Rosa Luxemburg
Banned
Eh. I prefer silver Republicans and gold Democrats myself, like they used to do it way back in the day
Green Revolution on the Golden Gate
- Thread starter wilcoxchar
- Start date
Deleted member 109224
It wouldn't be crazy for a statewide elected official (Lt Gov) to win a statewide race as a Green, but it isn't particularly likely either.
Key Wins For LGBT Community as First Openly Gay and Bisexual Senators Elected
November 6, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC - As voters celebrate the results of the 2008 elections and the election of the first woman president, the LGBT community has several reasons to celebrate as they gained historic victories on Tuesday. In Colorado, Jared Polis won election to the state’s 2nd district to replace Mark Udall, who will enter the Senate in January. Polis will join two other Democrats, Massachusetts’ Barney Frank and Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin, in the House. However, an even bigger step in LGBT representation in office came in the Senate. In two states on either side of the country, Americans elected the first two LGBT Senators ever.
In Oregon, state senator Kate Brown was elected to the Senate. Brown came out openly as bisexual in the 1990s while a state representative after a newspaper discussing the state’s LGBT caucus mentioned her. She has since been elected to the state senate and was appointed Senate Majority Leader in 2004, the first woman to hold the office in Oregon. Earlier this year, Brown threw her hat into the state’s United States Senate race following several top tier candidates including Congressmen Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio declined to run, and after state house speaker Jeff Merkley chose to run for Oregon Secretary of State instead. Brown faced a difficult run in the Democratic primary with activist Steve Novick. Novick ran hard left in the primary and put up a strong challenge, but Brown’s fundraising ability and experience in the legislature won the day.
The general election was equally as contentious as the primary for Kate Brown. She was up against two term Senator Gordon Smith. The race was highly contested as a key Democratic pickup, but despite Oregon’s growing Democratic lean over the past decade, it was never more than a toss-up. Smith led heavily early in the year, with Brown not showing leading a poll until July. Smith’s campaign attacked Brown on her record in the state legislature, notably highlighting her maneuvering on the 2003 PERS reform bill where, as Senate caucus leader, Brown whipped her fellow legislators to get behind Governor Kulongowski’s attempt to make cuts to the state pension system and then turning around and voting against the bill herself to preserve her ties with state labor unions, leading to a backlash from unions which badly hurt the Democrats in the legislature that voted for the measure. However, as the race grew closer and more attentive, both Kate Brown’s fundraising ability and national Democrats pouring money into the race tipped the scales narrowly against Smith as Democrats attacked Smith for his vote for the Iraq War. His bipartisan efforts in the attempt at an economic recovery bill late in the year did not end up helping his campaign. Even so, it was still a close run thing, and it is that same bipartisanship and reputation as a moderate that may have been Smith’s undoing. David Brownlow, a consultant who ran for Senate under the Constitution Party and was an almost unseen quantity during the campaign, managed to get over 6 percent of the vote[1]. Kate Brown won with just 47.8 percent to Smith’s 45.9 percent, putting Oregon’s Senate seat narrowly in the Democratic column.
While Kate Brown’s win in Oregon was a great victory for both Democrats and LGBT visibility in Washington, on the other side of the country another gay candidate secured what will no doubt go down as one of the greatest election upsets of 2008. The Senate race in North Carolina was originally seen as a potential Democratic pickup as polling showed governor Mike Easley beating Elizabeth Dole 50-42 in a mid-2007 poll. However, Democratic enthusiasm for the race died down when Easley declined to run, and declined further when Congressman Brad Miller, former governor Jim Hunt, and state senator Kay Hagan all decided against entering the race. With the high profile candidates out, attention moved away from North Carolina. Businessman Jim Neal still faced a difficult primary against state representative Grier Martin and attorney Marcus Williams, but a string of key state endorsements including Charlotte’s Black Political Caucus, and from prominent Asheville philanthropist Adelaide Key. However, Neal did not receive the endorsement of many key North Carolina Democratic figures including longtime State Insurance Commissioner Jim Long[2].
Even after Neal won the primary and the race narrowed, endorsements from fellow Democrats were slow to come and Neal faced an uphill fight. The pick of Elizabeth Dole as George Pataki’s running mate gave her a brief bump in polling against Neal, which seemed to further dissuade national Democrats from investing in the race, but Neal’s previous success as a national fundraiser for the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004 helped soften that blow and keep enough pace with Dole. However, it appeared that many Democrats were hesitant to endorse Neal because he is gay, and with same sex marriage a contentious topic across the nation and within the party, the idea that a gay candidate for Senate could win in North Carolina and the potential effect on other candidates’ own campaigns seemed to put them off. Hillary Clinton only endorsed Neal in September, and even Democratic candidate for governor Bev Perdue only formally endorsed Neal after Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Michael Munger, who supports same sex marriage, qualified for the gubernatorial debate and began calling Perdue out for her reticence on the issue.
As November neared, national attention finally returned to North Carolina as the state became a triple battleground for the two parties and polls showed the presidential, Senate, and gubernatorial races all evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. With the campaign heating up, Dole’s position on both the presidential ticket started to become more of a liability as she was forced to divide time between campaigning for Senate and campaigning for Pataki, and as Perdue pulled ahead of Charlotte mayor Pat McRory the question of who Perdue might appoint if Dole lost began to circle, and whether Neal was an acceptable compromise. It is in this environment that perhaps the biggest blunder for Republicans in North Carolina arrived. In October, PACs supporting the Dole and McCrory campaigns began airing ads attacking same sex marriage[3], and in one specific ad directly attacked Neal for his sexuality and Perdue for her endorsement of Neal. Those ads were likely what pushed both campaigns over the edge given the closeness of the state, and turned off some more liberal minded Republicans. North Carolina ended up divided in November with Pataki winning the state at the presidential level by less than a percent, but Dole and McCrory both lost their elections by 2.1 and 3.6 percent respectively[4]. Both Munger and Libertarian Senate nominee Chris Cole received a substantial amount of votes, and while they took from both parties, it is likely that they took slightly more from Republicans than from Democrats. With the returns concluded, Elizabeth Dole now has the odd distinction of both winning and losing an election in the same state in the same year.
***
Anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 Defeated At Ballot Box
November 7, 2008
SACRAMENTO, CA - 2008 has been a year of ups and downs for same sex marriage advocates across the United States. Early in the year, Oregon began allowing domestic partnerships between same sex couples and Washington expanded the rights permitted to domestic partnerships.In May, California’s Supreme Court declared the struck down the state’s ban on gay marriage, allowing same sex marriages to begin or resume across the state in June. In July, Massachusetts overturned a 1913 statute that forbade non-residents from marrying in the state if their marriage would be illegal in their home state, allowing same sex couples from other states to marry in Massachusetts. In October, the state of Connecticut overturned its ban on same sex marriage, becoming the third state after Massachusetts and California to permit it. However, efforts against same sex marriage and LGBT rights quickly mounted. In July, the First Circuit Court upheld the constitutionality of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy that bans gays and lesbians from serving in the military. Arizona and Florida put constitutional amendments on the November ballot to declare marriage as only between one man and one woman. Even before the California Supreme Court struck down the state’s gay marriage ban, activists against gay marriage were preparing a similar constitutional amendment to add back the wording banning same sex marriage in California. On November 4, the people of Arizona and Florida overwhelmingly passed their amendments to ban same sex marriage. However, in a significant victory for same sex marriage advocates in the largest state in the country, voters in California narrowly rejected Proposition 8, keeping same sex marriage legal in the state of California.
The fight over the fate of gay marriage in California was a grueling debate that attracted internaitonal attention and a record amount of campaign spending for any state ballot initiative ever. In total $60 million was raised and spent on Proposition 8; over $30 million each on the sides for and against. The largest financial supporter of Proposition 8 was the Catholic Church. The Catholic fraternal organization the Knights of Columbus contributed over $1 million to the campaign for Proposition 8, and Archbishop of San Francisco George Niderauer publicly campaigned in favor of the proposition. Auxiliary Bishop of San Diego Salvatore Cordileone also personally donated over $5,000 to the campaign and was key in helping draft the ballot initiative. Other evangelical and religious organizations such as the American Family Organization, Focus on the Family, and the LDS Church were vocal in promoting the initiative. However, several other religious organizations opposed it including every Episcopalian bishop in California and many Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League.
On political party support, both parties were divided. State Democrats were solidly in opposition to Prop 8 and many campaigned vigorously against it including both Senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. However, as a presidential candidate Hillary Clinton shied away from the issue while campaigning in California. During the primary, Clinton said she opposes gay marriage but supports civil unions for same sex couples. However, when pressed on it on the campaign trail closer to the election, Clinton declared that while she still “feels civil unions are the best way to achieve equality for gay and lesbian couples in this country,” she holds a belief that the matter should be left to the states. This lines with a 2006 statement Clinton made to gay officials in New York that she would not block New York from enacting a law legalizing same sex marriage. With Republicans, the statements against Prop 8 were more muted for much of the campaign, though they were there. Republicans Against 8[5], an organization started by the Log Cabin Republicans, was the largest group fighting the initiative. They included former Congressman Tom Campbell, Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca, Redondo Beach mayor Mike Gin, and former San Diego police chief Jerry Sanders. Notably, late in the campaign, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger began to speak out against Prop 8 and campaigned increasingly against it in the final month of the campaign. Schwarzenegger’s change of heart seems to have happened shortly following his wife Maria Shriver speaking out against Prop 8 in early September[6]. The only party that has been strongly and visibly against Proposition 8 is the Green Party. San Francisco mayor Matt Gonzalez assembly candidate Norm Solomon have spoken at dozens of rallies in San Francisco to drive turnout in the Bay Area. Assembly candidate Angela Davis took time away from a difficult election campaign in October to do a statewide tour speaking out against Prop 8 in minority communities in Oakland, Los Angeles, and other areas around the state.
Despite the efforts against Prop 8, the vote still came down to the wire. However, the advocates for same sex marriage did win out in the polls. Both Yes and No got nearly 7 million votes, but the No side won by barely 65,000 votes. Predictably, there have been protests around the state since the failure of Prop 8, and it sounds like there will already be yet another court challenge. The ultimate future of same sex marriage in California is still likely in flux, but for now it is a great victory for gays and lesbians in California and in the United States.
Additionally, while the focus has been on Prop 8 throughout this campaign, there were other initiatives on the California ballot this year. Among them, Prop 1A passed, which will allocate nearly $10 billion to the California High Speed Rail Authority to construct the proposed high speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Prop 11 also passed, which changes how redistricting is done for state assembly and state senate seats to an independent Citizens’ Redistricting Commission as opposed to being passed by the state legislature. Congressional districts will still be approved by the legislature. While Prop 11 passed, another ballot initiative that would affect how California conducts its elections, Prop 13, failed on Tuesday. Prop 13 would have adopted “fusion” balloting, allowing multiple parties to endorse a single candidate and appear beside the candidate’s name on the ballot. Prop 13 was heavily pushed for by Mike Feinstein of the Green Party, but fell short of a majority.
***
In House of Representatives, Democrats Build Comfortably on 2006 Gains
November 9, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC - Following the results of the 2006 midterm elections, the Democratic Party regained control of the House of Representatives for the first time since the 1994 Republican Revolution. While the 234 seats won by the Democrats were a fairly sizable majority on part with the best the Republicans had been able to reach during their brief hold on the chamber, the question remained. Were the comfortable majorities the Democrats had been able to command for decades prior to 1994 still attainable by either party, or was the House of Representatives now entering a new era of narrow majorities and continuous, contentious fights for control of the chamber every two years? Now, that question has been resoundingly answered in the affirmative as Democrats have nearly equaled the amount of seats they gained in 2006 to reach a majority not seen since 1992.
With the final results of the 2008 elections now in, a total of 266 Democrats and 169 Republicans will be sent to Washington at the beginning of the new year. This marks a net gain for the Democrats of 29 seats from the Republicans - nearly reaching the 2006 results of 32 Democratic gains. Among the seats flipped by the Democrats last Tuesday were some held by long time Republican incumbents. Joe Knollenberg, a Republican who represented Michigan’s 9th district in suburban Detroit since 1992, lost to Democrat Gary Peters by over 9 points. In California, state senator Mike Machado unseated Richard Pombo. Pombo had held the Central Valley seat since 1993 and survived reelection in 2006 after the Democrats and Greens evenly split the votes against him. However, with no Green candidate in the race this time, Pombo lost to Machado by 8 percent. In South Carolina, four term Republican Henry Brown Jr. was unseated by activist Linda Ketner in the coastal 1st district that Democrats had long thought was permanently lost to them after redistricting moved parts of the Charleston area out of the district.
Elsewhere, especially in the South, Democrats made considerable inroads in areas that have troubled them in recent years. In Kentucky, after John Yarmuth won back the Louisville centered 3rd district that had eluded Democrats during Anne Northup’s five terms in Congress, Democrats were eager to expand their horizons in the Bluegrass State. The state’s 2nd district presented an opportunity. Republican Representative Ron Lewis announced his retirement on the last day to file hoping to deliver the seat to his chief of staff Daniel London, but London was defeated in the primary by state senator Brett Guthrie of Bowling Green. Democrats chose David Boswell, a veteran of Kentucky politics having been in elected office nearly constantly since 1979, and relatively conservative Democrat. Boswell received the support of a number of pro-life organizations, and ultimately narrowly defeated Guthrie to flip the 2nd district. However, the 2nd district was not the Democrats’ main focus in Kentucky; that honor would go to the 4th district in the state’s northeast along the Ohio River. The district had been held by Democrat Ken Lucas from 1999 to 2005, but when Lucas retired in 2004, Democratic nominee Nick Clooney lost the seat to Republican Geoff Davis. Lucas attempted to win the seat back in 2006 in one of the most anticipated House races of the midterm, but lost to Davis by nearly the same margin as Clooney had two years before. Going into the primary, it was looking like Lucas might run once again until Clooney jumped in. Clooney, a former television anchor and renowned journalist and father of actor George Clooney, was seen as a formidable opponent, in part because of the fundraising ability of his partnership with his son. While Davis started off well, he seemed to flag against Clooney as the campaign dragged on. However, a wrench was thrown into the Clooney campaign with poet Wendell Berry’s Green Party candidacy for the district. Berry originally ran when it looked like Lucas would once again run for the district, but when Clooney was nominated and Berry did not withdraw, Democratic strategists raised concerns of Berry being a spoiler for what started to look like a winnable race. Those concerns were unfounded in the end as Clooney won with 50.8% of the vote. In fact, Berry’s performance in the western parts of the district including traditionally Republican Oldham County may have hurt Davis more than it hurt Clooney.
Wendell Berry in Kentucky’s 4th district coupled with how the Green Party did elsewhere in the Upper South may lead to the conclusion that the Greens are growing in that area, but it is important to put the other races into perspective. Take Arkansas, for example. There, on the surface the Green Party did shockingly well. Jim Lendall received almost 20 percent in the Senate race, and in the state’s House races the Greens won over 200,000 votes overall in the state, more than even the Republican Party! However, aside from winning a seat in Arkansas’s state legislature, these surges by the Greens are very deceptive. Senator Mark Pryor had no Republican opposition, leaving Lendall his only opponent. In such cases where a candidate has only minor parties as their opponent, it is common for a minor party to receive anywhere between 10 and 25 percent of the vote as a simple protest measure. The case is similar with the US House races. The Green Party was the only party to contest all four House races in Arkansas this year. Receiving around 50,000 votes in each district, most notably Rebekah Kennedy’s 70,000 votes and over 25% vote share against John Boozman in the 3rd district, were able to push them above the statewide total of the Republicans, who only had the incumbent Boozman running and did not have any candidate in the 1st, 2nd, and 4th districts. Kennedy’s name recognition from her run for state attorney general two years ago combined with the lack of a Democrat in the 3rd district propelled her to the far higher vote total than she would have otherwise received[7].
However, that is not to say that third parties have not played a significant role in any more House races this election. Third party and independent candidates played a significant role in Republicans retaining at least three seats that may have been otherwise lost to the Democrats, as well as helping Democrats flip one. In Louisiana, three of the state’s seven seats changed hands. While Paul Camouche’s victory for the Democrats in the 4th district can be explained simply as the retirement of an entrenched Republican opening up a swing seat, the Republican flips of the 2nd and 6th districts are more complicated. In the 6th district, Republican Richard Baker’s resignation earlier this year led to a special election that Democrat Don Cazayoux won by a thin 49-47 margin. Going into the election for a full term in the Baton Rouge area district, Cazayoux was a top target for Republicans to regain the seat. Cazayoux nearly kept his seat, but state representative Michael L. Jackson, who lost to Cazayoux in the special election primary, ran as an independent and won 12 percent and over 35,000 votes, far more than the under 14,000 votes which separated Cazayoux and Republican victor Bill Cassidy. Meanwhile in the 2nd district that includes New Orleans, a similar story played out to give Republicans one of the biggest shocks of the 2008 election. Incumbent Democrat William Jefferson was recently indicted on corruption charges, and was up against Vietnamese-American lawyer Joseph Cao. Since the district includes New Orleans, it was heavily favored for the Democrats despite Jefferson’s indictment. However, Green candidate Malik Rahim, who made waves last year in the gubernatorial election, made a strong showing as a left alternative to Jefferson. Additionally, with Jefferson’s indictment, several Democratic lawmakers flipped to endorse Cao shortly before the election. Cao defeated Jefferson by just 4,831 votes[8]. He will be the first Vietnamese-American and first Vietnamese-born member of Congress as well as the first Republican to represent New Orleans in the House since 1891.
Third parties also helped Republicans hold onto a precarious House seat in Alaska. Don Young was running for his 19th term in the House, and faced two of his strongest challenges since 1992. Lieutenant governor Sean Parnell attempted to primary Young from the right and gained support from governor Sarah Palin and the Club For Growth. The primary was bitter, and Young only defeated Parnell by a handful of votes that hinged on the overseas returns. In the general election, Young faced Democratic nominee Ethan Berkowitz, a state representative until 2007, and Alaska Independence Party nominee Don Wright. Berkowitz was initially seen as a slight favorite given the environment of 2008 and Young was expected to finally lose reelection[9], but polls narrowed closer to November. The Alaska Independence Party hoped to do as well as Bob Bird did in the Senate race, while Democrats hoped Berkowitz would repeat Fran Ulmer’s accomplishment of unseating Ted Stevens. While Wright did win 5.7 percent of the vote, besting Bird’s Senate percentage, it seems more of it came from Democrats. Young finished under 50 percent for the first time in his career since 1992 but still beat Berkowitz by 2.4 percent. While AKIP’s strength did not help Democrats in Alaska, they did receive some help from a very strong independent campaign in Ohio’s 2nd district. After Rob Portman was appointed US Trade Representative by President Bush in 2005, Republican Jean Schmidt won the special election by less than 4,000 votes in a race that received national attention. In 2006 when Schmidt sought a full term against doctor Victoria Wulsin, her margin shrank to fewer than 2,500 votes. This year, Wulsin again challenged Schmidt, and polls showed the race to be extremely close. However, this time an unexpected factor for both parties threw the race into even more of a mystery than it already was. David Kirkorian, an area businessman with an MBA from the University of Cincinnati, jumped into the race as an independent. He quickly received high profile endorsements from the Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police the Georgetown News Democrat, and, while he will not be appearing on the ballot under their name, the Ohio Libertarian Party. Kirkorian ended up taking over 20 percent of the vote in the district[10], a phenomenal result for an independent candidate in a race with both a Democrat and Republican. The real question on people’s minds though was which of the two parties the race would tip to. As the final votes were counted, Victoria Wulsin and the Democrats came away the victor with just over 42 percent of the vote. In a two way comparison Wulsin did very well, defeating Schmidt by over 5 percent, but Kirkorian’s 21.2 percent and over 70,000 votes were no doubt the determining factor in the race. Even so, Wulsin and southern Ohio Democrats will take a win in an area where they have made gains but struggled to break through in recent years.
***
Green Breakthrough as Party Wins First Seats in Several States
November 12, 2008
DENVER, CO[11] - In the presidential election, the Green Party reached historic highs in the popular vote. Green candidate Pete McCloskey won over 4 million votes and won 3.1% of the popular vote, more than even Ralph Nader’s 2000 run. That alone might have been enough to consider this a breakthrough election for the Greens. However, that was not the only achievement by the party in the elections by far. The Greens have finally made a true breakthrough in gaining elected office. In this year’s elections, the Green Party has gone from just 4 seats in the lower levels of state legislatures to 10 seats in lower houses and 5 seats in upper houses of state legislatures across the country.
As has been the case since the Green Party started gaining traction at the beginning of the decade, the greatest gains for the party in this year’s state legislative elections were in California and Maine. In Maine, the Greens held on to all three of their Portland area house districts with incumbents Benjamin Meiklejohn and Jason Rogers won reelection and city councillor David Marshall moving into the 118th district seat formerly held by John Eder. Eder, who was term limited in his house seat, successfully moved up to the state senate in a victory in the 8th senate district. With Eder the first Green member of a state legislature to serve a full term and narrowly winning a third term two years ago, there was speculation on what the pioneering representative would do once he was term limited. Some thought he would run for Congress or wait to run for governor in 2010, but it seems Eder is happy to remain in the state house for now. Additionally, it was also questionable whether the Green Party could successfully hold an open seat. Both Eder’s move to the state senate and Marshall’s win over Justin Alford have proven the Green Party has become more than a flash in the pan in Portland.
In California, the Green Party continued to show their strength concentrated around the Bay Area, and were able to at last gain ground beyond San Francisco and city or county offices. In the state assembly, the 19th district saw a tense three way Democratic primary between San Mateo County Supervisor Jerry Hill, Milbrae mayor Gina Papan, and community college board president Richard Holober. Early in the primary to replace term limited Gene Mullin in the district stretching from South San Francisco to the edges of Santa Cruz, it was expected that the winner would cruise to an easy victory in the general election given the overwhelmingly Democratic district. Hill, a ten year county supervisor and San Mateo city councilman before that, was the perceived front runner having gained Mullin’s endorsement and several others. But Papan, seeking to follow in the long political shadow of her father Lou Papan, received the endorsement of nearby state senators, including Leland Yee and Carole Migden. Papan eked out a win over Hill in the primary and expected to rest easy until November, but the entry and quick rise of Green candidate Angela Davis in the district toppled Papan’s hopes. Davis, iconic for her civil rights activism and more recently a professor at UC Santa Cruz, jumped into the race and quickly gained support from some of the more left leaning elements in the district including Papan’s primary opponent Richard Holober. Davis attacked Papan for her ties to special interests including hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by insurance and healthcare companies to support Papan, while Davis pushed for California to continue its commitment to enforcing the employer health insurance mandate and expand it to a state provided universal healthcare. In a moment that was very Angela Davis but perhaps did not help her on the campaign trail, Davis also brought up Papan’s history as a California deputy attorney general in corrections and her directorship in the state’s Office of Criminal Justice Planning. Papan fired back with mailers defending her management experience in the state’s Justice office, but to Davis’s credit it did appear to put Papan on the defensive. With Prop 8 also on the ballot, Davis tied her lesbian identity to the proposition, which likely boosted her in one of the most anti-Prop 8 areas of California. The race was down to the wire between Davis and Papan but Davis narrowly prevailed giving the Green Party their first ever state assembly seat in California[12].
While Davis mostly faced opposition from the Democrats, in the California state senate, the races the Greens hotly contested were much more evenly matched contests between the Green Party, the Democrats, and the Republicans. The 5th Senate district was between Democrat Lois Wolk, Green Jerry McNerney, and Republican Greg Aghazarian. Wolk and Aghazarian were both in the state assembly, while McNerney previously ran for the 11th congressional district in 2006 as a Democrat but lost to Steve Filson in the primary. McNerney, founder and CEO of a wind turbine manufacturing company, switched to the Green Party after McCloskey finished ahead of Filson in the election and announced a run for the 5th senate district. All three candidates received over 100,000 votes in the tightly contested election, but McNerney narrowly finished ahead. McNerney succeeds Mike Machado, who ran for the 11th district and will move up to Congress after defeating Richard Pombo. The other Green gain in the state senate came in the oft covered 3rd senate district. Marin County author and media activist Norm Solomon defeated incumbent Democrat Carole Migden and Republican Sashi McEntee to win the race for the Marin County and east San Francisco district. The petty feud in the primary between Migden and Mark Leno led to Leno declining to make an endorsement, and it seems the majority of those who supported him including many of the district’s large gay community shifted to Solomon.
Outside Maine and California, the Green Party made scattered gains in state legislatures. However, unlike the races in those states, elsewhere the Green victories usually occurred in races where the candidate was only facing a Democrat, or in some cases, no opposition at all. In Colorado, former Boulder councilwoman and current CU Regent Cindy Carlisle won election over former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rollie Heath in the open 18th senate district[13], and Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, at one point friend of Hunter S. Thompson and longtime sheriff in Aspen who faced his first challenger in decades in 2006, opted to move on from the position and defeated moderate Democrat Kathleen Curry to win election to the state house. In Massachusetts, assemblywoman Jill Stein will now be joined by 2006 Green-Rainbow gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross who was elected to a state assembly district a year after winning election to the Worcester city council. In Connecticut, Pat Korte won election to the 43rd house district in the southeastern corner of the state over Republican turned Democrat Diana Urban and Republican candidate Brian Kluberdanz. And in Montana, the Green Party actually became the fourth party to enter the Montana state legislature as the Constitution Party also elected state representative Rick Jore to the state senate and M. Neal Donahue to the state house. The Green Party also elected one senator and one representative: Addrien Marx to the 46th senate district in Missoula and Steeley Lake, and Kathleen Williams[14] to house district 65 in southeastern Bozeman around Montana State University.
However, the oddest election of a Green Party candidate to a state legislature this year may come from, of all places, Arkansas. In the state’s 39th house district that covers much of North Little Rock, representative Dwayne Dobbins was facing a felony sexual assault charge, but agreed to resign from office as part of a plea bargian in order to reduce the charge. His wife, Sharon Dobbins, won the following special election, and many including the state Democratic Party expected her to run for the 2008 election. However, Dwayne Dobbins ran again instead, filing just hours before the deadline, and won the primary with no opponents. The Democrats refused to nominate him and left no candidate on the ballot. It was then that Union Pacific boilermaker Richard Carroll contacted both the Green and Democratic parties about seeking office. With the deadline passed, he would have only been able to run as a Democrat on a write in, so he went for the Green nomination instead. Even as the only candidate on the ballot it was an uphill climb for Carroll. For one, Carroll is white and the 39th district is largely black. He was flat out told many times that a white man could not win in the district, and that a write-in candidate would win over a Green Party candidate actually on the ballot, even as the only candidate listed. The naysayers were proven wrong, as Carroll won nearly 90 percent of the votes in the district. Carroll says that he will likely keep working as a boilermaker throughout his time as a legislator, but switch to working nights while working days in the Capitol. If so, the first Green state legislator in the South certainly has his work cut out for him[15].
[1] In OTL Brownlow did get 5.2% of the vote in the race despite running a practically nonexistent campaign.
[2] Neal lost badly after Democrats lined up behind Hagan in OTL, and he would later say that the lack of support from Democrats over concerns if a gay candidate could win was what hurt his campaign most. Source: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/josh-shaffer/article74683012.html
[3] Shades of the Godless ads from OTL where a PAC's ads quoted Hagan saying "there is no God," and backfired on Dole late in the campaign.
[4] Based on pure universal swing of the presidential, gubernatorial, and senate results, I was actually very favorable to Dole (a bit less to McCrory). Dole only underperforms Pataki by 3 percent instead of 5 percent, while McCrory underperforms by 4.6 compared to 2.3.
[5] Fun fact, their website is still up! https://republicansagainst8.com/who-oppose-proposition-8/
[6] In OTL Shriver spoke against Prop 8 in late October. Here she does so a month or two earlier, and it has more of an effect on her husband's conscience and the campaign.
[7] The Greens getting a higher statewide percentage than the Republicans in Arkansas may seem implausible. However, they did get nearly 20% to the GOP's 27.3% statewide in Arkansas in OTL owing to Boozman being the only candidate. The main difference here is just that the Greens have a full slate of candidates instead of Marion Berry running completely unopposed in AR-1.
[8] So, this is a little bit handwavy because I forgot that a big part of the reason Cao won in OTL was the election being delayed due to Hurricane Gustav resulting in very low turnout. However, there were still a lot of factors working against Jefferson that are still in place, and Rahim being an actually viable alternative helps to justify it.
[9] One of the more fascinating things looking back from today is just how badly Young was expected to lose in 2008. After nearly being primaried by Sean Parnell, Young's loss to Berkowitz was so expected that Young holding onto the seat was often considered one of the top 5 upsets of the 2008 election.
[10] In OTL, Krikorian got 17.7% in the OH-2 election.
[11] Why is this article out of Denver? Because that's where the non-DC headquarters of the National Conference on State Legislatures is, of course!
[12] The 19th assembly district section ended up longer than I expected because I actually hadn't looked up the race before except to see where Angela Davis would be likely to run. The campaign here ended up being a lot more interesting than I originally expected once I found info about it.
[13] In OTL Carlisle ran in the Democratic primary against Heath to succeed Ron Tupa. The primary was very close but Carlisle has said she's been a committed Democrat since JFK, so I waffled on this quite a bit before deciding on Carlisle running as a Green here.
[14] If you recognize the name in Montana politics, yes that is the same Kathleen Williams. When she first ran for state house in 2010 in OTL, she first considered running as an independent before running as a Democrat.
[15] Everything about Richard Carroll and his election to the statehouse is ridiculous. It is also all OTL. Source and just general neat article about him: https://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/mr-carroll-goes-to-little-rock/Content?oid=934230
November 6, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC - As voters celebrate the results of the 2008 elections and the election of the first woman president, the LGBT community has several reasons to celebrate as they gained historic victories on Tuesday. In Colorado, Jared Polis won election to the state’s 2nd district to replace Mark Udall, who will enter the Senate in January. Polis will join two other Democrats, Massachusetts’ Barney Frank and Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin, in the House. However, an even bigger step in LGBT representation in office came in the Senate. In two states on either side of the country, Americans elected the first two LGBT Senators ever.
In Oregon, state senator Kate Brown was elected to the Senate. Brown came out openly as bisexual in the 1990s while a state representative after a newspaper discussing the state’s LGBT caucus mentioned her. She has since been elected to the state senate and was appointed Senate Majority Leader in 2004, the first woman to hold the office in Oregon. Earlier this year, Brown threw her hat into the state’s United States Senate race following several top tier candidates including Congressmen Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio declined to run, and after state house speaker Jeff Merkley chose to run for Oregon Secretary of State instead. Brown faced a difficult run in the Democratic primary with activist Steve Novick. Novick ran hard left in the primary and put up a strong challenge, but Brown’s fundraising ability and experience in the legislature won the day.
The general election was equally as contentious as the primary for Kate Brown. She was up against two term Senator Gordon Smith. The race was highly contested as a key Democratic pickup, but despite Oregon’s growing Democratic lean over the past decade, it was never more than a toss-up. Smith led heavily early in the year, with Brown not showing leading a poll until July. Smith’s campaign attacked Brown on her record in the state legislature, notably highlighting her maneuvering on the 2003 PERS reform bill where, as Senate caucus leader, Brown whipped her fellow legislators to get behind Governor Kulongowski’s attempt to make cuts to the state pension system and then turning around and voting against the bill herself to preserve her ties with state labor unions, leading to a backlash from unions which badly hurt the Democrats in the legislature that voted for the measure. However, as the race grew closer and more attentive, both Kate Brown’s fundraising ability and national Democrats pouring money into the race tipped the scales narrowly against Smith as Democrats attacked Smith for his vote for the Iraq War. His bipartisan efforts in the attempt at an economic recovery bill late in the year did not end up helping his campaign. Even so, it was still a close run thing, and it is that same bipartisanship and reputation as a moderate that may have been Smith’s undoing. David Brownlow, a consultant who ran for Senate under the Constitution Party and was an almost unseen quantity during the campaign, managed to get over 6 percent of the vote[1]. Kate Brown won with just 47.8 percent to Smith’s 45.9 percent, putting Oregon’s Senate seat narrowly in the Democratic column.
While Kate Brown’s win in Oregon was a great victory for both Democrats and LGBT visibility in Washington, on the other side of the country another gay candidate secured what will no doubt go down as one of the greatest election upsets of 2008. The Senate race in North Carolina was originally seen as a potential Democratic pickup as polling showed governor Mike Easley beating Elizabeth Dole 50-42 in a mid-2007 poll. However, Democratic enthusiasm for the race died down when Easley declined to run, and declined further when Congressman Brad Miller, former governor Jim Hunt, and state senator Kay Hagan all decided against entering the race. With the high profile candidates out, attention moved away from North Carolina. Businessman Jim Neal still faced a difficult primary against state representative Grier Martin and attorney Marcus Williams, but a string of key state endorsements including Charlotte’s Black Political Caucus, and from prominent Asheville philanthropist Adelaide Key. However, Neal did not receive the endorsement of many key North Carolina Democratic figures including longtime State Insurance Commissioner Jim Long[2].
Even after Neal won the primary and the race narrowed, endorsements from fellow Democrats were slow to come and Neal faced an uphill fight. The pick of Elizabeth Dole as George Pataki’s running mate gave her a brief bump in polling against Neal, which seemed to further dissuade national Democrats from investing in the race, but Neal’s previous success as a national fundraiser for the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004 helped soften that blow and keep enough pace with Dole. However, it appeared that many Democrats were hesitant to endorse Neal because he is gay, and with same sex marriage a contentious topic across the nation and within the party, the idea that a gay candidate for Senate could win in North Carolina and the potential effect on other candidates’ own campaigns seemed to put them off. Hillary Clinton only endorsed Neal in September, and even Democratic candidate for governor Bev Perdue only formally endorsed Neal after Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Michael Munger, who supports same sex marriage, qualified for the gubernatorial debate and began calling Perdue out for her reticence on the issue.
As November neared, national attention finally returned to North Carolina as the state became a triple battleground for the two parties and polls showed the presidential, Senate, and gubernatorial races all evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. With the campaign heating up, Dole’s position on both the presidential ticket started to become more of a liability as she was forced to divide time between campaigning for Senate and campaigning for Pataki, and as Perdue pulled ahead of Charlotte mayor Pat McRory the question of who Perdue might appoint if Dole lost began to circle, and whether Neal was an acceptable compromise. It is in this environment that perhaps the biggest blunder for Republicans in North Carolina arrived. In October, PACs supporting the Dole and McCrory campaigns began airing ads attacking same sex marriage[3], and in one specific ad directly attacked Neal for his sexuality and Perdue for her endorsement of Neal. Those ads were likely what pushed both campaigns over the edge given the closeness of the state, and turned off some more liberal minded Republicans. North Carolina ended up divided in November with Pataki winning the state at the presidential level by less than a percent, but Dole and McCrory both lost their elections by 2.1 and 3.6 percent respectively[4]. Both Munger and Libertarian Senate nominee Chris Cole received a substantial amount of votes, and while they took from both parties, it is likely that they took slightly more from Republicans than from Democrats. With the returns concluded, Elizabeth Dole now has the odd distinction of both winning and losing an election in the same state in the same year.
***
Anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 Defeated At Ballot Box
November 7, 2008
SACRAMENTO, CA - 2008 has been a year of ups and downs for same sex marriage advocates across the United States. Early in the year, Oregon began allowing domestic partnerships between same sex couples and Washington expanded the rights permitted to domestic partnerships.In May, California’s Supreme Court declared the struck down the state’s ban on gay marriage, allowing same sex marriages to begin or resume across the state in June. In July, Massachusetts overturned a 1913 statute that forbade non-residents from marrying in the state if their marriage would be illegal in their home state, allowing same sex couples from other states to marry in Massachusetts. In October, the state of Connecticut overturned its ban on same sex marriage, becoming the third state after Massachusetts and California to permit it. However, efforts against same sex marriage and LGBT rights quickly mounted. In July, the First Circuit Court upheld the constitutionality of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy that bans gays and lesbians from serving in the military. Arizona and Florida put constitutional amendments on the November ballot to declare marriage as only between one man and one woman. Even before the California Supreme Court struck down the state’s gay marriage ban, activists against gay marriage were preparing a similar constitutional amendment to add back the wording banning same sex marriage in California. On November 4, the people of Arizona and Florida overwhelmingly passed their amendments to ban same sex marriage. However, in a significant victory for same sex marriage advocates in the largest state in the country, voters in California narrowly rejected Proposition 8, keeping same sex marriage legal in the state of California.
The fight over the fate of gay marriage in California was a grueling debate that attracted internaitonal attention and a record amount of campaign spending for any state ballot initiative ever. In total $60 million was raised and spent on Proposition 8; over $30 million each on the sides for and against. The largest financial supporter of Proposition 8 was the Catholic Church. The Catholic fraternal organization the Knights of Columbus contributed over $1 million to the campaign for Proposition 8, and Archbishop of San Francisco George Niderauer publicly campaigned in favor of the proposition. Auxiliary Bishop of San Diego Salvatore Cordileone also personally donated over $5,000 to the campaign and was key in helping draft the ballot initiative. Other evangelical and religious organizations such as the American Family Organization, Focus on the Family, and the LDS Church were vocal in promoting the initiative. However, several other religious organizations opposed it including every Episcopalian bishop in California and many Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League.
On political party support, both parties were divided. State Democrats were solidly in opposition to Prop 8 and many campaigned vigorously against it including both Senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. However, as a presidential candidate Hillary Clinton shied away from the issue while campaigning in California. During the primary, Clinton said she opposes gay marriage but supports civil unions for same sex couples. However, when pressed on it on the campaign trail closer to the election, Clinton declared that while she still “feels civil unions are the best way to achieve equality for gay and lesbian couples in this country,” she holds a belief that the matter should be left to the states. This lines with a 2006 statement Clinton made to gay officials in New York that she would not block New York from enacting a law legalizing same sex marriage. With Republicans, the statements against Prop 8 were more muted for much of the campaign, though they were there. Republicans Against 8[5], an organization started by the Log Cabin Republicans, was the largest group fighting the initiative. They included former Congressman Tom Campbell, Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca, Redondo Beach mayor Mike Gin, and former San Diego police chief Jerry Sanders. Notably, late in the campaign, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger began to speak out against Prop 8 and campaigned increasingly against it in the final month of the campaign. Schwarzenegger’s change of heart seems to have happened shortly following his wife Maria Shriver speaking out against Prop 8 in early September[6]. The only party that has been strongly and visibly against Proposition 8 is the Green Party. San Francisco mayor Matt Gonzalez assembly candidate Norm Solomon have spoken at dozens of rallies in San Francisco to drive turnout in the Bay Area. Assembly candidate Angela Davis took time away from a difficult election campaign in October to do a statewide tour speaking out against Prop 8 in minority communities in Oakland, Los Angeles, and other areas around the state.
Despite the efforts against Prop 8, the vote still came down to the wire. However, the advocates for same sex marriage did win out in the polls. Both Yes and No got nearly 7 million votes, but the No side won by barely 65,000 votes. Predictably, there have been protests around the state since the failure of Prop 8, and it sounds like there will already be yet another court challenge. The ultimate future of same sex marriage in California is still likely in flux, but for now it is a great victory for gays and lesbians in California and in the United States.
Additionally, while the focus has been on Prop 8 throughout this campaign, there were other initiatives on the California ballot this year. Among them, Prop 1A passed, which will allocate nearly $10 billion to the California High Speed Rail Authority to construct the proposed high speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Prop 11 also passed, which changes how redistricting is done for state assembly and state senate seats to an independent Citizens’ Redistricting Commission as opposed to being passed by the state legislature. Congressional districts will still be approved by the legislature. While Prop 11 passed, another ballot initiative that would affect how California conducts its elections, Prop 13, failed on Tuesday. Prop 13 would have adopted “fusion” balloting, allowing multiple parties to endorse a single candidate and appear beside the candidate’s name on the ballot. Prop 13 was heavily pushed for by Mike Feinstein of the Green Party, but fell short of a majority.
***
In House of Representatives, Democrats Build Comfortably on 2006 Gains
November 9, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC - Following the results of the 2006 midterm elections, the Democratic Party regained control of the House of Representatives for the first time since the 1994 Republican Revolution. While the 234 seats won by the Democrats were a fairly sizable majority on part with the best the Republicans had been able to reach during their brief hold on the chamber, the question remained. Were the comfortable majorities the Democrats had been able to command for decades prior to 1994 still attainable by either party, or was the House of Representatives now entering a new era of narrow majorities and continuous, contentious fights for control of the chamber every two years? Now, that question has been resoundingly answered in the affirmative as Democrats have nearly equaled the amount of seats they gained in 2006 to reach a majority not seen since 1992.
With the final results of the 2008 elections now in, a total of 266 Democrats and 169 Republicans will be sent to Washington at the beginning of the new year. This marks a net gain for the Democrats of 29 seats from the Republicans - nearly reaching the 2006 results of 32 Democratic gains. Among the seats flipped by the Democrats last Tuesday were some held by long time Republican incumbents. Joe Knollenberg, a Republican who represented Michigan’s 9th district in suburban Detroit since 1992, lost to Democrat Gary Peters by over 9 points. In California, state senator Mike Machado unseated Richard Pombo. Pombo had held the Central Valley seat since 1993 and survived reelection in 2006 after the Democrats and Greens evenly split the votes against him. However, with no Green candidate in the race this time, Pombo lost to Machado by 8 percent. In South Carolina, four term Republican Henry Brown Jr. was unseated by activist Linda Ketner in the coastal 1st district that Democrats had long thought was permanently lost to them after redistricting moved parts of the Charleston area out of the district.
Elsewhere, especially in the South, Democrats made considerable inroads in areas that have troubled them in recent years. In Kentucky, after John Yarmuth won back the Louisville centered 3rd district that had eluded Democrats during Anne Northup’s five terms in Congress, Democrats were eager to expand their horizons in the Bluegrass State. The state’s 2nd district presented an opportunity. Republican Representative Ron Lewis announced his retirement on the last day to file hoping to deliver the seat to his chief of staff Daniel London, but London was defeated in the primary by state senator Brett Guthrie of Bowling Green. Democrats chose David Boswell, a veteran of Kentucky politics having been in elected office nearly constantly since 1979, and relatively conservative Democrat. Boswell received the support of a number of pro-life organizations, and ultimately narrowly defeated Guthrie to flip the 2nd district. However, the 2nd district was not the Democrats’ main focus in Kentucky; that honor would go to the 4th district in the state’s northeast along the Ohio River. The district had been held by Democrat Ken Lucas from 1999 to 2005, but when Lucas retired in 2004, Democratic nominee Nick Clooney lost the seat to Republican Geoff Davis. Lucas attempted to win the seat back in 2006 in one of the most anticipated House races of the midterm, but lost to Davis by nearly the same margin as Clooney had two years before. Going into the primary, it was looking like Lucas might run once again until Clooney jumped in. Clooney, a former television anchor and renowned journalist and father of actor George Clooney, was seen as a formidable opponent, in part because of the fundraising ability of his partnership with his son. While Davis started off well, he seemed to flag against Clooney as the campaign dragged on. However, a wrench was thrown into the Clooney campaign with poet Wendell Berry’s Green Party candidacy for the district. Berry originally ran when it looked like Lucas would once again run for the district, but when Clooney was nominated and Berry did not withdraw, Democratic strategists raised concerns of Berry being a spoiler for what started to look like a winnable race. Those concerns were unfounded in the end as Clooney won with 50.8% of the vote. In fact, Berry’s performance in the western parts of the district including traditionally Republican Oldham County may have hurt Davis more than it hurt Clooney.
Wendell Berry in Kentucky’s 4th district coupled with how the Green Party did elsewhere in the Upper South may lead to the conclusion that the Greens are growing in that area, but it is important to put the other races into perspective. Take Arkansas, for example. There, on the surface the Green Party did shockingly well. Jim Lendall received almost 20 percent in the Senate race, and in the state’s House races the Greens won over 200,000 votes overall in the state, more than even the Republican Party! However, aside from winning a seat in Arkansas’s state legislature, these surges by the Greens are very deceptive. Senator Mark Pryor had no Republican opposition, leaving Lendall his only opponent. In such cases where a candidate has only minor parties as their opponent, it is common for a minor party to receive anywhere between 10 and 25 percent of the vote as a simple protest measure. The case is similar with the US House races. The Green Party was the only party to contest all four House races in Arkansas this year. Receiving around 50,000 votes in each district, most notably Rebekah Kennedy’s 70,000 votes and over 25% vote share against John Boozman in the 3rd district, were able to push them above the statewide total of the Republicans, who only had the incumbent Boozman running and did not have any candidate in the 1st, 2nd, and 4th districts. Kennedy’s name recognition from her run for state attorney general two years ago combined with the lack of a Democrat in the 3rd district propelled her to the far higher vote total than she would have otherwise received[7].
However, that is not to say that third parties have not played a significant role in any more House races this election. Third party and independent candidates played a significant role in Republicans retaining at least three seats that may have been otherwise lost to the Democrats, as well as helping Democrats flip one. In Louisiana, three of the state’s seven seats changed hands. While Paul Camouche’s victory for the Democrats in the 4th district can be explained simply as the retirement of an entrenched Republican opening up a swing seat, the Republican flips of the 2nd and 6th districts are more complicated. In the 6th district, Republican Richard Baker’s resignation earlier this year led to a special election that Democrat Don Cazayoux won by a thin 49-47 margin. Going into the election for a full term in the Baton Rouge area district, Cazayoux was a top target for Republicans to regain the seat. Cazayoux nearly kept his seat, but state representative Michael L. Jackson, who lost to Cazayoux in the special election primary, ran as an independent and won 12 percent and over 35,000 votes, far more than the under 14,000 votes which separated Cazayoux and Republican victor Bill Cassidy. Meanwhile in the 2nd district that includes New Orleans, a similar story played out to give Republicans one of the biggest shocks of the 2008 election. Incumbent Democrat William Jefferson was recently indicted on corruption charges, and was up against Vietnamese-American lawyer Joseph Cao. Since the district includes New Orleans, it was heavily favored for the Democrats despite Jefferson’s indictment. However, Green candidate Malik Rahim, who made waves last year in the gubernatorial election, made a strong showing as a left alternative to Jefferson. Additionally, with Jefferson’s indictment, several Democratic lawmakers flipped to endorse Cao shortly before the election. Cao defeated Jefferson by just 4,831 votes[8]. He will be the first Vietnamese-American and first Vietnamese-born member of Congress as well as the first Republican to represent New Orleans in the House since 1891.
Third parties also helped Republicans hold onto a precarious House seat in Alaska. Don Young was running for his 19th term in the House, and faced two of his strongest challenges since 1992. Lieutenant governor Sean Parnell attempted to primary Young from the right and gained support from governor Sarah Palin and the Club For Growth. The primary was bitter, and Young only defeated Parnell by a handful of votes that hinged on the overseas returns. In the general election, Young faced Democratic nominee Ethan Berkowitz, a state representative until 2007, and Alaska Independence Party nominee Don Wright. Berkowitz was initially seen as a slight favorite given the environment of 2008 and Young was expected to finally lose reelection[9], but polls narrowed closer to November. The Alaska Independence Party hoped to do as well as Bob Bird did in the Senate race, while Democrats hoped Berkowitz would repeat Fran Ulmer’s accomplishment of unseating Ted Stevens. While Wright did win 5.7 percent of the vote, besting Bird’s Senate percentage, it seems more of it came from Democrats. Young finished under 50 percent for the first time in his career since 1992 but still beat Berkowitz by 2.4 percent. While AKIP’s strength did not help Democrats in Alaska, they did receive some help from a very strong independent campaign in Ohio’s 2nd district. After Rob Portman was appointed US Trade Representative by President Bush in 2005, Republican Jean Schmidt won the special election by less than 4,000 votes in a race that received national attention. In 2006 when Schmidt sought a full term against doctor Victoria Wulsin, her margin shrank to fewer than 2,500 votes. This year, Wulsin again challenged Schmidt, and polls showed the race to be extremely close. However, this time an unexpected factor for both parties threw the race into even more of a mystery than it already was. David Kirkorian, an area businessman with an MBA from the University of Cincinnati, jumped into the race as an independent. He quickly received high profile endorsements from the Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police the Georgetown News Democrat, and, while he will not be appearing on the ballot under their name, the Ohio Libertarian Party. Kirkorian ended up taking over 20 percent of the vote in the district[10], a phenomenal result for an independent candidate in a race with both a Democrat and Republican. The real question on people’s minds though was which of the two parties the race would tip to. As the final votes were counted, Victoria Wulsin and the Democrats came away the victor with just over 42 percent of the vote. In a two way comparison Wulsin did very well, defeating Schmidt by over 5 percent, but Kirkorian’s 21.2 percent and over 70,000 votes were no doubt the determining factor in the race. Even so, Wulsin and southern Ohio Democrats will take a win in an area where they have made gains but struggled to break through in recent years.
***
Green Breakthrough as Party Wins First Seats in Several States
November 12, 2008
DENVER, CO[11] - In the presidential election, the Green Party reached historic highs in the popular vote. Green candidate Pete McCloskey won over 4 million votes and won 3.1% of the popular vote, more than even Ralph Nader’s 2000 run. That alone might have been enough to consider this a breakthrough election for the Greens. However, that was not the only achievement by the party in the elections by far. The Greens have finally made a true breakthrough in gaining elected office. In this year’s elections, the Green Party has gone from just 4 seats in the lower levels of state legislatures to 10 seats in lower houses and 5 seats in upper houses of state legislatures across the country.
As has been the case since the Green Party started gaining traction at the beginning of the decade, the greatest gains for the party in this year’s state legislative elections were in California and Maine. In Maine, the Greens held on to all three of their Portland area house districts with incumbents Benjamin Meiklejohn and Jason Rogers won reelection and city councillor David Marshall moving into the 118th district seat formerly held by John Eder. Eder, who was term limited in his house seat, successfully moved up to the state senate in a victory in the 8th senate district. With Eder the first Green member of a state legislature to serve a full term and narrowly winning a third term two years ago, there was speculation on what the pioneering representative would do once he was term limited. Some thought he would run for Congress or wait to run for governor in 2010, but it seems Eder is happy to remain in the state house for now. Additionally, it was also questionable whether the Green Party could successfully hold an open seat. Both Eder’s move to the state senate and Marshall’s win over Justin Alford have proven the Green Party has become more than a flash in the pan in Portland.
In California, the Green Party continued to show their strength concentrated around the Bay Area, and were able to at last gain ground beyond San Francisco and city or county offices. In the state assembly, the 19th district saw a tense three way Democratic primary between San Mateo County Supervisor Jerry Hill, Milbrae mayor Gina Papan, and community college board president Richard Holober. Early in the primary to replace term limited Gene Mullin in the district stretching from South San Francisco to the edges of Santa Cruz, it was expected that the winner would cruise to an easy victory in the general election given the overwhelmingly Democratic district. Hill, a ten year county supervisor and San Mateo city councilman before that, was the perceived front runner having gained Mullin’s endorsement and several others. But Papan, seeking to follow in the long political shadow of her father Lou Papan, received the endorsement of nearby state senators, including Leland Yee and Carole Migden. Papan eked out a win over Hill in the primary and expected to rest easy until November, but the entry and quick rise of Green candidate Angela Davis in the district toppled Papan’s hopes. Davis, iconic for her civil rights activism and more recently a professor at UC Santa Cruz, jumped into the race and quickly gained support from some of the more left leaning elements in the district including Papan’s primary opponent Richard Holober. Davis attacked Papan for her ties to special interests including hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by insurance and healthcare companies to support Papan, while Davis pushed for California to continue its commitment to enforcing the employer health insurance mandate and expand it to a state provided universal healthcare. In a moment that was very Angela Davis but perhaps did not help her on the campaign trail, Davis also brought up Papan’s history as a California deputy attorney general in corrections and her directorship in the state’s Office of Criminal Justice Planning. Papan fired back with mailers defending her management experience in the state’s Justice office, but to Davis’s credit it did appear to put Papan on the defensive. With Prop 8 also on the ballot, Davis tied her lesbian identity to the proposition, which likely boosted her in one of the most anti-Prop 8 areas of California. The race was down to the wire between Davis and Papan but Davis narrowly prevailed giving the Green Party their first ever state assembly seat in California[12].
While Davis mostly faced opposition from the Democrats, in the California state senate, the races the Greens hotly contested were much more evenly matched contests between the Green Party, the Democrats, and the Republicans. The 5th Senate district was between Democrat Lois Wolk, Green Jerry McNerney, and Republican Greg Aghazarian. Wolk and Aghazarian were both in the state assembly, while McNerney previously ran for the 11th congressional district in 2006 as a Democrat but lost to Steve Filson in the primary. McNerney, founder and CEO of a wind turbine manufacturing company, switched to the Green Party after McCloskey finished ahead of Filson in the election and announced a run for the 5th senate district. All three candidates received over 100,000 votes in the tightly contested election, but McNerney narrowly finished ahead. McNerney succeeds Mike Machado, who ran for the 11th district and will move up to Congress after defeating Richard Pombo. The other Green gain in the state senate came in the oft covered 3rd senate district. Marin County author and media activist Norm Solomon defeated incumbent Democrat Carole Migden and Republican Sashi McEntee to win the race for the Marin County and east San Francisco district. The petty feud in the primary between Migden and Mark Leno led to Leno declining to make an endorsement, and it seems the majority of those who supported him including many of the district’s large gay community shifted to Solomon.
Outside Maine and California, the Green Party made scattered gains in state legislatures. However, unlike the races in those states, elsewhere the Green victories usually occurred in races where the candidate was only facing a Democrat, or in some cases, no opposition at all. In Colorado, former Boulder councilwoman and current CU Regent Cindy Carlisle won election over former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rollie Heath in the open 18th senate district[13], and Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, at one point friend of Hunter S. Thompson and longtime sheriff in Aspen who faced his first challenger in decades in 2006, opted to move on from the position and defeated moderate Democrat Kathleen Curry to win election to the state house. In Massachusetts, assemblywoman Jill Stein will now be joined by 2006 Green-Rainbow gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross who was elected to a state assembly district a year after winning election to the Worcester city council. In Connecticut, Pat Korte won election to the 43rd house district in the southeastern corner of the state over Republican turned Democrat Diana Urban and Republican candidate Brian Kluberdanz. And in Montana, the Green Party actually became the fourth party to enter the Montana state legislature as the Constitution Party also elected state representative Rick Jore to the state senate and M. Neal Donahue to the state house. The Green Party also elected one senator and one representative: Addrien Marx to the 46th senate district in Missoula and Steeley Lake, and Kathleen Williams[14] to house district 65 in southeastern Bozeman around Montana State University.
However, the oddest election of a Green Party candidate to a state legislature this year may come from, of all places, Arkansas. In the state’s 39th house district that covers much of North Little Rock, representative Dwayne Dobbins was facing a felony sexual assault charge, but agreed to resign from office as part of a plea bargian in order to reduce the charge. His wife, Sharon Dobbins, won the following special election, and many including the state Democratic Party expected her to run for the 2008 election. However, Dwayne Dobbins ran again instead, filing just hours before the deadline, and won the primary with no opponents. The Democrats refused to nominate him and left no candidate on the ballot. It was then that Union Pacific boilermaker Richard Carroll contacted both the Green and Democratic parties about seeking office. With the deadline passed, he would have only been able to run as a Democrat on a write in, so he went for the Green nomination instead. Even as the only candidate on the ballot it was an uphill climb for Carroll. For one, Carroll is white and the 39th district is largely black. He was flat out told many times that a white man could not win in the district, and that a write-in candidate would win over a Green Party candidate actually on the ballot, even as the only candidate listed. The naysayers were proven wrong, as Carroll won nearly 90 percent of the votes in the district. Carroll says that he will likely keep working as a boilermaker throughout his time as a legislator, but switch to working nights while working days in the Capitol. If so, the first Green state legislator in the South certainly has his work cut out for him[15].
[1] In OTL Brownlow did get 5.2% of the vote in the race despite running a practically nonexistent campaign.
[2] Neal lost badly after Democrats lined up behind Hagan in OTL, and he would later say that the lack of support from Democrats over concerns if a gay candidate could win was what hurt his campaign most. Source: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/josh-shaffer/article74683012.html
[3] Shades of the Godless ads from OTL where a PAC's ads quoted Hagan saying "there is no God," and backfired on Dole late in the campaign.
[4] Based on pure universal swing of the presidential, gubernatorial, and senate results, I was actually very favorable to Dole (a bit less to McCrory). Dole only underperforms Pataki by 3 percent instead of 5 percent, while McCrory underperforms by 4.6 compared to 2.3.
[5] Fun fact, their website is still up! https://republicansagainst8.com/who-oppose-proposition-8/
[6] In OTL Shriver spoke against Prop 8 in late October. Here she does so a month or two earlier, and it has more of an effect on her husband's conscience and the campaign.
[7] The Greens getting a higher statewide percentage than the Republicans in Arkansas may seem implausible. However, they did get nearly 20% to the GOP's 27.3% statewide in Arkansas in OTL owing to Boozman being the only candidate. The main difference here is just that the Greens have a full slate of candidates instead of Marion Berry running completely unopposed in AR-1.
[8] So, this is a little bit handwavy because I forgot that a big part of the reason Cao won in OTL was the election being delayed due to Hurricane Gustav resulting in very low turnout. However, there were still a lot of factors working against Jefferson that are still in place, and Rahim being an actually viable alternative helps to justify it.
[9] One of the more fascinating things looking back from today is just how badly Young was expected to lose in 2008. After nearly being primaried by Sean Parnell, Young's loss to Berkowitz was so expected that Young holding onto the seat was often considered one of the top 5 upsets of the 2008 election.
[10] In OTL, Krikorian got 17.7% in the OH-2 election.
[11] Why is this article out of Denver? Because that's where the non-DC headquarters of the National Conference on State Legislatures is, of course!
[12] The 19th assembly district section ended up longer than I expected because I actually hadn't looked up the race before except to see where Angela Davis would be likely to run. The campaign here ended up being a lot more interesting than I originally expected once I found info about it.
[13] In OTL Carlisle ran in the Democratic primary against Heath to succeed Ron Tupa. The primary was very close but Carlisle has said she's been a committed Democrat since JFK, so I waffled on this quite a bit before deciding on Carlisle running as a Green here.
[14] If you recognize the name in Montana politics, yes that is the same Kathleen Williams. When she first ran for state house in 2010 in OTL, she first considered running as an independent before running as a Democrat.
[15] Everything about Richard Carroll and his election to the statehouse is ridiculous. It is also all OTL. Source and just general neat article about him: https://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/mr-carroll-goes-to-little-rock/Content?oid=934230
Last edited:
Also since I finally got to the 2008 House elections I can finally make this wikibox.
Bookmark1995
Banned
Also since I finally got to the 2008 House elections I can finally make this wikibox.
I think its incredible that the Greens could get a foothold in ARKANSAS.
I don't think I'll find a way to fit in talking about the 2008 Minnesota Senate election in the text, which is unfortunate, but on the upside that makes it the top priority for the planned 2008 wikiboxes!
Oh no!I don't think I'll find a way to fit in talking about the 2008 Minnesota Senate election in the text, which is unfortunate, but on the upside that makes it the top priority for the planned 2008 wikiboxes!
Another few wikiboxes done! The North Carolina ones were a bit easier to do and I figured they'd make a good set.
Pataki outperforming conservative Republicans and being the only one to win in NC is good to see. That place will have a much brighter decade without McCory.
I wonder how the breakdown happened in some other states.
I wonder how the breakdown happened in some other states.
Well, this was a bigger undertaking than expected, but finally, I have a treat for you all! With a lot more smaller races like state legislative districts being highlighted in the TL, I wanted to experiment with maybe doing a couple precinct-level election maps. I'm not sure how many of them I'll do since this took a while, but I'm glad I tried it out.
EDIT: And since it's Turtledove season, let this be the For Your Consideration for nominating Green Revolution in Best Cold War and Contemporary.
Anyway, here's the result!
I wanted to do the 3rd Senate district since it's so focused on San Francisco. In SF, Solomon is strongest in the areas where the Greens were historically strongest at their height in Haight, the Castro, and the Mission. Migden still gets most of the rest of the city, but the vote split between the Democrats and the Greens let McEntee eke out wins in a couple precincts in the financial district and Marina District. McEntee does better in the Marin County and Sonoma County areas of the district especially in Mill Valley and Tiburon as well as the more rural areas of Sonoma County, while Migden performs her worst in Marin County while maintaining better traditionally Democratic support in Sonoma. For Solomon in the North Bay, I mainly had him winning the more creative or hippie areas like Petaluma, Point Reyes, and Sausalito, as well as the more Hispanic areas of the cities in both counties. Solomon's win in the 3rd is primarily due to his ability to appeal across all areas of the district while both McEntee and Migden had trouble in certain counties - Migden in Marin and McEntee in San Francisco.
EDIT: And since it's Turtledove season, let this be the For Your Consideration for nominating Green Revolution in Best Cold War and Contemporary.
Anyway, here's the result!
I wanted to do the 3rd Senate district since it's so focused on San Francisco. In SF, Solomon is strongest in the areas where the Greens were historically strongest at their height in Haight, the Castro, and the Mission. Migden still gets most of the rest of the city, but the vote split between the Democrats and the Greens let McEntee eke out wins in a couple precincts in the financial district and Marina District. McEntee does better in the Marin County and Sonoma County areas of the district especially in Mill Valley and Tiburon as well as the more rural areas of Sonoma County, while Migden performs her worst in Marin County while maintaining better traditionally Democratic support in Sonoma. For Solomon in the North Bay, I mainly had him winning the more creative or hippie areas like Petaluma, Point Reyes, and Sausalito, as well as the more Hispanic areas of the cities in both counties. Solomon's win in the 3rd is primarily due to his ability to appeal across all areas of the district while both McEntee and Migden had trouble in certain counties - Migden in Marin and McEntee in San Francisco.
Last edited:
Consider this thread nominated!EDIT: And since it's Turtledove season, let this be the For Your Consideration for nominating Green Revolution in Best Cold War and Contemporary.
Another measure I thought might be interesting. State legislator count as a result of the 2008 elections. Yes, the National Council on State Legislatures does use a donut chart for this. No I don't know why.
4060 Democrats
3235 Republicans
15 Greens
2 Constitution
1 Independence Party of New York
5 Vermont Progressive Party
64 Independent or Non-Partisan*
*This includes the 49 members of the non-partisan unicameral Nebraska legislature
And while I can't promise to do this again, I wanted to do it now, so here is a list of all state legislators ITTL who are not Democrats or Republicans.
Arkansas
Richard Carroll (G), 39th House district
California
Norm Solomon (G), 3rd Senate district
Jerry McNerney (G), 5th Senate district
Angela Davis (G), 19th Assembly district
Colorado
Cindy Carlisle (G), 18th Senate district
Bob Braudis (G), 61st House district
Connecticut
Pat Korte (G), 43rd House district
Kentucky
Bob Leeper (I), 2nd Senate district
Louisiana
Nancy Landry (I), 31st House district
Joel Robideau (I), 45th House district
Jerome Richard (I), 55th House district
Maine
John Eder (G), 8th Senate district
Tom Saviello (I), 90th House district
Thomas Mooney (I), 18th House district
David Marshall (G), 118th House district
Jason Rogers (G), 119th House district
Benjamin Meiklejohn (G), 120th House district
Maryland
Richard Weldon Jr. (I), 3b House district
Massachusetts
Timothy Madden (I), Barnstable, Dukes, and Nantucket district
Jill Stein (G), 9th Middlesex House district
Grace Ross (G), 15th Worcester House district
Montana
Rick Jore (C), 6th Senate district
Addrien Marx (G), 46th Senate district
M. Neal Donahue (C), 11th House district
Kathleen Williams (G), 65th House district
New York
Timothy Gordon (NYIP), 108th Assembly district
Rhode Island
Edward O'Neill (I), 17th House district
Vermont
Will Stevens (I), Addison-Rutland House district
Edward Stone (I), Chittenden 1-2 House district
David Zuckerman (VPP), Chittenden 3-4 House district
Susan Davis (VPP), Orange 1 House district
Paul Poirier (I), Washington 3-1 House district
Molli Burke (VPP), Windham 3-2 House district
Sarah Edwards (VPP), Windham 3-3 House district
Sandy Haas (VPP), Windsor-Rutland 2 House district
Virginia
Lacey Putney (I), 19th House district
Watkins Abbitt Jr. (I), 59th House district
Wisconsin
Jeff Wood (I), 67th Assembly district
4060 Democrats
3235 Republicans
15 Greens
2 Constitution
1 Independence Party of New York
5 Vermont Progressive Party
64 Independent or Non-Partisan*
*This includes the 49 members of the non-partisan unicameral Nebraska legislature
And while I can't promise to do this again, I wanted to do it now, so here is a list of all state legislators ITTL who are not Democrats or Republicans.
Arkansas
Richard Carroll (G), 39th House district
California
Norm Solomon (G), 3rd Senate district
Jerry McNerney (G), 5th Senate district
Angela Davis (G), 19th Assembly district
Colorado
Cindy Carlisle (G), 18th Senate district
Bob Braudis (G), 61st House district
Connecticut
Pat Korte (G), 43rd House district
Kentucky
Bob Leeper (I), 2nd Senate district
Louisiana
Nancy Landry (I), 31st House district
Joel Robideau (I), 45th House district
Jerome Richard (I), 55th House district
Maine
John Eder (G), 8th Senate district
Tom Saviello (I), 90th House district
Thomas Mooney (I), 18th House district
David Marshall (G), 118th House district
Jason Rogers (G), 119th House district
Benjamin Meiklejohn (G), 120th House district
Maryland
Richard Weldon Jr. (I), 3b House district
Massachusetts
Timothy Madden (I), Barnstable, Dukes, and Nantucket district
Jill Stein (G), 9th Middlesex House district
Grace Ross (G), 15th Worcester House district
Montana
Rick Jore (C), 6th Senate district
Addrien Marx (G), 46th Senate district
M. Neal Donahue (C), 11th House district
Kathleen Williams (G), 65th House district
New York
Timothy Gordon (NYIP), 108th Assembly district
Rhode Island
Edward O'Neill (I), 17th House district
Vermont
Will Stevens (I), Addison-Rutland House district
Edward Stone (I), Chittenden 1-2 House district
David Zuckerman (VPP), Chittenden 3-4 House district
Susan Davis (VPP), Orange 1 House district
Paul Poirier (I), Washington 3-1 House district
Molli Burke (VPP), Windham 3-2 House district
Sarah Edwards (VPP), Windham 3-3 House district
Sandy Haas (VPP), Windsor-Rutland 2 House district
Virginia
Lacey Putney (I), 19th House district
Watkins Abbitt Jr. (I), 59th House district
Wisconsin
Jeff Wood (I), 67th Assembly district