Tulsa blogged!

The Green Party credentialed its first blogger to cover this year's annual national meeting, allowing former Green Party activist Ken Sain (www.kensain.com) access to all of the meetings and events that took place in Tulsa.

While other Green Party bloggers were present in Tulsa, Sain was the only one devoting daily coverage to the event, providing information to Greens across the nation who could not attend. (He posted 33 times while there.)

Here are some excerpts from his reports:

Pat LaMarche
Pat LaMarche, the Green Party vice-presidential candidate in 2004, was one of the four speakers at the news conference. During her remarks she talked about how amazing it is on college campuses where some students do not know of a world without a Green Party. The party has been around long enough in Maine that 20-year-olds can't imagine life without it.

Wisconsin

One of the reasons I admire the Greens is the crazy things they tackle that Republicans and Democrats avoid. Take for example Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Greens are starting a petition process to put an initiative before voters to bring troops home from Iraq. Jeff Peterson spoke on their efforts at this morning's news conference. Because of Wisconsin law, they cannot put the issue before all voters without the help of the state legislature, which is currently led by Republicans. So that ain't going to happen.

Instead, Greens are petitioning in cities and counties to put the issue before voters in those municipalities. They need to get 15 percent of the total of the votes in the last gubernatorial election for that community to put the issue before voters. They are aiming for a vote in the spring of 2006.

Peterson said he hopes Greens around the country will follow their example and get voters to give their input on whether their state's laws allow it.

Utah

If you go back to my posts previewing this convention, you will notice that I promised fireworks. Tom Yager, a delegate from Virginia who is a regular reader of my blog, stopped me in the hall yesterday.

"Where are these fireworks you promised?"

I told him of the two "surprises" that I heard were going to take place this weekend. One of them took place this morning.

Jeff Beardall, who represents the rival Green Party of Utah, sat down with the delegates for this morning's National Committee meeting. He intended to vote and participate as the representative of his state party, carrying the one proxy vote allowed. Jeff King and Deanna Taylor are the recognized delegates from the Green Party of Utah, [and they] obviously objected.

The California delegation backed addressing the issue before the morning agenda could be approved. After much discussion, a proposal was made to recognize one delegate each from the rival Green parties in Utah for the rest of this convention and then sort out the mess afterwards.

The vote was 35 in favor, 57 against and three abstentions, including the two delegates from the recognized Green Party of Utah. Jeff Beardall was not recognized as a delegate and both King and Taylor keep their seats.

One of the turning points of the debate came when Phil Huckleberry said it was obvious many people knew this was going to take place, and the only ones who did not sit on the National Committee. He thought this was a dirty trick and urged voting against the proposal.

In fact, one of my sources told me two weeks ago they expected this to happen. There's one more surprise that I've been told may happen this weekend. Wait and see.

2008

I've been talking to Greens in the hallways about the 2008 presidential race and the opinions are pretty unanimous. It is time for the Greens to run a woman candidate for president.

"Past time," said Georgia Green Nan Garrett.

Two of the Greens who spoke at today's news conference were Nan Garrett and Rebecca Rotzler, both names that have been whispered in my ear this week as possible Green presidential candidates in 2008. Rotzler is currently the deputy mayor of New Paltz, N.Y. Her term ends in 2007. Garrett ran for governor in Georgia in 2002 and set records with more than 1,000 write-in votes, not able to get on the ballot because of that state's restrictive ballot access laws.

Since both Garrett and Rotzler were at the news conference, I asked them specifically if they are considering a presidential run in 2008 for the Green Party's nomination. Both said yes.

"I got into this to save the world, so yes, I'm considering it," Rotzler said.

The hug

During the morning plenary there were presentations on the two Green presidential campaigns in 2004. Peter Camejo and David Cobb each spoke about their campaigns, with Camejo representing Ralph Nader.

Both were positive. In fact, Camejo apologized to David Cobb for some of his comments during the campaign. Cobb thanked him, accepted the apology, and the two men hugged while the delegates gave them a standing ovation.
Both men announced they do not intend to seek the Greens' presidential nomination in 2008.

GDI aftermath

The great GDI [Greens for Democracy and Independence] debate of 2005 is over for now, but not for good. What became clear to many Greens here is that the three GDI proposals were not about democracy and independence but about the 2004 Green Party convention.

The people who lost the battle in Milwaukee wanted validation that they were right. Many times over the past few months GDI leaders were approached and given opportunities to get what they said they wanted. But they had to tone down the rhetoric to get it.

Only in the final days did they begin to do that.

If they had really worked with other Greens, they could have devised a new formula for assigning delegates to each state, for making sure the delegates represented the will of the Green Party members in each state, and calling for a party that was independent.
But by framing it like they did, they assured that their efforts would not win. There are a lot of hurt feelings this morning, but I hope in the coming weeks Greens will come together and work toward the goals of GDI without bringing in the rhetoric or accusations of the past.

I have met many great Greens this weekend who were GDI supporters. It would be a shame if they left the party.

More Green blogs

Here are a few of our favorite Green blogs:
Former Green Pages editor Ken Sain: www.kensain.com 
Another former Green Pages editor, Eric Prindle: http://prindle.blogspot.com 
Oklahoma blogger J.M. Branum: www.jmbzine.com  
Collection of Green bloggers on GP-US: http://chlorophyll.fairlyinformed.com 
Green local with a heavy dose of GDI: http://cincinnatigreens.blogspot.com 
DC's legendary Sam Smith: http://prorev.com/freedc.htm 
Utah activist: www.livejournal.com/~deesings/ 
Detroit's official Green blog: http://detroitgreens.blogspot.com 
New Zealand Green Party-one of the best in the world: http://blog.greens.org.nz 
Written by a GP-US co-chair: www.livejournal.com/users/stevegpus/ 
A Los Angeles Green: http://greeninlosangeles.blogspot.com 
A Florida Green provides the GDI point of view: http://onegreen.blogspot.com 
Green living: http://sustainablog.blogspot.com 

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