Green hopefuls build party
Campaigns based on variety of objectives
By Eric Prindle
Green Party of New York State
As the close presidential election draws most of the media attention this year, Greens are fighting the electoral front on a variety of fronts, running 323 candidates in the Nov. 2 elections as of press time.

Greens work to hold on to key seats

As a result of past victories and conversions, Greens have a number of high-profile positions to defend this year.

	John Eder

First on the list is John Eder's seat in the Maine state legislature, the first won by a Green in a general election (in 2002). Maine Democrats have targeted Eder and last year ensured that new electoral districts would force him to run against another incumbent. But having won approximately two-thirds of the vote in his first election, Eder is still given a good chance to return to office.

In San Francisco, the retirement of supervisor and 2003 mayoral candidate Matt Gonzalez has made retaining his District 5 seat a top priority for the local Green Party. This year's elections will be the first using the city's new instant-runoff voting (IRV) system, in which voters can rank up to three choices for each office, and that's exactly the number of Green candidates running.

The San Francisco Green Party has endorsed Ross Mirkarimi, Lisa Feldstein and Susan King -- in that order -- in the hopes of turning out a bloc of votes that will definitely go to a Green candidate and, with the help of voters who split their tickets, holding on to Gonzalez's seat.

IRV "is changing the way that people run for office," according to Green Party of the United States (GP-US) political director Brent McMillan. Many candidates are campaigning together in the hope of winning the preferences of each other's supporters.

Also in San Francisco, incumbent school board member Mark Sanchez, who like Gonzalez joined the Green Party soon after being first elected in 2000, is running for re-election, and with four seats in play, the local party has endorsed fellow Green Jane Kim as well as Sanchez.

	Mark Sanchez.

In Sebastopol, Calif., the only current Green majority on a municipal council has the potential to continue for another term. Craig Litwin, running for re-election, hopes to be joined by Sam Pierce, who is running to replace incumbent Sam Spooner. "if [Litwin and I] are successful, then we should be the first Green majority city council to maintain that status into a third election cycle," Pierce said. (Larry Robinson, who has another two years left on his current term, holds the third Green seat on the five-member council.)

In Hawaii County, Hawaii, District 6 councilmember Bob Jacobson is running for reelection in a seat three different Greens have held for 10 of the last 12 years. Jacobson, first elected in 2002 to replace his wife, Julie, said the Greens have been "getting elected in a conservative area because of the quality of work and the ability to build coalitions."

In Santa Monica, Calif., eight-year councilmember Mike Feinstein faces a challenge as he runs for re-election for the first time without the endorsement of the powerful Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights (SMRR), some of whose leaders were angry when Feinstein endorsed a fellow Green candidate over a Democratic member of their slate in 2002. Feinstein got more votes than any other candidate in his last election in 2000.

With at least 12 other Greens running for re-election this fall, the stakes are high for local parties seeking to prove that they're building a lasting movement behind their elected officials.

CCC identifies 12 for matching funds

Faced with their largest pool of applicants ever, the Coordinated Campaign Committee (CCC) of the GPUS has selected 12 candidates to receive matching funds in addition to the donor lists and organizational support the committee is providing to a larger pool of 39 candidates.

	"I am mad as hell about the dismantling of 60 years of social progress that's been done during this administration." Maria Allwine, U.S. Senate candidate, Maryland

Among the 12 targeted for matching funds are three Congressional candidates. In California, Pat Driscoll is running against incumbent Democrat Robert Matsui in District 5. According to Driscoll, Matsui "has swung to the right and voted for the Iraq war, the Patriot Act, NAFTA, media consolidation, and corporate special interests." McMillan said Driscoll has gotten about 29 percent support in the polls.

In Colorado, District 4 candidate Robert Kinsey is drawing attention to incumbent Republican Marilyn Musgrave's sponsorship of the federal Marriage Amendment and has gotten the endorsement of popular filmmaker Michael Moore. According to McMillan, "The [Democratic Leadership Council] entered a Democrat opponent at the filing deadline in order to spoil the Greens' chances and then claimed disingenuously that it was the Green spoiling the Democrats' chances." McMillan said Kinsey has polled as high as 34 percent.

In the District of Columbia, Adam Eidinger is running one-on-one against incumbent Ray Browne for the district's "shadow" Congressional seat. Different from the district's non-voting seat in the House of Representatives, this position was created to advocate for statehood for the district.

In state legislative races, four candidates have drawn matching funds from the CCC. In Rhode Island, Jeffrey Toste is making a second run for state senator in District 5. In Connecticut, New Haven alderperson Joyce Chen, fresh from a re-election victory, hopes to trade up to state representative in District 93. Wisconsin's Tony Palmeri, running for state assembly member in District 54, said he is running because "the Wisconsin legislature in the past decade has been taken over by wealthy, corporate special interests with an interest in rolling back the state's progressive tradition." Palmeri has been endorsed by three former mayors and two current councilmember in the city of Oshkosh.

In Massachusetts, Carolina Johnson is running for state representative in the 25th Middlesex District with a focus on housing, alternative transit, women's safety and democratic reform, according to campaign manager Steve Milder.

Toste, Chen and Johnson are all running one-on-one against Democratic incumbents.

On the county level, the CCC is funding three supervisorial candidates. In Illinois' Champaign County, Susan Rodgers and Zach Miller are running in Districts 8 and 9, respectively, on a slate with District 7 candidate Ken Urban. Rodgers and Miller, both college students, successfully fought off a Democratic challenge to their ballot access petitions that questioned their residency, winning a victory for student candidates.

In San Francisco, though the District 5 race may get the most attention, a Green also hopes to pick up a supervisory seat in District 9. Immigrants' rights attorney Renee Saucedo is running with the backing of the local Green Party against Tom Ammiano, a former progressive mayoral candidate who critics say has drifted to the right.

In Pima County, Ariz., a county where Green candidates have traditionally gotten high vote percentages, Claudia Ellquist has been running hard for County Attorney since the spring and was one of the first candidates approved for CCC funds.

Finally, in Washington, D.C., GP-US Black Caucus co-chair Michele Tingling- Clemmons is running for councilmember in District 7 with the CCC's financial support. In a district where the incumbent has already lost the Democratic primary, Tingling-Clemmons now faces two other newcomers for the post.

Congress provides a battleground for anti-war candidates
Buoyed by public sentiment against the war in Iraq but focusing on a broad range of issues, Greens are running aggressively for federal office in many states.

In New York, a state with a large anti-war movement, Senator Charles Schumer's vote -- which he still stands behind -- authorizing President Bush to wage war on Iraq was the main reason two-time Socialist Party presidential candidate David McReynolds, a retired organizer of the War Resisters League, was recruited to run against him. With a low-profile Republican candidate in the race, Greens hope for a large vote for McReynolds to send a message.

Likewise, South Carolina U.S. Senate candidate Efia Nwangaza is running as a "Peace Candidate" and has made high-profile national appearances opposing the war. In Maryland, Maria Allwine is running on her history as an "anti-war, peace and justice activist" and also because she said she is "mad as hell about the dismantling of 60 years of social progress that's been done during this administration."

With 45 candidates running for U.S. Representative, Greens "are running the strongest congressional campaigns that we have ever run," according to McMillan.

The Green parties of California, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska and South Carolina are running their largest-ever slates of Congressional candidates.
Particularly notable is California, which has had ballot status since 1992 and has never before run more than eight candidates for the House of Representatives. This year, the party has 11 on the ballot as well as Terry Baum, who ran a write-in campaign in the primary to oppose Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in District 8 and is challenging her disqualification from the general election ballot before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In District 12, which like District 8 is based in progressive San Francisco, Pat Gray is running against moderate Tom Lantos, who, according to Gray "is a supporter of the war and the Patriot Act, but the people of the district are opposed to both of these, and they are concerned with the rate of job loss and the cuts in our social programs." Gray has been endorsed by Michael Moore.

In other states, Greens named a variety of motivations for their campaigns. Carol Ann Rittenhouse, running in Wisconsin's District 6, said, "I believe that our children will be paying for our lack of attention to basic matters such as our huge deficit, the billion dollars a week that is spent for pre-emptive poorly considered war and the lack of concern for the environment, jobs and health," while Van Presley, running in Minnesota's District 8, identified "giving people something to identify with" and "reclaiming the language from the right wing" as among his top priorities.

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