The following post is told from the perspective of a peaceful green progressive but it could just as well be told from an anti-interventionist libertarian point of view.
We need a realistic strategy that puts principles above party while recognizing the limitations of both the Green and the Democratic parties in electing a peaceful green progressive president. This would mean of course electing as many Greens and truly progressive Democrats as possible to local, state and national offices.
We also need to recognize that gerrymandering of districts restricts how many US House and State congressional races are within play. The GP will probably not win any elections above small city mayor within the foreseeable future without some very outside the box electoral tactics.
Any strategy which is going to elect Green candidates above small city mayoral races will need to garner precious political and financial resources. Some have suggested suspending the GP's anti-corporate financing pledge. I am opposed to this as it could set a dangerous precedent which undermines the principles of our party, but even if we tapped green corporate money, we would still need far more radical tactics to make anything significant happen.
So how might we deal with this dilemma of needing to win election to state and national offices given our financial limitations and the political inertia of gerrymandered districts?
I would suggest that we look first to districts and states where the incumbent is retiring. Next we should focus on solid Democratic districts and states among these open seats. Finally, we should narrow these down to where the Democratic primary is closely contested by several candidates.
Once we have determined these districts and/or states, we need to find two principled peaceful green progressive candidates for each, one to endorse within the Democratic party and one to run as the GP nominee. We need to make our endorsement of the Democratic candidate conditional on her or his willingness to endorse the Green candidate should the progressive green Democrat fail to secure the primary nomination. As an added incentive, we need to promise that should he or she be the Democratic nominee, the Green Party candidate would withdraw from the general election and endorse the Democratic nominee.
Given this scenario of de facto fusion candidacies within reliably Democratic states and districts, we should be realistic about where this is most likely to occur and focus resources in these few areas. My guess is that given the precise mathematical rigidity of 21st century gerrymandering, we are more likely to elect progressive Democrats to the US House and Greens to the US Senate and state legislatures and executive offices.
These scenarios are more likely if Greens are willing to make realistic assessments not only of viable districts but also be willing to garner resources through cooperative voting tactics with Libertarian party and Constitution party candidates. I know this is a distasteful tactic but if we are to get the resources we need to make the difference that urgently needs to be made, we must be willing to exploit our rivals and "plunder the Egyptians."
So how do we part the political Red Sea? We must be willing to to talk with outsiders of contrary ideologies and convince them that we need one another's help if we are going to drown the corporate Pharaoh. This would require supporting libertarians and cultural conservatives both inside and outside of the Republican party in Red district and Red state primaries. It might require green, libertarian and cultural conservative candidates mutually endorsing one another and encouraging pragmatic crossover voting and discouraging Quixotic candidacies in unwinnable districts and states.
These measures may seem desperate and morally untenable but the real urgency of time and circumstances demand it. Those who wish to justify refraining from such urgent tactics in favor of puritanical politics must give evidence that our planet and the cause of peaceful democracy have several election cycles remaining to turn the tide of global warming and to overthrow the catastrophe of corporate cannibalism.
Once we are convinced that Roosevelt did need Stalin to defeat Hitler and his fascist allies in Europe and Japan (or to put it more modestly, that Washington needed Rochambeau to defeat Cornwallis), we can add to this mix a realistic strategy for the 2016 presidential election. Anything short of a Green/Libertarian alliance ticket has zero chance of winning the White House for outsiders.
Given that such a ticket is politically impossible, what might we hope to realistically achieve? There might be a hope that a strong Green Party national candidacy would produce coattails down ticket. That is certainly a limited potentiality but insufficient to meet the urgency of the hour. What we might be able to do is seize substantial leadership posts and with them the ability to move good legislation to both floors of the capitol if we can mount a presidential campaign which throws an indecisive general election into the congress.
How can this power play be made? It requires much the same tactics outlined above. We need to find candidates both inside and outside of the major parties. For example, Dennis Kucinich could challenge Hillary Clinton in the primary and once the corporate hammer came down on him, he could endorse the Green Party ticket, preferably an hour or two before Clinton makes her acceptance speech. The GP ticket must be a solid one. I sympathize with efforts to recruit Bernie Sanders to bear our banner. With enough cajoling, he might just do it, but we need him in the VP slot so we can undermine the Hillary and the potential Susana Martinez candidacies with Jill Stein at the top of our ticket.
We ought to direct our resources toward winning Vermont and/or assisting the Republican nominees to victory in Ohio and/or Pennsylvania. Even then this Kucinich-endorsed Stein/Sanders ticket may still not be enough to force the election into congress. We would stand a better chance if we also did mutual endorsements and crossover voting with the Libertarian ticket of Gary Johnson and Andrew Napolitano (backed by a well burnt Rand Paul) in our three target states and their five target states of New Mexico, Kentucky, Nevada, Colorado and North Carolina. Of course, we ought to avoid wasting precious resources campaigning anywhere outside of of these 8 states except to help a few local and state candidates in viable elections.
The likely outcome of such a strategy in the presidential race is that the house chooses a Republican president and the Senate has a very close vote which is decided by Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders. A deal could be made in such circumstances to elect Julian Castro vice president. (Yes .. I do suspect you will reconsider your dismissal of this post when you discover that Clinton/Castro will face Martinez/Huckabee in the corporate showdown.)
The election of an Hispanic Republican President and an Hispanic Democratic Vice President with Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders dictating the Senate agenda and overseeing President Martinez's cabinet and court nominees along with a chaotic and closely divided House (perhaps with a Democratic majority electing a Republican president) could be disruptive enough to start a real revolution that brings the corporate PTB to their knees.
In any case, more conventional, imitation corporate campaigns in '14 and '16 will get us nowhere.
Time to get out of the box and make something real happen or else just admit you don't really feel too threatened by corporate totalitarianism.
Fess up and tell us why we need to wait on the timid tactics of tribal politics and fairy tale fearfulness.
We need a realistic strategy that puts principles above party while recognizing the limitations of both the Green and the Democratic parties in electing a peaceful green progressive president. This would mean of course electing as many Greens and truly progressive Democrats as possible to local, state and national offices.
We also need to recognize that gerrymandering of districts restricts how many US House and State congressional races are within play. The GP will probably not win any elections above small city mayor within the foreseeable future without some very outside the box electoral tactics.
Any strategy which is going to elect Green candidates above small city mayoral races will need to garner precious political and financial resources. Some have suggested suspending the GP's anti-corporate financing pledge. I am opposed to this as it could set a dangerous precedent which undermines the principles of our party, but even if we tapped green corporate money, we would still need far more radical tactics to make anything significant happen.
So how might we deal with this dilemma of needing to win election to state and national offices given our financial limitations and the political inertia of gerrymandered districts?
I would suggest that we look first to districts and states where the incumbent is retiring. Next we should focus on solid Democratic districts and states among these open seats. Finally, we should narrow these down to where the Democratic primary is closely contested by several candidates.
Once we have determined these districts and/or states, we need to find two principled peaceful green progressive candidates for each, one to endorse within the Democratic party and one to run as the GP nominee. We need to make our endorsement of the Democratic candidate conditional on her or his willingness to endorse the Green candidate should the progressive green Democrat fail to secure the primary nomination. As an added incentive, we need to promise that should he or she be the Democratic nominee, the Green Party candidate would withdraw from the general election and endorse the Democratic nominee.
Given this scenario of de facto fusion candidacies within reliably Democratic states and districts, we should be realistic about where this is most likely to occur and focus resources in these few areas. My guess is that given the precise mathematical rigidity of 21st century gerrymandering, we are more likely to elect progressive Democrats to the US House and Greens to the US Senate and state legislatures and executive offices.
These scenarios are more likely if Greens are willing to make realistic assessments not only of viable districts but also be willing to garner resources through cooperative voting tactics with Libertarian party and Constitution party candidates. I know this is a distasteful tactic but if we are to get the resources we need to make the difference that urgently needs to be made, we must be willing to exploit our rivals and "plunder the Egyptians."
So how do we part the political Red Sea? We must be willing to to talk with outsiders of contrary ideologies and convince them that we need one another's help if we are going to drown the corporate Pharaoh. This would require supporting libertarians and cultural conservatives both inside and outside of the Republican party in Red district and Red state primaries. It might require green, libertarian and cultural conservative candidates mutually endorsing one another and encouraging pragmatic crossover voting and discouraging Quixotic candidacies in unwinnable districts and states.
These measures may seem desperate and morally untenable but the real urgency of time and circumstances demand it. Those who wish to justify refraining from such urgent tactics in favor of puritanical politics must give evidence that our planet and the cause of peaceful democracy have several election cycles remaining to turn the tide of global warming and to overthrow the catastrophe of corporate cannibalism.
Once we are convinced that Roosevelt did need Stalin to defeat Hitler and his fascist allies in Europe and Japan (or to put it more modestly, that Washington needed Rochambeau to defeat Cornwallis), we can add to this mix a realistic strategy for the 2016 presidential election. Anything short of a Green/Libertarian alliance ticket has zero chance of winning the White House for outsiders.
Given that such a ticket is politically impossible, what might we hope to realistically achieve? There might be a hope that a strong Green Party national candidacy would produce coattails down ticket. That is certainly a limited potentiality but insufficient to meet the urgency of the hour. What we might be able to do is seize substantial leadership posts and with them the ability to move good legislation to both floors of the capitol if we can mount a presidential campaign which throws an indecisive general election into the congress.
How can this power play be made? It requires much the same tactics outlined above. We need to find candidates both inside and outside of the major parties. For example, Dennis Kucinich could challenge Hillary Clinton in the primary and once the corporate hammer came down on him, he could endorse the Green Party ticket, preferably an hour or two before Clinton makes her acceptance speech. The GP ticket must be a solid one. I sympathize with efforts to recruit Bernie Sanders to bear our banner. With enough cajoling, he might just do it, but we need him in the VP slot so we can undermine the Hillary and the potential Susana Martinez candidacies with Jill Stein at the top of our ticket.
We ought to direct our resources toward winning Vermont and/or assisting the Republican nominees to victory in Ohio and/or Pennsylvania. Even then this Kucinich-endorsed Stein/Sanders ticket may still not be enough to force the election into congress. We would stand a better chance if we also did mutual endorsements and crossover voting with the Libertarian ticket of Gary Johnson and Andrew Napolitano (backed by a well burnt Rand Paul) in our three target states and their five target states of New Mexico, Kentucky, Nevada, Colorado and North Carolina. Of course, we ought to avoid wasting precious resources campaigning anywhere outside of of these 8 states except to help a few local and state candidates in viable elections.
The likely outcome of such a strategy in the presidential race is that the house chooses a Republican president and the Senate has a very close vote which is decided by Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders. A deal could be made in such circumstances to elect Julian Castro vice president. (Yes .. I do suspect you will reconsider your dismissal of this post when you discover that Clinton/Castro will face Martinez/Huckabee in the corporate showdown.)
The election of an Hispanic Republican President and an Hispanic Democratic Vice President with Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders dictating the Senate agenda and overseeing President Martinez's cabinet and court nominees along with a chaotic and closely divided House (perhaps with a Democratic majority electing a Republican president) could be disruptive enough to start a real revolution that brings the corporate PTB to their knees.
In any case, more conventional, imitation corporate campaigns in '14 and '16 will get us nowhere.
Time to get out of the box and make something real happen or else just admit you don't really feel too threatened by corporate totalitarianism.
Fess up and tell us why we need to wait on the timid tactics of tribal politics and fairy tale fearfulness.
