, as it left the governor of New Mexico as the only Democratic candidate with executive experience[5]. While Richardson could have certainly used the endorsement, it was likely far more enticing for Vilsack to endorse one of the four main contenders for the Iowa race, especially now that Vilsack’s departure heightens the importance of doing well in the Iowa contest.
So it was down to Clinton, Daschle, Edwards, or Obama. Any one of them could have received a much needed boost to their campaigns. Edwards had been leading in most recent Iowa polls with Daschle and Clinton nipping at his heels and occasionally topping him by a percentage point or two. Obama could have used the endorsement to make an early impression in a state that would be groundbreaking for the freshman Senator to launch his optimistic campaign. In the end, however, governor Vilsack stuck close to home with his choice of endorsement. Yesterday appearing at a joint rally in Des Moines, Vilsack gave Daschle a strong endorsement, lauding the South Dakota Senator’s “commitment to solutions that reach beyond party, and the quiet energy [he] puts into his job every day leading the Democrats in Washington.” Vilsack’s endorsement, on top of a recent highlight of Daschle’s work for agricultural policy, should give the Senate Majority Leader a welcome boost in the neighboring Great Plains state as the 2008 primary campaign goes into full swing.
[1] Clinton timing her announcement to be after the State of the Union is OTL.
[2] Yes, in early 2007, John Edwards was still leading regularly in Iowa caucus polling. In fact, he was even leading an occasional Iowa poll as late as December 2007.
[3] The Gateway Plan is roughly the Gateway proposal from this 2010 MAPS study for San Francisco's congestion pricing, just with a staggered implementation of the San Mateo County border points.
[4] Walter Boasso did originally enter the 2007 LA governor's race as a Republican, but the Democrats convinced him to switch parties in April that year.
[5] Ah that brief time when people thought Bill Richardson had a chance. Also because I found it while researching and want to share, here's the old 2007 era WaPo article where I found this part.
Fast forwarding a bit for the latest update to move things along.
Green Sweep in 2008 Presidential Election
November 5, 2008
WASHINGTON - And the results are in! In a stunning new direction for the country, we can now officially confirm that Art Goodtimes has been elected to the presidency in a complete landslide. Goodtimes' rise has been meteoric. One year ago, he was just the San Miguel County Commissioner finishing up his second term. While he was one of the highest partisan officeholders for the Green Party, Goodtimes was rather unassuming for a political career. The Coloradan had been long active in water conservation activism, and in the Telluride community. Earlier this year, however, Art Goodtimes surged into the spotlight when he defeated Pete McCloskey, Al Gore, and Howie Hawkins in the Green Party presidential primary. In his victory speech, Art Goodtimes declared that "with a new Green era, we will harness the power of the sun, and the sun will shine even on the deepest, darkest recesses of America."
Speaking of deep dark recesses, Goodtimes also has a grand history of mushrooms. One of the ways the president-elect has endeared himself to the people of Telluride and now to the nation is as the Director of the annual Telluride Mushroom Festival. As president, he is expected to continue to promote the psychadelic and nutritional properties of mushrooms as one of his main campaign issues. Other issues he has taken on board have been from his vice presidential selection, another surprise to the country. Conventional wisdom would have had Goodtimes selecting a more established politician to balance his ticket, but he is anything but conventional. Instead, Goodtimes selected a candidate from New Hampshire, who came in a surprise third in the New Hampshire Republican primary but flamed out as a possible candidate after that.
Yes, Goodtimes' selection of Vermin Supreme as his running mate was a shock to many. First, a Green Party candidate joining with a Republican was still a surprise among even political insiders, despite the relative success of people like Eric Eidsness and Pete McCloskey in previous contests. The pick was clearly a good choice though. The Goodtimes/Supreme ticket brought a regional balance of a Mountain West president with a New England vice president. The pick of Vermin Supreme also stengthened the anti-nuclear credentials of the Goodtimes ticket, and expanded the radical Green candidacy from environmental advocacy, bringing to the ticket radical political ideas as well such as anarchism and mutualism. As part of the concessions for selecting Supreme, President-Elect Goodtimes also adopted the greatest plank on Supreme's original platform; a free pony for every American.
This certainly is a new dawn in America. Starting in January, good times will reign supreme.
In other news, former Oakland mayor Jerry Brown has patented a machine to harness the aura of a person into a magnetic field that can be used to generate energy. However, it only works as long as it is a positive aura. The former mayor has proposed it as a solution to California's spate of brownouts, but he says it will only work if the people of the state smile and never frown.
april fools
the image comes from the cover art for Art Goodtimes' book of poems, found here, and is an amazing cover art
Green Sweep in 2008 Presidential Election
November 5, 2008
WASHINGTON - And the results are in! In a stunning new direction for the country, we can now officially confirm that Art Goodtimes has been elected to the presidency in a complete landslide. Goodtimes' rise has been meteoric. One year ago, he was just the San Miguel County Commissioner finishing up his second term. While he was one of the highest partisan officeholders for the Green Party, Goodtimes was rather unassuming for a political career. The Coloradan had been long active in water conservation activism, and in the Telluride community. Earlier this year, however, Art Goodtimes surged into the spotlight when he defeated Pete McCloskey, Al Gore, and Howie Hawkins in the Green Party presidential primary. In his victory speech, Art Goodtimes declared that "with a new Green era, we will harness the power of the sun, and the sun will shine even on the deepest, darkest recesses of America."
Speaking of deep dark recesses, Goodtimes also has a grand history of mushrooms. One of the ways the president-elect has endeared himself to the people of Telluride and now to the nation is as the Director of the annual Telluride Mushroom Festival. As president, he is expected to continue to promote the psychadelic and nutritional properties of mushrooms as one of his main campaign issues. Other issues he has taken on board have been from his vice presidential selection, another surprise to the country. Conventional wisdom would have had Goodtimes selecting a more established politician to balance his ticket, but he is anything but conventional. Instead, Goodtimes selected a candidate from New Hampshire, who came in a surprise third in the New Hampshire Republican primary but flamed out as a possible candidate after that.
Yes, Goodtimes' selection of Vermin Supreme as his running mate was a shock to many. First, a Green Party candidate joining with a Republican was still a surprise among even political insiders, despite the relative success of people like Eric Eidsness and Pete McCloskey in previous contests. The pick was clearly a good choice though. The Goodtimes/Supreme ticket brought a regional balance of a Mountain West president with a New England vice president. The pick of Vermin Supreme also stengthened the anti-nuclear credentials of the Goodtimes ticket, and expanded the radical Green candidacy from environmental advocacy, bringing to the ticket radical political ideas as well such as anarchism and mutualism. As part of the concessions for selecting Supreme, President-Elect Goodtimes also adopted the greatest plank on Supreme's original platform; a free pony for every American.
This certainly is a new dawn in America. Starting in January, good times will reign supreme.
In other news, former Oakland mayor Jerry Brown has patented a machine to harness the aura of a person into a magnetic field that can be used to generate energy. However, it only works as long as it is a positive aura. The former mayor has proposed it as a solution to California's spate of brownouts, but he says it will only work if the people of the state smile and never frown.
april fools
the image comes from the cover art for Art Goodtimes' book of poems, found here, and is an amazing cover art
A Minor Party Inconvenience; Gore Polls In Double Digits as Green!
April 9, 2007
WASHINGTON - A pair of polls released this past week has made waves among political speculators, and could upend the race for the presidency in 2008. Newsweek and New Jersey polling firm Rasmussen Reports[1] both published polls conducted at the end of March that give some early insight into the contest for the Democratic and Republican primary nominations. However, one question asked gave surprising results. Along with various head to head matchups and party primary questions, those polled were asked how they would vote if Al Gore and Ralph Nader were in the race.
The inclusion of third party candidates in the question is unusual for a presidential poll, let alone two potential candidates. The question of Gore as well as Nader as the Green nominee is likely due to the recent speculation regarding Al Gore’s future political ambitions with his documentary An Inconvenient Truth winning this year’s Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. And the result will no doubt launch even more speculation. Newsweek asked about a three way contest between Hillary Clinton, Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and either Gore or Nader. Nader received just 5 percent to Clinton’s 44 percent and Romney’s 41 percent[2]. Gore actually polled better than Nader with 8 percent, putting Romney at 40 percent and a one point lead over Clinton’s 39 percent.
However, Rasmussen’s question was even more surprising. Rasmussen also asked about Clinton and both Nader and Gore, but put Clinton up against Rudy Giuliani as the prospective Republican nominee. In this matchup, the Greens polled better. Nader polled at 7 percent, with Giuliani and Clinton tied at 42 percent each. However, Gore managed to poll the best presidential result for the Green Party yet. Gore broke double digits coming in at 11 percent in the Rasmussen poll. Giuliani also fared better, receiving 44 percent to Clinton’s 38 percent with Gore as the Green Party candidate. This seems to correlate with other polls recently that have included Gore in the Democratic primary polling, where he has polled between 10 and 15 percent.
Turning to party primary polling, both Newsweek and Rasmussen continued to bear out recent trends for the Democrats. Hillary Clinton continues to hold a large lead nationally, garnering 40 and 35 percent in the respective polls. Her closest challengers, Barack Obama and John Edwards, polled varyingly between 10 and 20 percent. However, it is still eight months until Iowa, which is a very long time for a primary campaign.
For the Republicans, Giuliani’s position for the Republicans appears to more contentious. He has slipped below 30 percent a couple times in recent polling, and in the Newsweek poll governor Romney is now only four points below him at 28 percent. Rasmussen showed Giuliani in a more comfortable position at 35, but also showed the race for second tightening between Romney, Virginia Senator George Allen, and surprisingly, former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson. Despite not yet officially announcing his campaign, Thompson seems to have already found a significant amount of support from the more conservative wing of the Republican Party, attacking Giuliani for his relatively pro-choice stance. For the moment, the rising star seems to be with Fred Thompson, and if this groundswell continues he could be equally formidable to both current frontrunners Giuliani and Romney, and to the Democrats. The Republicans might just have a good year next year no matter who is nominated, especially if the Greens do as fantastically as they have polled with Gore.
***
San Antonio Elects Mayor, City Council
May 12, 2007
SAN ANTONIO, TX - The city of San Antonio held its municipal elections yesterday. For many races, the results were not a surprise. In particular, the mayoral election proved anticlimactic. While a brief flurry of excitement entered the mayoral race when Julian Castro jumped in the race against incumbent Phil Hardberger. Castro barely lost to Hardberger by just three percent in the 2005 election, and the 32 year old city councilman seemed itching for a rematch against the 72 year old mayor.
However, Castro seems to have underestimated mayor Hardberger. Phil Hardberger had done much to improve the reputation of city hall following his election after the lackluster administration of Ed Garza. Garza’s legacy also hindered Castro’s ambition due to both politicians’ young age; Garza was first elected in 2001 at the 32, the same age as Julian Castro. Additionally, Hardberger’s actions in his first term as mayor has endeared him to the city after his upset win over Castro two years ago. Undoubtedly, Hardberger’s greatest accomplishments have been his expansion of San Antonio’s park system. The purchase of the Voelcker Ranch property on Wurzbach Parkway in the north of the city in 2006 to turn the property into a park and natural area has been well received, immortalized in Hardberger’s legacy in a photo of the mayor hugging a 300 year old oak tree[3]. Additionally, the beginning of construction on extensions of San Antonio’s famed River Walk along the Mission Trail to the south and to the museums to the north including the San Antonio Zoo have proven popular with citizens. While Castro’s charismatic presence and popularity with the city’s Hispanic population proved the greatest challenge to the mayor’s reelection chances, Phil Hardberger was handily reelected with 57% of the vote. Councilman Castro came in a distant second with just 28% of the vote[4].
In the city council elections, however, there was much more drama. Northwest San Antonio’s District 8 had six candidates vying for the seat with a greatly divided vote among them. It was doubtless there would be a runoff, and in June Diane Cibrian and Morris Stribling will indeed face off against each other. In District 7, it was a struggle between environmentalist Elena Guajardo, who won the seat in 2005 following Julian Castro’s exit, against Justin Gomez, seen by many as the candidate of developers. The developers won out though, as Gomez defeated Guajardo by over 2,000 votes. However, the biggest political fight occurred downtown in District 1. Stretching north from downtown through Tobin Hill and San Antonio College to North Central and I-410, the district often sees political heavyweights make their debut here. That was what both Mary Alice Cisneros and Kat Swift were hoping for, anyway. Indeed, Mary Alice Cisneros knew how important the seat could be; her husband Henry Cisneros began his career there with his election to city council in 1975. Cisneros sought to build on her husband’s storied career and was the early frontrunner for much of the race. Swift, though, ran a spirited campaign, and in a huge boost received the endorsement of the Sierra Club in early April. If Mary Alice thought to campaign similarly to her husband, so did Kat Swift. The Green Party activist’s campaign brought up Henry Cisneros’ controversies as HUD Secretary including decisions to demolish some housing projects, and his current position as head of a housing development firm. While Cisneros was the early favorite in the race, Swift’s dramatic rise in her campaign ultimately proved successful as she won with 2,852 votes to Cisneros’ 2,305 votes[5]. Though the council is nonpartisan, Kat Swift’s victory does give the Green Party a prominent elected position, and will go down as one of their most successful gains in the state of Texas.
***
Mayor Bloomberg Leaves Republican Party, Registers as Independent
June 19, 2007
NEW YORK - New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has stirred the political pot yet again today when he made an announcement that he would be leaving the Republican Party. This is the first time a sitting New York mayor has switched parties since John Lindsay switched from the Republicans to the Democratic Party in 1971. However, it is not the first time mayor Bloomberg has changed his party affiliation. Bloomberg had been a member of the Democratic Party for a long time before switching to the Republican Party shortly before his mayoral campaign in 2001. The Republican run was successful as Bloomberg narrowly defeated Democrat Mark Green in the mayoral race. Bloomberg then won a landslide reelection in 2005. Bloomberg made the announcement in California following a conference on political discourse that he spoke at with California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Mayor Bloomberg’s decision to leave the Republicans and register as unaffiliated with any party has immediately spawned rumors of a presidential run by the mayor in 2008. Bloomberg has frequently denied any intentions to run for president, but that has not stopped pundits and polling firms from speculating about his chances. And to Mayor Bloomberg’s credit, those chances look very good if he does jump into the race. In a survey from pollster Scott Rasmussen released earlier this month, Bloomberg polled above 20 percent as an Independent against a varied array of candidates. He polled at 21 percent against a matchup of the current front runners, with Hillary Clinton at 38 percent and Rudy Giuliani at 29 percent. Against lesser known candidates, Bloomberg polled even better. Bloomberg came in second place with 32 percent against John Edwards and Mitt Romney, and with 30 percent against Tom Daschle and George Pataki. Bloomberg even came out slightly in the lead with 34 percent against a matchup of Barack Obama for the Democrats and Fred Thompson for the Republicans![6]
With the recent surge in Michael Bloomberg’s visibility and popularity among voters and especially with Obama and Thompson gaining ground in the Republican primaries in the past month, it is a certainty that the New York mayor would do well if he reversed course and chose to run for president in 2008. However, there is a third option Bloomberg could be preparing for, and that is a run for governor. With Republican Bill Weld in Albany and the political swing of the state, Bloomberg could be in early preparations for a gubernatorial run after he is term limited in 2009. Whether as a Democrat or as an independent, Bloomberg would likely do well against Weld, and the Democrats are now doubt itching to find a good candidate following the disgrace of Eliot Spitzer in 2006. The Democrats have not held the New York gubernatorial mansion since 1994 and the days of Mario Cuomo. Whatever Michael Bloomberg’s next political move is, however, the 65 year old mayor of New York certainly has options open for him.
***
Angela Davis Retires From Teaching At UC Santa Cruz
June 19, 2007
SANTA CRUZ, CA - For sixteen years, the University of California Santa Cruz has hosted veteran civil rights activist Angela Davis in its halls as a professor. Now, that era of Davis’s career will come to an end, as she announces she will retire from teaching at the university at the end of the summer academic quarter[7]. Davis has been a professor at UC Santa Cruz since 1991 and may be the most well known member of the university’s faculty in the past two decades. During her long career at Santa Cruz, she mainly taught graduate classes in the History of Consciousness Department, and for a time she served as chair of the Department of Feminist Studies.
Prior to her career at UC Santa Cruz, Angela Davis had a long association with the University of California system in both her education and her social justice activism. She received her masters degree from UC San Diego in 1968 and, following getting her doctorate,returned to the University of California system in East Berlin as an assistant professor of philosophy at UCLA. Indeed, it was while a professor at UCLA that she was fired by the University of California regents twice; once in 1969 for her membership in the Communist Party, and again in 1970 for “inflammatory” comments Davis made against the University of California Board of Regents related to the treatment of the People’s Park demonstrators in Berkeley. Even during her time as a professor at UC Santa Cruz, Angela Davis has maintained her activism and defense of student actions. She recently spoke out in defense of a black student who was suspended following a protest of a University board of regents meeting last year that was broken up by police using pepper spray and batons. Davis and others rallied outside the chancellor’s office earlier this month, arguing that there was racial bias involved in the decision as no other students received suspensions for the protest. It was recently announced by campus officials that they had reduced the student’s sentence from three years to just two academic quarters.
While Davis may be leaving her role as an educator, she made it clear she will not be leaving the public eye and entering a quiet retirement. Angela Davis, one of the most iconic members of the Communist Party movement and the Black Panthers during the 1960s and 1970s, will continue her social justice and human rights activism. However, Davis did keep quiet on exactly where the next step in her career will take her. In a small gathering standing alongside several graduate students she has worked with, Davis merely thanked the university for providing her with the opportunity for the last sixteen years.
---
[1] Ah 2007, back when Rasmussen was usually references as "polling firm Rasmussen" or "a pollster run by Scott Rasmussen" because it wasn't a household name yet.
[2] In a FOX News poll from February 2007 in OTL, with Nader included Giuliani led Clinton 46-40 with Nader polling at 5%.
[3] All the stuff about Phil Hardberger is OTL. Here is Hardberger hugging the tree.
[4] Castro didn't run in 2007 in OTL, instead opting to run in 2009 when Hardberger declined to run for a third term, and winning then. Hardberger won in OTL with 77 percent of the vote in 2007.
[5] Kat Swift did surprising well in OTL against Mary Alice Cisneros considering their relative campaign strengths. While Swift lost, she 1,630 votes to Cisneros' 3,458.
[6] Except for the Dashle-Pataki matchup, all Bloomberg poll performance here is straight from an OTL Rasmussen poll.
[7] In OTL Angela Davis left UC Santa Cruz following the 2008 spring quarter. Here's a good article reflecting on Davis leaving.
April 9, 2007
WASHINGTON - A pair of polls released this past week has made waves among political speculators, and could upend the race for the presidency in 2008. Newsweek and New Jersey polling firm Rasmussen Reports[1] both published polls conducted at the end of March that give some early insight into the contest for the Democratic and Republican primary nominations. However, one question asked gave surprising results. Along with various head to head matchups and party primary questions, those polled were asked how they would vote if Al Gore and Ralph Nader were in the race.
The inclusion of third party candidates in the question is unusual for a presidential poll, let alone two potential candidates. The question of Gore as well as Nader as the Green nominee is likely due to the recent speculation regarding Al Gore’s future political ambitions with his documentary An Inconvenient Truth winning this year’s Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. And the result will no doubt launch even more speculation. Newsweek asked about a three way contest between Hillary Clinton, Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and either Gore or Nader. Nader received just 5 percent to Clinton’s 44 percent and Romney’s 41 percent[2]. Gore actually polled better than Nader with 8 percent, putting Romney at 40 percent and a one point lead over Clinton’s 39 percent.
However, Rasmussen’s question was even more surprising. Rasmussen also asked about Clinton and both Nader and Gore, but put Clinton up against Rudy Giuliani as the prospective Republican nominee. In this matchup, the Greens polled better. Nader polled at 7 percent, with Giuliani and Clinton tied at 42 percent each. However, Gore managed to poll the best presidential result for the Green Party yet. Gore broke double digits coming in at 11 percent in the Rasmussen poll. Giuliani also fared better, receiving 44 percent to Clinton’s 38 percent with Gore as the Green Party candidate. This seems to correlate with other polls recently that have included Gore in the Democratic primary polling, where he has polled between 10 and 15 percent.
Turning to party primary polling, both Newsweek and Rasmussen continued to bear out recent trends for the Democrats. Hillary Clinton continues to hold a large lead nationally, garnering 40 and 35 percent in the respective polls. Her closest challengers, Barack Obama and John Edwards, polled varyingly between 10 and 20 percent. However, it is still eight months until Iowa, which is a very long time for a primary campaign.
For the Republicans, Giuliani’s position for the Republicans appears to more contentious. He has slipped below 30 percent a couple times in recent polling, and in the Newsweek poll governor Romney is now only four points below him at 28 percent. Rasmussen showed Giuliani in a more comfortable position at 35, but also showed the race for second tightening between Romney, Virginia Senator George Allen, and surprisingly, former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson. Despite not yet officially announcing his campaign, Thompson seems to have already found a significant amount of support from the more conservative wing of the Republican Party, attacking Giuliani for his relatively pro-choice stance. For the moment, the rising star seems to be with Fred Thompson, and if this groundswell continues he could be equally formidable to both current frontrunners Giuliani and Romney, and to the Democrats. The Republicans might just have a good year next year no matter who is nominated, especially if the Greens do as fantastically as they have polled with Gore.
***
San Antonio Elects Mayor, City Council
May 12, 2007
SAN ANTONIO, TX - The city of San Antonio held its municipal elections yesterday. For many races, the results were not a surprise. In particular, the mayoral election proved anticlimactic. While a brief flurry of excitement entered the mayoral race when Julian Castro jumped in the race against incumbent Phil Hardberger. Castro barely lost to Hardberger by just three percent in the 2005 election, and the 32 year old city councilman seemed itching for a rematch against the 72 year old mayor.
However, Castro seems to have underestimated mayor Hardberger. Phil Hardberger had done much to improve the reputation of city hall following his election after the lackluster administration of Ed Garza. Garza’s legacy also hindered Castro’s ambition due to both politicians’ young age; Garza was first elected in 2001 at the 32, the same age as Julian Castro. Additionally, Hardberger’s actions in his first term as mayor has endeared him to the city after his upset win over Castro two years ago. Undoubtedly, Hardberger’s greatest accomplishments have been his expansion of San Antonio’s park system. The purchase of the Voelcker Ranch property on Wurzbach Parkway in the north of the city in 2006 to turn the property into a park and natural area has been well received, immortalized in Hardberger’s legacy in a photo of the mayor hugging a 300 year old oak tree[3]. Additionally, the beginning of construction on extensions of San Antonio’s famed River Walk along the Mission Trail to the south and to the museums to the north including the San Antonio Zoo have proven popular with citizens. While Castro’s charismatic presence and popularity with the city’s Hispanic population proved the greatest challenge to the mayor’s reelection chances, Phil Hardberger was handily reelected with 57% of the vote. Councilman Castro came in a distant second with just 28% of the vote[4].
In the city council elections, however, there was much more drama. Northwest San Antonio’s District 8 had six candidates vying for the seat with a greatly divided vote among them. It was doubtless there would be a runoff, and in June Diane Cibrian and Morris Stribling will indeed face off against each other. In District 7, it was a struggle between environmentalist Elena Guajardo, who won the seat in 2005 following Julian Castro’s exit, against Justin Gomez, seen by many as the candidate of developers. The developers won out though, as Gomez defeated Guajardo by over 2,000 votes. However, the biggest political fight occurred downtown in District 1. Stretching north from downtown through Tobin Hill and San Antonio College to North Central and I-410, the district often sees political heavyweights make their debut here. That was what both Mary Alice Cisneros and Kat Swift were hoping for, anyway. Indeed, Mary Alice Cisneros knew how important the seat could be; her husband Henry Cisneros began his career there with his election to city council in 1975. Cisneros sought to build on her husband’s storied career and was the early frontrunner for much of the race. Swift, though, ran a spirited campaign, and in a huge boost received the endorsement of the Sierra Club in early April. If Mary Alice thought to campaign similarly to her husband, so did Kat Swift. The Green Party activist’s campaign brought up Henry Cisneros’ controversies as HUD Secretary including decisions to demolish some housing projects, and his current position as head of a housing development firm. While Cisneros was the early favorite in the race, Swift’s dramatic rise in her campaign ultimately proved successful as she won with 2,852 votes to Cisneros’ 2,305 votes[5]. Though the council is nonpartisan, Kat Swift’s victory does give the Green Party a prominent elected position, and will go down as one of their most successful gains in the state of Texas.
***
Mayor Bloomberg Leaves Republican Party, Registers as Independent
June 19, 2007
NEW YORK - New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has stirred the political pot yet again today when he made an announcement that he would be leaving the Republican Party. This is the first time a sitting New York mayor has switched parties since John Lindsay switched from the Republicans to the Democratic Party in 1971. However, it is not the first time mayor Bloomberg has changed his party affiliation. Bloomberg had been a member of the Democratic Party for a long time before switching to the Republican Party shortly before his mayoral campaign in 2001. The Republican run was successful as Bloomberg narrowly defeated Democrat Mark Green in the mayoral race. Bloomberg then won a landslide reelection in 2005. Bloomberg made the announcement in California following a conference on political discourse that he spoke at with California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Mayor Bloomberg’s decision to leave the Republicans and register as unaffiliated with any party has immediately spawned rumors of a presidential run by the mayor in 2008. Bloomberg has frequently denied any intentions to run for president, but that has not stopped pundits and polling firms from speculating about his chances. And to Mayor Bloomberg’s credit, those chances look very good if he does jump into the race. In a survey from pollster Scott Rasmussen released earlier this month, Bloomberg polled above 20 percent as an Independent against a varied array of candidates. He polled at 21 percent against a matchup of the current front runners, with Hillary Clinton at 38 percent and Rudy Giuliani at 29 percent. Against lesser known candidates, Bloomberg polled even better. Bloomberg came in second place with 32 percent against John Edwards and Mitt Romney, and with 30 percent against Tom Daschle and George Pataki. Bloomberg even came out slightly in the lead with 34 percent against a matchup of Barack Obama for the Democrats and Fred Thompson for the Republicans![6]
With the recent surge in Michael Bloomberg’s visibility and popularity among voters and especially with Obama and Thompson gaining ground in the Republican primaries in the past month, it is a certainty that the New York mayor would do well if he reversed course and chose to run for president in 2008. However, there is a third option Bloomberg could be preparing for, and that is a run for governor. With Republican Bill Weld in Albany and the political swing of the state, Bloomberg could be in early preparations for a gubernatorial run after he is term limited in 2009. Whether as a Democrat or as an independent, Bloomberg would likely do well against Weld, and the Democrats are now doubt itching to find a good candidate following the disgrace of Eliot Spitzer in 2006. The Democrats have not held the New York gubernatorial mansion since 1994 and the days of Mario Cuomo. Whatever Michael Bloomberg’s next political move is, however, the 65 year old mayor of New York certainly has options open for him.
***
Angela Davis Retires From Teaching At UC Santa Cruz
June 19, 2007
SANTA CRUZ, CA - For sixteen years, the University of California Santa Cruz has hosted veteran civil rights activist Angela Davis in its halls as a professor. Now, that era of Davis’s career will come to an end, as she announces she will retire from teaching at the university at the end of the summer academic quarter[7]. Davis has been a professor at UC Santa Cruz since 1991 and may be the most well known member of the university’s faculty in the past two decades. During her long career at Santa Cruz, she mainly taught graduate classes in the History of Consciousness Department, and for a time she served as chair of the Department of Feminist Studies.
Prior to her career at UC Santa Cruz, Angela Davis had a long association with the University of California system in both her education and her social justice activism. She received her masters degree from UC San Diego in 1968 and, following getting her doctorate,returned to the University of California system in East Berlin as an assistant professor of philosophy at UCLA. Indeed, it was while a professor at UCLA that she was fired by the University of California regents twice; once in 1969 for her membership in the Communist Party, and again in 1970 for “inflammatory” comments Davis made against the University of California Board of Regents related to the treatment of the People’s Park demonstrators in Berkeley. Even during her time as a professor at UC Santa Cruz, Angela Davis has maintained her activism and defense of student actions. She recently spoke out in defense of a black student who was suspended following a protest of a University board of regents meeting last year that was broken up by police using pepper spray and batons. Davis and others rallied outside the chancellor’s office earlier this month, arguing that there was racial bias involved in the decision as no other students received suspensions for the protest. It was recently announced by campus officials that they had reduced the student’s sentence from three years to just two academic quarters.
While Davis may be leaving her role as an educator, she made it clear she will not be leaving the public eye and entering a quiet retirement. Angela Davis, one of the most iconic members of the Communist Party movement and the Black Panthers during the 1960s and 1970s, will continue her social justice and human rights activism. However, Davis did keep quiet on exactly where the next step in her career will take her. In a small gathering standing alongside several graduate students she has worked with, Davis merely thanked the university for providing her with the opportunity for the last sixteen years.
---
[1] Ah 2007, back when Rasmussen was usually references as "polling firm Rasmussen" or "a pollster run by Scott Rasmussen" because it wasn't a household name yet.
[2] In a FOX News poll from February 2007 in OTL, with Nader included Giuliani led Clinton 46-40 with Nader polling at 5%.
[3] All the stuff about Phil Hardberger is OTL. Here is Hardberger hugging the tree.
[4] Castro didn't run in 2007 in OTL, instead opting to run in 2009 when Hardberger declined to run for a third term, and winning then. Hardberger won in OTL with 77 percent of the vote in 2007.
[5] Kat Swift did surprising well in OTL against Mary Alice Cisneros considering their relative campaign strengths. While Swift lost, she 1,630 votes to Cisneros' 3,458.
[6] Except for the Dashle-Pataki matchup, all Bloomberg poll performance here is straight from an OTL Rasmussen poll.
[7] In OTL Angela Davis left UC Santa Cruz following the 2008 spring quarter. Here's a good article reflecting on Davis leaving.
Bookmark1995
Banned
Glad your back.
I can imagine Davis is smelling blood in the water with the ascendancy of the Green Party.
I can imagine Davis is smelling blood in the water with the ascendancy of the Green Party.
New “Muni Meltdown” Fears Appear Over As T-Third Service Normalized
June 30, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - Just three months ago, there was a lot of fanfare among San Franciscans at the opening of a new expansion to the city’s mass transit system. The long awaited opening of the T-Third streetcar line after five years of construction was celebrated with much fanfare - even bringing together for a brief period Mayor Matt Gonzalez and Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the occasion. The T-Third was a welcome addition to the Muni Metro system, extending south from Caltrain Depot through Mission Bay and down to the border with Daly City in Visitacion Valley and Sunnydale.
While the grand opening of the new line was a success, with Pelosi and Gonzalez even sharing a few compliments despite Pelosi’s then recent endorsement of Gavin Newsom in the mayoral race, problems with the T-Third’s service became apparent soon after. Train operators and passengers unused to the T-Third caused confusion among both riders and drivers for weeks following the opening. Passengers complained early on about having to wait over 30 minutes for a train in some extreme cases. Additionally, the new route experienced mechanical problems, power failures, and breakdowns more often than on other lines. Even worse, the T-Third started causing cascading delays with other lines throughout April and into May and earlier this month. The SFMTA’s implementation of full service of the T-Third was combined with changes to the schedules for the N-Judah and J-Church lines, adding to passenger confusion. The new line also began to cause congestion in the Market Street Subway Tunnel, which is utilized by nearly all the other Muni lines[1]. These issues combined began stoking fears among passengers and Muni Metro employees of a repeat of the 1998 Muni Meltdown, when a combination of new subway cars, a new automatic control system, and NTSB speed limiting wreaked havoc on the Muni throughout the summer.
However, as workers and commuters have become used to the T-Third’s schedule, the fears of another Muni Meltdown seem to have dissipated as service has largely returned to normal. A few changes were implemented by the SFMTA to the T-Third to make the operation of the system smoother. The T-Third has been interlined with the K-Ingleside line through the Market Street Subway Tunnel. Outbound trains will switch signage to the K line Embarcadero and inbound trains will switch from the K to the T at West Portal. This should result in less passenger confusion and less congestion in the Market Street tunnel. With Newsom and Gonzalez going at it as the main focus of the election this year, Mayor Gonzalez better hope it does[2]. The construction of the T-Third line, while started under his predecessor, has been an ubiquitous feature in San Francisco throughout Gonzalez’s term. Additionally, the Green mayor has been a huge proponent of the T-Third line for extending the city’s transit access,.and trouble with Muni over the summer campaign would likely spill over into trouble on the ballot. Luckily for Mayor Gonzalez then, Muni seems to be back in working order.
***
Mountain Party of West Virginia to Affiliate With Green Party
July 10, 2007
CHARLESTON, WV - Deep in the heart of coal country might not be where you think of as fertile ground for a green environmentalist movement. But in West Virginia, that is exactly what has been happening lately. The state’s Mountain Party was founded in 2000 to support novelist Denise Giardina’s campaign for governor. Giardina only received 1.61% of the vote in the election where Democrat Bob Wise defeated incumbent Republican governor Cecil Underwood by 3 percent, but she began a surprising movement. The Mountain Party started with a progressive, environmentalist platform to counter the increasingly conservative swing of the Democratic Party.
While Giardina was the Mountain Party’s first candidate in 2000, the main force behind the growth of the small party has been its chairman, Jesse Johnson. Johnson, a filmmaker and environmental activist, has been chair of the Mountain Party since 2004 and its candidate for office twice. In 2004, Johnson ran for governor, nearly doubling Giardina’s performance with 2.86% of the vote against Joe Manchin. Last year, Johnson again ran for office, this time for United States Senate against Robert Byrd. Johnson did worse than in his gubernatorial run, but still received nearly 2% of the vote. Additionally, in 2004 poet Bob Henry Baber, a member of the Mountain Party, was elected mayor of Richwood in Nicholas County. Baber is the party’s first elected official.
Now, with the growth of the party and its progressive platform, Johnson as chair has achieved another milestone for the Mountain Party. One of Johnson’s main planks during his runs for governor and senate was fighting and bringing awareness to mountaintop removal mining. This and other goals of the party resonated with the Green Party, and with both parties growing and the Greens continuing to build their organizational efforts nationwide, it seemed a natural fit for the Mountain Party to officially become the West Virginia affiliation of the US Green Party. With both existing Mountain Party support and national Green backing, perhaps the Mountain Party can begin moving West Virginia forward toward a brighter future independent of coal mining. Johnson certainly seems to think so. He has expressed interest in running for office once again next year, possibly for governor again or running for the Green nomination for president. He also reported that other potential candidates for office have expressed interest. Possible candidates include former Giardina campaign manager Vince George and former state senator Charlotte Pritt. For now, however, the Mountain Party is still seeking to gain members and build its profile in the state. The party currently has just over 1,000 registered members, which while small only makes the relative successes the party has had in the races it has contested even greater.
***
Cooperation on Nuclear Weapons Bill Fuels “Obagel” Ticket Speculation
August 5, 2007
WASHINGTON - It seems like every so often, people get tired of the fighting between the Democratic and Republican parties and as a resolution, a bipartisan unity ticket is floated. The last craze was supposed to be “McLieberman”, a combined joint ticket of Arizona senator John McCain (R) and Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat-turned independent. That proposition was bandied about by political insiders and the news media earlier this year, and it made sense. McCain and Lieberman are personal friends, are similarly hawkish on foreign policy, and are well known for bucking the party line. Additionally, they both likely have lingering bad memories from 2000; McCain lost to George W. Bush due to controversial attacks on him in the South Carolina primary, and Gore’s pick of Lieberman as his running mate has been blamed by some for Gore’s loss of the electoral college vote.
However, McLieberman fell out of fashion early this year when John McCain announced he would not be running for president in 2008. The lack of a unity ticket did not last long though as a bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate this week has sparked another round of speculation. Illinois Senator Barack Obama worked together with Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, a noted critic of President Bush from within his own party, on the Nuclear Weapons Threat Reduction Act. The bill would created a low enriched uranium reserve administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency for use for nuclear power. It would also direct the President to give a report to Congress on plans for the security of nuclear material and on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review in 2010.
That president could very well be Obama or Hagel, as both are running for their respective parties’ presidential nominations. However, it is far more likely to be Obama of the two, as the Illinois Senator currently shares frontrunner status for the Democratic nomination with Hillary Clinton. For his part, Hagel has been one of the most vehement critics of the War in Iraq and of the President’s conduct, especially for someone coming from the Republican Party. This was part of the reasoning for Hagel to run for president himself, as he expressed a desire to forge a new direction for the party.
Even if neither of them win, the two Senators could still join forces. Along with the bill this week, they have voted together on other high profile legislation recently. Most notably was the failed Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, where both Obama and Hagel fought for immigration reform and voted in favor in the unsuccessful cloture vote in the Senate. With Obama and Hagel joining forces for these and other causes, speculation of an independent Obama/Hagel or Hagel/Obama ticket has bloomed. The potential ticket has even gained traction on certain parts of the Internet, where the term “Obagel” has been coined as the name for the independent ticket. There have even been custom images making the rounds with a modified Obama campaign logo replacing the blue O with the image of a bagel, which has spread to stickers and even T-shirts. Some commentators, such as blogger Harry Joe Enten who runs his mildly successful politics blog “Margin of Error”, have cast doubts on the viability of an Obagel ticket, calling it “a ticket that appeals to those in the beltway but to absolutely nobody else.” If Obama and Hagel can catch fire with a segment of the American public, though, who knows? Ross Perot showed how successful an independent candidacy can be in modern times, perhaps on Obagel ticket can repeat that feat.
***
Black, Red, and Green; Women Candidates of the Green Party
September 9, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - In the past few years, the Green Party has been courting a number of minority candidates. The effort spearheaded first in California by two time gubernatorial candidate Peter Camejo now has a number of minority candidates running next year. Of particular note are four African-American women who are running for office on the Green Party line The most recent and impactful of these announcements is Cynthia McKinney’s entrance into the Green Party presidential primary. McKinney, a former Representative from Georgia who served in Congress from 1993 to 2003, jumped into the race this week and becomes the third person in the primary. She now joins among others San Diego city councilman Kent Mesplay, West Virginia activist Jesse Johnson, and professor Jared Ball of Maryland. However, her biggest opponent is going to be Pete McCloskey. McCloskey entered the race in early August following Peter Camejo’s announcement that he would not run due to accepting the position as chair of California’s Green Party. However, McKinney may appeal to more Green Party voters due to her more recent and reliable left wing voting record, and her several appearances with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan since leaving Congress in 2003.
Next of the women is Barbara Becnel. Becnel gained notoriety as a prominent advocate for the release of Crips co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams, and then as an activist for abolition of the death penalty after Williams was executed by the state of California in 2005. Becnel first joined the Green Party in 2006 to run for governor of California, and received a strong 8 percent in the election. Now, Becnel is running again, but this time with the California Greens’ shifted focus for 2008, Becnel has her sights on a seat in the state assembly. Becnel will be running in assembly district 54 in Los Angeles, hoping to be the first Green Party candidate elected to the California state legislature.
However, Becnel is not the only Green candidate looking to be the first to sit in the chamber in Sacramento. After resigning from her position on the UC Santa Cruz faculty, former Black Panther member and civil rights activist Angela Davis will run for the 19th district in the state assembly. While Davis lived in the East Bay, she has opted to run to represent the north central coast district and her former workplace of the University of California Santa Cruz. In a campaign memo responding to questions on her choice of which district to run in, Davis said that she had initially considered running for Congress, but that after a number of conversations with Representative Barbara Lee, decided not to run against Lee. It was also decided that with the relative strength of the Green Party in Santa Cruz County, Davis would do well to run there where she is well known among the high student population.
Along with Camejo’s convincing of Angela Davis to run for office, it seems that another Black Panther Party alum has joined the ranks of the Green Party. Elaine Brown announced last week that she will run for the Georgia Assembly’s 179th district, which covers much of Glynn County including her residence of Brunswick. Brown first moved to Brunswick in 2005 when, during a protest of the G-8 Summit in nearby Sea Island, Georgia, Brown drew her attention to the poverty of the Brunswick area amid the wealth of the resort town of Sea Island. Brown attempted to run for mayor of Brunswick as a Green in 2005, but her residency in the town was called into question during the campaign. She never appeared on the ballot against incumbent mayor Bryan Thompson, who won reelection unopposed[3]. Brown attempted to run again this year, but announced she would drop out of the mayoral race to seek the 179th district seat against Republican assemblyman Jerry Keen. Brown and Davis demonstrate the legacy of the Black Panthers present in the current ranks of the Green Party, and along with the organizational efforts of people like Peter Camejo, show how the Green Party is attempting to incorporate the legacy of leftist politics in building the party and expanding beyond a single issue environmentalist party to a broader social and economic platform.
[1] The problems with the T-Third Street line are all real from when it first entered service in 2007, as outlined by this SFGate article.
[2] In OTL Newsom was running for reelection without a clear rival, so it didn't matter so much in the grand scheme of the election. Here though...
[3] This is OTL. Elaine Brown tried to run with the Greens for mayor but wasn't allowed on the ballot. She later briefly ran for the Green nomination for president in 2007, but dropped out and left the party due to feeling the Green Party was not doing enough for social justice.
June 30, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - Just three months ago, there was a lot of fanfare among San Franciscans at the opening of a new expansion to the city’s mass transit system. The long awaited opening of the T-Third streetcar line after five years of construction was celebrated with much fanfare - even bringing together for a brief period Mayor Matt Gonzalez and Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the occasion. The T-Third was a welcome addition to the Muni Metro system, extending south from Caltrain Depot through Mission Bay and down to the border with Daly City in Visitacion Valley and Sunnydale.
While the grand opening of the new line was a success, with Pelosi and Gonzalez even sharing a few compliments despite Pelosi’s then recent endorsement of Gavin Newsom in the mayoral race, problems with the T-Third’s service became apparent soon after. Train operators and passengers unused to the T-Third caused confusion among both riders and drivers for weeks following the opening. Passengers complained early on about having to wait over 30 minutes for a train in some extreme cases. Additionally, the new route experienced mechanical problems, power failures, and breakdowns more often than on other lines. Even worse, the T-Third started causing cascading delays with other lines throughout April and into May and earlier this month. The SFMTA’s implementation of full service of the T-Third was combined with changes to the schedules for the N-Judah and J-Church lines, adding to passenger confusion. The new line also began to cause congestion in the Market Street Subway Tunnel, which is utilized by nearly all the other Muni lines[1]. These issues combined began stoking fears among passengers and Muni Metro employees of a repeat of the 1998 Muni Meltdown, when a combination of new subway cars, a new automatic control system, and NTSB speed limiting wreaked havoc on the Muni throughout the summer.
However, as workers and commuters have become used to the T-Third’s schedule, the fears of another Muni Meltdown seem to have dissipated as service has largely returned to normal. A few changes were implemented by the SFMTA to the T-Third to make the operation of the system smoother. The T-Third has been interlined with the K-Ingleside line through the Market Street Subway Tunnel. Outbound trains will switch signage to the K line Embarcadero and inbound trains will switch from the K to the T at West Portal. This should result in less passenger confusion and less congestion in the Market Street tunnel. With Newsom and Gonzalez going at it as the main focus of the election this year, Mayor Gonzalez better hope it does[2]. The construction of the T-Third line, while started under his predecessor, has been an ubiquitous feature in San Francisco throughout Gonzalez’s term. Additionally, the Green mayor has been a huge proponent of the T-Third line for extending the city’s transit access,.and trouble with Muni over the summer campaign would likely spill over into trouble on the ballot. Luckily for Mayor Gonzalez then, Muni seems to be back in working order.
***
Mountain Party of West Virginia to Affiliate With Green Party
July 10, 2007
CHARLESTON, WV - Deep in the heart of coal country might not be where you think of as fertile ground for a green environmentalist movement. But in West Virginia, that is exactly what has been happening lately. The state’s Mountain Party was founded in 2000 to support novelist Denise Giardina’s campaign for governor. Giardina only received 1.61% of the vote in the election where Democrat Bob Wise defeated incumbent Republican governor Cecil Underwood by 3 percent, but she began a surprising movement. The Mountain Party started with a progressive, environmentalist platform to counter the increasingly conservative swing of the Democratic Party.
While Giardina was the Mountain Party’s first candidate in 2000, the main force behind the growth of the small party has been its chairman, Jesse Johnson. Johnson, a filmmaker and environmental activist, has been chair of the Mountain Party since 2004 and its candidate for office twice. In 2004, Johnson ran for governor, nearly doubling Giardina’s performance with 2.86% of the vote against Joe Manchin. Last year, Johnson again ran for office, this time for United States Senate against Robert Byrd. Johnson did worse than in his gubernatorial run, but still received nearly 2% of the vote. Additionally, in 2004 poet Bob Henry Baber, a member of the Mountain Party, was elected mayor of Richwood in Nicholas County. Baber is the party’s first elected official.
Now, with the growth of the party and its progressive platform, Johnson as chair has achieved another milestone for the Mountain Party. One of Johnson’s main planks during his runs for governor and senate was fighting and bringing awareness to mountaintop removal mining. This and other goals of the party resonated with the Green Party, and with both parties growing and the Greens continuing to build their organizational efforts nationwide, it seemed a natural fit for the Mountain Party to officially become the West Virginia affiliation of the US Green Party. With both existing Mountain Party support and national Green backing, perhaps the Mountain Party can begin moving West Virginia forward toward a brighter future independent of coal mining. Johnson certainly seems to think so. He has expressed interest in running for office once again next year, possibly for governor again or running for the Green nomination for president. He also reported that other potential candidates for office have expressed interest. Possible candidates include former Giardina campaign manager Vince George and former state senator Charlotte Pritt. For now, however, the Mountain Party is still seeking to gain members and build its profile in the state. The party currently has just over 1,000 registered members, which while small only makes the relative successes the party has had in the races it has contested even greater.
***
Cooperation on Nuclear Weapons Bill Fuels “Obagel” Ticket Speculation
August 5, 2007
WASHINGTON - It seems like every so often, people get tired of the fighting between the Democratic and Republican parties and as a resolution, a bipartisan unity ticket is floated. The last craze was supposed to be “McLieberman”, a combined joint ticket of Arizona senator John McCain (R) and Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat-turned independent. That proposition was bandied about by political insiders and the news media earlier this year, and it made sense. McCain and Lieberman are personal friends, are similarly hawkish on foreign policy, and are well known for bucking the party line. Additionally, they both likely have lingering bad memories from 2000; McCain lost to George W. Bush due to controversial attacks on him in the South Carolina primary, and Gore’s pick of Lieberman as his running mate has been blamed by some for Gore’s loss of the electoral college vote.
However, McLieberman fell out of fashion early this year when John McCain announced he would not be running for president in 2008. The lack of a unity ticket did not last long though as a bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate this week has sparked another round of speculation. Illinois Senator Barack Obama worked together with Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, a noted critic of President Bush from within his own party, on the Nuclear Weapons Threat Reduction Act. The bill would created a low enriched uranium reserve administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency for use for nuclear power. It would also direct the President to give a report to Congress on plans for the security of nuclear material and on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review in 2010.
That president could very well be Obama or Hagel, as both are running for their respective parties’ presidential nominations. However, it is far more likely to be Obama of the two, as the Illinois Senator currently shares frontrunner status for the Democratic nomination with Hillary Clinton. For his part, Hagel has been one of the most vehement critics of the War in Iraq and of the President’s conduct, especially for someone coming from the Republican Party. This was part of the reasoning for Hagel to run for president himself, as he expressed a desire to forge a new direction for the party.
Even if neither of them win, the two Senators could still join forces. Along with the bill this week, they have voted together on other high profile legislation recently. Most notably was the failed Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, where both Obama and Hagel fought for immigration reform and voted in favor in the unsuccessful cloture vote in the Senate. With Obama and Hagel joining forces for these and other causes, speculation of an independent Obama/Hagel or Hagel/Obama ticket has bloomed. The potential ticket has even gained traction on certain parts of the Internet, where the term “Obagel” has been coined as the name for the independent ticket. There have even been custom images making the rounds with a modified Obama campaign logo replacing the blue O with the image of a bagel, which has spread to stickers and even T-shirts. Some commentators, such as blogger Harry Joe Enten who runs his mildly successful politics blog “Margin of Error”, have cast doubts on the viability of an Obagel ticket, calling it “a ticket that appeals to those in the beltway but to absolutely nobody else.” If Obama and Hagel can catch fire with a segment of the American public, though, who knows? Ross Perot showed how successful an independent candidacy can be in modern times, perhaps on Obagel ticket can repeat that feat.
***
Black, Red, and Green; Women Candidates of the Green Party
September 9, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - In the past few years, the Green Party has been courting a number of minority candidates. The effort spearheaded first in California by two time gubernatorial candidate Peter Camejo now has a number of minority candidates running next year. Of particular note are four African-American women who are running for office on the Green Party line The most recent and impactful of these announcements is Cynthia McKinney’s entrance into the Green Party presidential primary. McKinney, a former Representative from Georgia who served in Congress from 1993 to 2003, jumped into the race this week and becomes the third person in the primary. She now joins among others San Diego city councilman Kent Mesplay, West Virginia activist Jesse Johnson, and professor Jared Ball of Maryland. However, her biggest opponent is going to be Pete McCloskey. McCloskey entered the race in early August following Peter Camejo’s announcement that he would not run due to accepting the position as chair of California’s Green Party. However, McKinney may appeal to more Green Party voters due to her more recent and reliable left wing voting record, and her several appearances with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan since leaving Congress in 2003.
Next of the women is Barbara Becnel. Becnel gained notoriety as a prominent advocate for the release of Crips co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams, and then as an activist for abolition of the death penalty after Williams was executed by the state of California in 2005. Becnel first joined the Green Party in 2006 to run for governor of California, and received a strong 8 percent in the election. Now, Becnel is running again, but this time with the California Greens’ shifted focus for 2008, Becnel has her sights on a seat in the state assembly. Becnel will be running in assembly district 54 in Los Angeles, hoping to be the first Green Party candidate elected to the California state legislature.
However, Becnel is not the only Green candidate looking to be the first to sit in the chamber in Sacramento. After resigning from her position on the UC Santa Cruz faculty, former Black Panther member and civil rights activist Angela Davis will run for the 19th district in the state assembly. While Davis lived in the East Bay, she has opted to run to represent the north central coast district and her former workplace of the University of California Santa Cruz. In a campaign memo responding to questions on her choice of which district to run in, Davis said that she had initially considered running for Congress, but that after a number of conversations with Representative Barbara Lee, decided not to run against Lee. It was also decided that with the relative strength of the Green Party in Santa Cruz County, Davis would do well to run there where she is well known among the high student population.
Along with Camejo’s convincing of Angela Davis to run for office, it seems that another Black Panther Party alum has joined the ranks of the Green Party. Elaine Brown announced last week that she will run for the Georgia Assembly’s 179th district, which covers much of Glynn County including her residence of Brunswick. Brown first moved to Brunswick in 2005 when, during a protest of the G-8 Summit in nearby Sea Island, Georgia, Brown drew her attention to the poverty of the Brunswick area amid the wealth of the resort town of Sea Island. Brown attempted to run for mayor of Brunswick as a Green in 2005, but her residency in the town was called into question during the campaign. She never appeared on the ballot against incumbent mayor Bryan Thompson, who won reelection unopposed[3]. Brown attempted to run again this year, but announced she would drop out of the mayoral race to seek the 179th district seat against Republican assemblyman Jerry Keen. Brown and Davis demonstrate the legacy of the Black Panthers present in the current ranks of the Green Party, and along with the organizational efforts of people like Peter Camejo, show how the Green Party is attempting to incorporate the legacy of leftist politics in building the party and expanding beyond a single issue environmentalist party to a broader social and economic platform.
[1] The problems with the T-Third Street line are all real from when it first entered service in 2007, as outlined by this SFGate article.
[2] In OTL Newsom was running for reelection without a clear rival, so it didn't matter so much in the grand scheme of the election. Here though...
[3] This is OTL. Elaine Brown tried to run with the Greens for mayor but wasn't allowed on the ballot. She later briefly ran for the Green nomination for president in 2007, but dropped out and left the party due to feeling the Green Party was not doing enough for social justice.
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Getting some practice with wikipedia editing so here's a wikibox of the 2006 Texas gubernatorial election. The map is a universal swing by county from OTL's percentages.
Tfw you keep finding more good potential California Green Party candidates but every one of them is in Berkeley. 
I never really made an exact decision on it, but I was thinking it would be around an intense Category 1, maybe a 2.
After Brief Campaign, Alan Keyes Drops Out Following Exclusion From Debates
October 3, 2007
WASHINGTON - The 2008 Republican primaries has had several candidates reaching the coveted top tier of the polling bracket. Giuliani was there for a time, then Romney, then Fred Thompson. However, the scramble for the top position as we lurch toward the Iowa caucus in just three months ignores another crop of candidates at the lower ends. They are all destined to be also-rans, but with the early primaries still so competitive even the small percentage they take home could have a great impact on who gets the momentum going into the nomination. Candidates like Duncan Hunter, George Allen, and Sam Brownback are just three of the veritable clown car of candidates racing for the bottom.
It can be grueling to continue a presidential campaign when you really have no chance of winning, but bowing out can cause great disappointment among a candidate’s loyal and often fervent base. This week the field of candidate indeed got one fewer. In the recent Republican primary debates, the piranha pool of third tier candidates came out snapping against the major candidates. The latest debates have had lower invitation requirements, which led to a larger field with even more candidates joining the debate stage. A new entrant into the debates was recently announced candidate Alan Keyes, the former Assistant Secretary of State under Reagan who entered the spotlight four years ago when he ran against Obama for the Illinois Senate seat.
Keyes was invited to participate in three debates over the last month. Keyes made an explosive start in the Fox News debate in Durham, New Hampshire, where he attacked former New York governor George Pataki for his lobbying for the passage of the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in 2002. Pataki, then governor, was key in convincing State Senate leader Joseph Bruno to allow the bill’s passage from the Senate, and Keyes claimed Pataki “destroyed the natural family and the institution of marriage in New York.” In the following debates in Fort Lauderdale on September 17 and on September 27 in Baltimore, Keyes again sparred with the other candidates. Following the Fort Lauderdale debate which was deemed the “Values Voter” debate, Keyes came in second in the straw poll at 14%, far behind Mike Huckabee’s 54%. At the last September debate in Baltimore, with questions centered around issues affecting Hispanic and particularly black communities, Keyes again performed well. At the Family Research Council’s Value Voters Summit, Keyes came in fourth to Thompson, Huckabee, and Romney in the inaugural presidential straw poll.
However, despite Keyes doing well in straw polls and the debate performances, he was still languishing at 1 or 2 percent in the national polling, and was not invited to the next Republican debate in Detroit. Keyes brought this up at the Baltimore debate, claiming that this meant [the Republican Party] may or may not be afraid of all black people, but there seems to be at least one black person they’re afraid of.”[1] Now this week, Keyes announced he was suspending his campaign for the Republican nomination for president. In his suspension speech, Keyes claimed the party had been taken over by a “cadre of liberals like Romney and Pataki”, and cautioned that there was only one “true home” for conservatives: the Constitution Party. In suspending his campaign, Alan Keyes announced he would not be dropping out of the presidential race, but rather he was switching his affiliation to the Constitution Party and would run for that party’s nomination instead[2].
***
Bobby Jindal Handily Wins Louisiana Gubernatorial Election Without Runoff
October 21, 2007
BATON ROUGE, LA - One of the year’s most widely covered elections has finally come to an very conclusive end. As Kathleen Blanco announced she would not run for reelection earlier this year, Republicans saw their chance to take a coveted gubernatorial seat from the Democrats. Second term Congressman Bobby Jindal, who Blanco narrowly defeated in the 2003 gubernatorial election, quickly emerged as the front runner for the Republicans. The Democrats, meanwhile, struggled to find a suitable candidate. The Democrats eventually came up with Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell and lobbyist and former Senator John Breaux.
Because of Louisiana’s unique jungle primary system, both Campbell and Breaux remained in the race against Jindal. However, Jindal was not spared from challenges from his own side either. State Senator Walter Boasso launched a bid for the governorship against Jindal. Boasso remained in the gubernatorial race even after the Louisiana Republican Party endorsed Jindal. Boasso’s campaign was surely a long shot even in the open primary as a Republican challenging Jindal, but his campaign was given a much needed shot in the arm in May with the endorsement of shipping magnate Donald “Boysie” Bollinger of Bollinger. Bollinger, a powerful voice in the state GOP, took a risk bucking the party endorsement, but he stuck to it, calling Boasso “a true Republican.”[3]
Throughout the summer, the Democratic Party candidates continued to face difficulty after difficulty, not helped by the entrance of New Orleans businessman John Georges as an independent and black activist Malik Rahim as a Green into the race. Breaux appeared to be gaining some ground in June, but issues with Breaux’s residency in the state and thus his eligibility for governor continued to dog the former state senator. Before his campaign announcement, Breaux had been a lobbyist living in Maryland, and the residency issue caused the Democrats to fully get behind Foster Campbell in August despite Breaux polling far better than Campbell. Breaux continued to face legal challenges against his candidacy and finally dropped from the race in early August, but he refused to endorse his fellow Democrat. In fundraising, all candidates lagged heavily behind Jindal except for John Georges, whose self-funded candidacy was the only one able to match the Republican frontrunner in funding. Campbell continued to lag behind even Boasso and George except for in his home region of northwestern Louisiana, and the results last night bore out the message that the people of Louisiana had been speaking all year.
With a final tally of the results now in, Bobby Jindal will be the next governor of the state of Louisiana. With 51.3% of the vote, Jindal avoided having to go through a runoff election. The opposition to Jindal was extremely divided among the remainder of the just over 1.1 million votes cast. Georges came second with 14.1%, while fellow Republican Boasso came third with 13.4%. In a shocking result that demonstrates both the lingering support for Rahim following his efforts in Katrina’s aftermath and the shambles the Democrats found themselves in this election, Campbell came in fifth place behind Rahim and won only the rural northwestern Red River Parish, losing even his home parish of Bossier. Rahim had 10.2% of the vote, winning both St. Helena and East Carroll Parishes, two of Louisiana’s majority black parishes, and coming in a narrow third to Georges and Jindal in Orleans Parish with over 20,000 votes there. With the Democrats in such disarray, it is no wonder Jindal was able to gain a strong foothold in the governor’s race and avoid the runoff that cost him the gubernatorial election four years ago.
***
Mayor Matt Gonzalez Proves He’s Not Just a Fluke
November 7, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - Throughout the past year, one of the biggest questions hanging on the lips of political pundits surrounded the San Francisco mayoral election. Was the Green Party’s Matt Gonzalez, who won an upset victory over Supervisor Gavin Newsom in 2003 to become San Francisco’s first Green mayor, a one time fluke? Or could the Green mayor, whose clean cut appearance aside from the near shoulder length hair gives him the look a “cool” college professor, survive a rematch against Newsom and others to win reelection? At last, that question has been answered in the first San Francisco mayoral election to use ranked choice voting in a manner similar to the supervisor elections. Matt Gonzalez will remain perhaps the most high profile Green elected official, as on the seventh round he gathered a majority of votes and was formally returned to the office of mayor.
As soon as Gonzalez was sworn in as mayor in 2003, the 2007 race for mayor was almost assuredly going to be a rematch between the mayor and Supervisor Newsom. Newsom frequently butted heads with the mayor as well as the Greens - Ross Mirkarimi and later Jane Kim and Barry Hermanson - in the Board of Supervisors on practically every issue. Gavin Newsom supported the development of Treasure Island as Gonzalez endeavored to cancel it following the warnings of Tony Hall as head of the Treasure Island development authority. And yet Newsom opposed Gonzalez on the development of the new Bay Area Transit Center and the Rincon Hill towers. Earlier this year, Newsom campaigned against the alleged mismanagement of Muni following the hiccups in the start of the T-Third Line and opposed pursuing phases 2 and 3 of the line which would extend it north to Newsom’s supervisor district.
In this opposition, Gavin Newsom received the support of many outside Democrats, including from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and State Senator Leland Yee. Throughout the mayoral campaign, Gonzalez jumped on this outside support to boost his continued credentials as an outsider. The mayor made many allusions to his success as mayor being seen as an attack the Democratic establishment, showing the “power of the people” against the alleged corporate dominance of the Democratic Party. However, Mayor Gonzalez was not without some support from members of the Democratic Party. Tony Hall, the former supervisor who endorsed Gonzalez in his 2003 run for mayor, ran for mayor himself this year. In a statement, however, Hall stated he was primarily running as a Democratic alternative to Newsom, and that with San Francisco’s new ranked choice voting, he was endorsing Mayor Gonzalez as his #2 selection[4].
Gonzalez also gained the endorsement of one of the more colorful candidates in one of the more heartwarming and uniquely San Francisco moments of the campaign. Alec “Grasshopper” Kaplan, lists his occupation on the ballot as a vegan taxicab driver, and lives out of his purple cab. He stated he ran for mayor after being kicked out of his previous living arrangement by a neighbor[5]. When Matt Gonzalez heard about Grasshopper Kaplan’s situation, he made a public statement offering the homeless man his Haight-Ashbury basement apartment. The move, both a goodwill gesture from Gonzalez during a busy campaign and a symbolic show of his compassion on the homelessness issue, further boosted the mayor’s public image. Opponents dismissed it as a purely symbolic move, particularly Newsom who claimed Gonzalez has done little in the way of providing solutions to the city’s homelessness problem. However, Grasshopper did receive over 1,000 votes in the first round of voting, and during the second round when he was eliminated many of those votes transferred to Mayor Gonzalez. So it seems to have been an effective public relations move if nothing else.
However, the issue of San Francisco’s homeless population will likely dog Matt Gonzalez through his second term as mayor. He may have help in the Board of Supervisors now that he is assured another four years in office and the Greens hold 3 of the 11 supervisor districts, but it is one of the major issues facing the city that the mayor has received his worst marks on in surveys. As housing prices continue to rise throughout San Francisco, the housing issue may broadly be what defines Matt Gonzalez’s second term as mayor.
***
Phil Donahue Hosts Talk For Green Candidates, Expresses Support For Party
December 15, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - The historic Castro Theatre plays host to countless film festivals throughout the year, but yesterday the 1,400 people who packed the theatre came to see a very different celebration. Former talk show host Phil Donahue hosted what was in part a celebration of Mayor Matt Gonzalez’s reelection, and in part a showcase of the strides the Green Party has made in the last four years with a look at what was to come from the party. The event was organized by California Green Party chairman Peter Camejo and Donahue himself. Donahue was well known as a supporter of Ralph Nader’s 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, having the Green candidate as a guest frequently during his 2000 presidential campaign.
The event format had Donahue act as an interviewer to each guest. The guests would come out and give a five to ten minute talk on themselves, their backgrounds, their political positions, and how they were currently active in the Green Party, followed by answering a few questions from Donahue before cycling to the next guest. Since most of the guests at the talk are current candidates running for office as Greens, much of the talk was devoted to introducing the candidates and informing the audience how they could help with the campaigns. While none of the presidential candidates attended, many local and state level candidates did, mirroring the focus of the California Green Party leading into 2008. The candidates included Angela Davis for California’s 19th Assembly district, journalist Norman Solomon for the 3rd Senate district, and Lisa Feldstein for the 13th Assembly district. One of the few candidates for office outside of California was Ellen Spiro. Spiro and Donahue talked about their Iraq War documentary Body of War and its statement against the war. Spiro also discussed her campaign in Texas’s 21st House district against Congressman Lamar Smith. In particular, Spiro and Donahue mentioned gerrymandering and the redistricting in Texas. The courts ordered Texas’s districts to be redrawn twice in 2003 and 2006, and while Smith’s 21st district shifted in both cases, it kept part of cracking Austin and Travis County. Spiro is a professor at the University of Texas, Austin and felt that the split of the city into several districts “purposely disenfranchised the citizens of Austin.”
The major highlight of the night was Phil Donahue’s interview with Peter Camejo, the co-organizer of the talk and chairman of the California Green Party. Camejo touched on his storied career as an activist in leftist groups in Latin America, in the Socialist Workers’ Party and in the Green Party both nationally and in California. Camejo, the first Hispanic to run for president when he ran on the SWP ticket in 1976, explained that in his work in progressive causes and in the Green Party, his desire has always been to help the minority groups and find a way to unify the disparate voices of minority groups and the poor into a single voice to take on corporate interests. This, Camejo explained, was Camejo’s vision for the California Green Party. In past years he recruited candidates like Jane Kim, Barbara Becnel, and Angela Davis to increase the diversity of the Green Party. In his view, for the Green Party to truly become a powerful force against the duopoly of the Democrats and Republicans, it needed to expand beyond its environmental justice message to a message of economic and social justice as well. Camejo also explained how he saw the collapse of the socialist movements and the SWP due to sectionalism and infighting, and urged the Green Party to put the ideological purity debates aside to attract a broader base of voters[6]. So far, it seems, that tactic has been successful, as Donahue replied pointedly, returning to congratulate the people of San Francisco and the Greens on the reelection of Mayor Matt Gonzalez. With Camejo’s encouraging words, the talk at the Castro Theatre last night came to a close.
[1] Keyes did say this in OTL in his opening statement at the 2008 Baltimore debate.
[2] In OTL Keyes did leave the GOP primary in April 2008 and run in the Constitution Party primary instead. However, leaving so late made him seem insincere in his commitment to the Constitution Party.
[3] In OTL Bollinger said Boasso was "a true Republican" but that he couldn't support Boasso as a Democrat.
[4] One of the benefits of ranked choice voting: candidates can actually say they like other candidates.
[5] Grasshopper Kaplan ran in the 2007 San Francisco election in OTL. He received 1,423 votes and 0.99% in the only round (Newsom received over 73% in the first round so there was no need for a second).
[6] I got most of Camejo's history from currently reading through his book North Star: A Memoir. It's pretty interesting and has ended up as a big part of my research for the TL. I recommend it as a journey through leftist activism from the 1960s through 2006. A lot of the strategies for growing the Green Party in the TL I've adapted from what Camejo tried to work toward.
October 3, 2007
WASHINGTON - The 2008 Republican primaries has had several candidates reaching the coveted top tier of the polling bracket. Giuliani was there for a time, then Romney, then Fred Thompson. However, the scramble for the top position as we lurch toward the Iowa caucus in just three months ignores another crop of candidates at the lower ends. They are all destined to be also-rans, but with the early primaries still so competitive even the small percentage they take home could have a great impact on who gets the momentum going into the nomination. Candidates like Duncan Hunter, George Allen, and Sam Brownback are just three of the veritable clown car of candidates racing for the bottom.
It can be grueling to continue a presidential campaign when you really have no chance of winning, but bowing out can cause great disappointment among a candidate’s loyal and often fervent base. This week the field of candidate indeed got one fewer. In the recent Republican primary debates, the piranha pool of third tier candidates came out snapping against the major candidates. The latest debates have had lower invitation requirements, which led to a larger field with even more candidates joining the debate stage. A new entrant into the debates was recently announced candidate Alan Keyes, the former Assistant Secretary of State under Reagan who entered the spotlight four years ago when he ran against Obama for the Illinois Senate seat.
Keyes was invited to participate in three debates over the last month. Keyes made an explosive start in the Fox News debate in Durham, New Hampshire, where he attacked former New York governor George Pataki for his lobbying for the passage of the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in 2002. Pataki, then governor, was key in convincing State Senate leader Joseph Bruno to allow the bill’s passage from the Senate, and Keyes claimed Pataki “destroyed the natural family and the institution of marriage in New York.” In the following debates in Fort Lauderdale on September 17 and on September 27 in Baltimore, Keyes again sparred with the other candidates. Following the Fort Lauderdale debate which was deemed the “Values Voter” debate, Keyes came in second in the straw poll at 14%, far behind Mike Huckabee’s 54%. At the last September debate in Baltimore, with questions centered around issues affecting Hispanic and particularly black communities, Keyes again performed well. At the Family Research Council’s Value Voters Summit, Keyes came in fourth to Thompson, Huckabee, and Romney in the inaugural presidential straw poll.
However, despite Keyes doing well in straw polls and the debate performances, he was still languishing at 1 or 2 percent in the national polling, and was not invited to the next Republican debate in Detroit. Keyes brought this up at the Baltimore debate, claiming that this meant [the Republican Party] may or may not be afraid of all black people, but there seems to be at least one black person they’re afraid of.”[1] Now this week, Keyes announced he was suspending his campaign for the Republican nomination for president. In his suspension speech, Keyes claimed the party had been taken over by a “cadre of liberals like Romney and Pataki”, and cautioned that there was only one “true home” for conservatives: the Constitution Party. In suspending his campaign, Alan Keyes announced he would not be dropping out of the presidential race, but rather he was switching his affiliation to the Constitution Party and would run for that party’s nomination instead[2].
***
Bobby Jindal Handily Wins Louisiana Gubernatorial Election Without Runoff
October 21, 2007
BATON ROUGE, LA - One of the year’s most widely covered elections has finally come to an very conclusive end. As Kathleen Blanco announced she would not run for reelection earlier this year, Republicans saw their chance to take a coveted gubernatorial seat from the Democrats. Second term Congressman Bobby Jindal, who Blanco narrowly defeated in the 2003 gubernatorial election, quickly emerged as the front runner for the Republicans. The Democrats, meanwhile, struggled to find a suitable candidate. The Democrats eventually came up with Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell and lobbyist and former Senator John Breaux.
Because of Louisiana’s unique jungle primary system, both Campbell and Breaux remained in the race against Jindal. However, Jindal was not spared from challenges from his own side either. State Senator Walter Boasso launched a bid for the governorship against Jindal. Boasso remained in the gubernatorial race even after the Louisiana Republican Party endorsed Jindal. Boasso’s campaign was surely a long shot even in the open primary as a Republican challenging Jindal, but his campaign was given a much needed shot in the arm in May with the endorsement of shipping magnate Donald “Boysie” Bollinger of Bollinger. Bollinger, a powerful voice in the state GOP, took a risk bucking the party endorsement, but he stuck to it, calling Boasso “a true Republican.”[3]
Throughout the summer, the Democratic Party candidates continued to face difficulty after difficulty, not helped by the entrance of New Orleans businessman John Georges as an independent and black activist Malik Rahim as a Green into the race. Breaux appeared to be gaining some ground in June, but issues with Breaux’s residency in the state and thus his eligibility for governor continued to dog the former state senator. Before his campaign announcement, Breaux had been a lobbyist living in Maryland, and the residency issue caused the Democrats to fully get behind Foster Campbell in August despite Breaux polling far better than Campbell. Breaux continued to face legal challenges against his candidacy and finally dropped from the race in early August, but he refused to endorse his fellow Democrat. In fundraising, all candidates lagged heavily behind Jindal except for John Georges, whose self-funded candidacy was the only one able to match the Republican frontrunner in funding. Campbell continued to lag behind even Boasso and George except for in his home region of northwestern Louisiana, and the results last night bore out the message that the people of Louisiana had been speaking all year.
With a final tally of the results now in, Bobby Jindal will be the next governor of the state of Louisiana. With 51.3% of the vote, Jindal avoided having to go through a runoff election. The opposition to Jindal was extremely divided among the remainder of the just over 1.1 million votes cast. Georges came second with 14.1%, while fellow Republican Boasso came third with 13.4%. In a shocking result that demonstrates both the lingering support for Rahim following his efforts in Katrina’s aftermath and the shambles the Democrats found themselves in this election, Campbell came in fifth place behind Rahim and won only the rural northwestern Red River Parish, losing even his home parish of Bossier. Rahim had 10.2% of the vote, winning both St. Helena and East Carroll Parishes, two of Louisiana’s majority black parishes, and coming in a narrow third to Georges and Jindal in Orleans Parish with over 20,000 votes there. With the Democrats in such disarray, it is no wonder Jindal was able to gain a strong foothold in the governor’s race and avoid the runoff that cost him the gubernatorial election four years ago.
***
Mayor Matt Gonzalez Proves He’s Not Just a Fluke
November 7, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - Throughout the past year, one of the biggest questions hanging on the lips of political pundits surrounded the San Francisco mayoral election. Was the Green Party’s Matt Gonzalez, who won an upset victory over Supervisor Gavin Newsom in 2003 to become San Francisco’s first Green mayor, a one time fluke? Or could the Green mayor, whose clean cut appearance aside from the near shoulder length hair gives him the look a “cool” college professor, survive a rematch against Newsom and others to win reelection? At last, that question has been answered in the first San Francisco mayoral election to use ranked choice voting in a manner similar to the supervisor elections. Matt Gonzalez will remain perhaps the most high profile Green elected official, as on the seventh round he gathered a majority of votes and was formally returned to the office of mayor.
As soon as Gonzalez was sworn in as mayor in 2003, the 2007 race for mayor was almost assuredly going to be a rematch between the mayor and Supervisor Newsom. Newsom frequently butted heads with the mayor as well as the Greens - Ross Mirkarimi and later Jane Kim and Barry Hermanson - in the Board of Supervisors on practically every issue. Gavin Newsom supported the development of Treasure Island as Gonzalez endeavored to cancel it following the warnings of Tony Hall as head of the Treasure Island development authority. And yet Newsom opposed Gonzalez on the development of the new Bay Area Transit Center and the Rincon Hill towers. Earlier this year, Newsom campaigned against the alleged mismanagement of Muni following the hiccups in the start of the T-Third Line and opposed pursuing phases 2 and 3 of the line which would extend it north to Newsom’s supervisor district.
In this opposition, Gavin Newsom received the support of many outside Democrats, including from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and State Senator Leland Yee. Throughout the mayoral campaign, Gonzalez jumped on this outside support to boost his continued credentials as an outsider. The mayor made many allusions to his success as mayor being seen as an attack the Democratic establishment, showing the “power of the people” against the alleged corporate dominance of the Democratic Party. However, Mayor Gonzalez was not without some support from members of the Democratic Party. Tony Hall, the former supervisor who endorsed Gonzalez in his 2003 run for mayor, ran for mayor himself this year. In a statement, however, Hall stated he was primarily running as a Democratic alternative to Newsom, and that with San Francisco’s new ranked choice voting, he was endorsing Mayor Gonzalez as his #2 selection[4].
Gonzalez also gained the endorsement of one of the more colorful candidates in one of the more heartwarming and uniquely San Francisco moments of the campaign. Alec “Grasshopper” Kaplan, lists his occupation on the ballot as a vegan taxicab driver, and lives out of his purple cab. He stated he ran for mayor after being kicked out of his previous living arrangement by a neighbor[5]. When Matt Gonzalez heard about Grasshopper Kaplan’s situation, he made a public statement offering the homeless man his Haight-Ashbury basement apartment. The move, both a goodwill gesture from Gonzalez during a busy campaign and a symbolic show of his compassion on the homelessness issue, further boosted the mayor’s public image. Opponents dismissed it as a purely symbolic move, particularly Newsom who claimed Gonzalez has done little in the way of providing solutions to the city’s homelessness problem. However, Grasshopper did receive over 1,000 votes in the first round of voting, and during the second round when he was eliminated many of those votes transferred to Mayor Gonzalez. So it seems to have been an effective public relations move if nothing else.
However, the issue of San Francisco’s homeless population will likely dog Matt Gonzalez through his second term as mayor. He may have help in the Board of Supervisors now that he is assured another four years in office and the Greens hold 3 of the 11 supervisor districts, but it is one of the major issues facing the city that the mayor has received his worst marks on in surveys. As housing prices continue to rise throughout San Francisco, the housing issue may broadly be what defines Matt Gonzalez’s second term as mayor.
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Phil Donahue Hosts Talk For Green Candidates, Expresses Support For Party
December 15, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - The historic Castro Theatre plays host to countless film festivals throughout the year, but yesterday the 1,400 people who packed the theatre came to see a very different celebration. Former talk show host Phil Donahue hosted what was in part a celebration of Mayor Matt Gonzalez’s reelection, and in part a showcase of the strides the Green Party has made in the last four years with a look at what was to come from the party. The event was organized by California Green Party chairman Peter Camejo and Donahue himself. Donahue was well known as a supporter of Ralph Nader’s 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, having the Green candidate as a guest frequently during his 2000 presidential campaign.
The event format had Donahue act as an interviewer to each guest. The guests would come out and give a five to ten minute talk on themselves, their backgrounds, their political positions, and how they were currently active in the Green Party, followed by answering a few questions from Donahue before cycling to the next guest. Since most of the guests at the talk are current candidates running for office as Greens, much of the talk was devoted to introducing the candidates and informing the audience how they could help with the campaigns. While none of the presidential candidates attended, many local and state level candidates did, mirroring the focus of the California Green Party leading into 2008. The candidates included Angela Davis for California’s 19th Assembly district, journalist Norman Solomon for the 3rd Senate district, and Lisa Feldstein for the 13th Assembly district. One of the few candidates for office outside of California was Ellen Spiro. Spiro and Donahue talked about their Iraq War documentary Body of War and its statement against the war. Spiro also discussed her campaign in Texas’s 21st House district against Congressman Lamar Smith. In particular, Spiro and Donahue mentioned gerrymandering and the redistricting in Texas. The courts ordered Texas’s districts to be redrawn twice in 2003 and 2006, and while Smith’s 21st district shifted in both cases, it kept part of cracking Austin and Travis County. Spiro is a professor at the University of Texas, Austin and felt that the split of the city into several districts “purposely disenfranchised the citizens of Austin.”
The major highlight of the night was Phil Donahue’s interview with Peter Camejo, the co-organizer of the talk and chairman of the California Green Party. Camejo touched on his storied career as an activist in leftist groups in Latin America, in the Socialist Workers’ Party and in the Green Party both nationally and in California. Camejo, the first Hispanic to run for president when he ran on the SWP ticket in 1976, explained that in his work in progressive causes and in the Green Party, his desire has always been to help the minority groups and find a way to unify the disparate voices of minority groups and the poor into a single voice to take on corporate interests. This, Camejo explained, was Camejo’s vision for the California Green Party. In past years he recruited candidates like Jane Kim, Barbara Becnel, and Angela Davis to increase the diversity of the Green Party. In his view, for the Green Party to truly become a powerful force against the duopoly of the Democrats and Republicans, it needed to expand beyond its environmental justice message to a message of economic and social justice as well. Camejo also explained how he saw the collapse of the socialist movements and the SWP due to sectionalism and infighting, and urged the Green Party to put the ideological purity debates aside to attract a broader base of voters[6]. So far, it seems, that tactic has been successful, as Donahue replied pointedly, returning to congratulate the people of San Francisco and the Greens on the reelection of Mayor Matt Gonzalez. With Camejo’s encouraging words, the talk at the Castro Theatre last night came to a close.
[1] Keyes did say this in OTL in his opening statement at the 2008 Baltimore debate.
[2] In OTL Keyes did leave the GOP primary in April 2008 and run in the Constitution Party primary instead. However, leaving so late made him seem insincere in his commitment to the Constitution Party.
[3] In OTL Bollinger said Boasso was "a true Republican" but that he couldn't support Boasso as a Democrat.
[4] One of the benefits of ranked choice voting: candidates can actually say they like other candidates.
[5] Grasshopper Kaplan ran in the 2007 San Francisco election in OTL. He received 1,423 votes and 0.99% in the only round (Newsom received over 73% in the first round so there was no need for a second).
[6] I got most of Camejo's history from currently reading through his book North Star: A Memoir. It's pretty interesting and has ended up as a big part of my research for the TL. I recommend it as a journey through leftist activism from the 1960s through 2006. A lot of the strategies for growing the Green Party in the TL I've adapted from what Camejo tried to work toward.
Reading through Camejo's North Star: A Memoir and I'm on the chapter about Matt Gonzalez's 2003 mayoral run. In one section he basically lays out what I'm endeavoring to do with this TL.
"In the 2002 campaign for governor I had been strongly pro-labor. I had taken economic and racial stances not common in the party, in addition to holding the ecological positions more typical of Green candidates. The positions I advocated were popular among young Greens but we're not so well receive by the older generation, which tended to be more countercultural than progressive. The more conservative wing of the Greens remained open to fusion with the Democrats, a current that clearly controlled the national Green leadership.
"If a third party the size of the Greens with a clearer leadership, platform, and organizational structure had been behind him, Matt's campaign could have opened up a different dynamic."
"In the 2002 campaign for governor I had been strongly pro-labor. I had taken economic and racial stances not common in the party, in addition to holding the ecological positions more typical of Green candidates. The positions I advocated were popular among young Greens but we're not so well receive by the older generation, which tended to be more countercultural than progressive. The more conservative wing of the Greens remained open to fusion with the Democrats, a current that clearly controlled the national Green leadership.
"If a third party the size of the Greens with a clearer leadership, platform, and organizational structure had been behind him, Matt's campaign could have opened up a different dynamic."