Groundbreaking presidential campaign goes into overtime!

By Blair Bobier and John Rensenbrink
Pacific Green Party of Oregon and Maine Green Independent Party

As we write this, it’s two weeks after Election Day and the 2004 Green Party presidential campaign is still going strong. On November 5, just three days after John Kerry quickly conceded defeat in an election which was once again marred by numerous voting irregularities, Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb called for an investigation of reports of voting fraud and voter suppression in Ohio.

The response to this call was overwhelming. Cobb-LaMarche campaign staff were inundated with information from people in Ohio and elsewhere about voting rights violations and requests that we demand a recount of the vote in Ohio.

On November 11, our campaign announced that we would seek a recount in Ohio if we could raise the required filing fee of $113,600. Donations began flooding the www.votecobb.org website. Within four days, we had raised the filing fee—mostly in donations ranging from $10 to $50—and begun examining the daunting logistics of filing for a recount in each of Ohio’s 88 counties. We also started a new fundraising and organizing effort, this one to amass a small army of volunteers to monitor and oversee the actual recount process.

Ironically, after laboring in the shadows of the presidential campaign, this effort put the Green Party center stage in the post-election period and demonstrated our unique and consistent commitment to voting rights, electoral reforms and the democratic process.

Of course, it was the general election presidential campaign that put Cobb-LaMarche and the Green Party in this position.

And despite a very positive and groundbreaking campaign, it was, as the mainstream press reminded us on a number of occasions, not an easy year to be Green. Many Greens felt it was more important to vote against Bush than to support the Green Party presidential ticket. Other Greens supported our former presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, who ran this year under a patchwork banner of ballot lines and as the nominee of the Reform Party.

Despite these formidable obstacles, we conducted a serious and wide-ranging campaign, preserved the identity of the party, articulated its message on critical issues, and positioned the Green Party to build towards greater strength for future presidential campaigns.

• We ran a party-centered campaign, not a candidate-centered one, but we didn’t downplay the personal appeal of our candidates. David Cobb and Pat LaMarche both ran spirited, down-to-earth campaigns. They highlighted Green Party stands on major issues, spoke one-on-one with thousands (far more than the major party candidates), successfully urged many to register with the Green Party, supported local and state Green Party candidates throughout the country, interacted effectively with hundreds of members of the media, and projected a very favorable image for the Green Party.
• We ran up-from-the ranks Green Party members as candidates for president and vice-president—the first time our party has done this.
• We gained experience by running a presidential campaign, which will better prepare the Green Party for doing it again in 2008.
• We got very positive press, including from outlets which had previously ignored the Green Party. We placed op-ed pieces in the Boston Globe, the Providence Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle, and our candidates were featured on ABC, CNN, the John McEnroe show, The Nation, C-Span, National Public Radio, Democracy Now, the New York Times and NOW with Bill Moyers, among hundreds of other outlets.
• We established the basis for real unity, from the grass roots up, among Greens in most parts of the country through the barnstorming-style campaigns of our two candidates. The bedrock battle cries of our campaign throughout the country were: Support Your Local, State and Congressional Green Party Candidates! Register People in the Green Party! Build the Green Party!
• We established our party as a party of, by, and for the people. We did this by staying on message: end the war, repeal the “PATRIOT” Act, improve our democracy, and provide a living wage and health care for all. We walked our talk through the nationally recognized Left Out Tour, the Justice Tour, and the Green Tour, as well as by David Cobb’s act of civil disobedience protesting exclusion from the restricted, corporate-sponsored debates. And Pat LaMarche’s Marine Corps boot-camp experience expressed our solidarity with the men and women in the armed forces, even as we affirmed our strong opposition to war and militarism.
• We brought into sharper political focus the overwhelming need for reform of the voting system and demanded Instant Runoff Voting and the transformation or abolition of the Electoral College.

What we actually accomplished in the 2004 presidential/vice-presidential campaign looks quite different from what appears if you just look at the vote total. Our campaign showed that a true party-building campaign is about building the grassroots.

Furthermore, if you consider the difference between running a campaign or staying out of the race altogether (as some suggested we do), you realize in a spectacular way the achievements of our 2004 campaign. The Green Party, in spite of all odds, not only preserved itself and positioned itself for future effective presidential campaigns, but also broke new ground for growth at all levels in the years to come.

And now, with the Ohio recount still looming, the Green Party stands on center stage. The last chapter of this 2004 adventure has yet to be written.

Longtime Greens Blair Bobier and John Rensenbrink, are, respectively, Media Director and Senior Policy Advisor for the Cobb-LaMarche campaign.