[Peace-discussion] All politics are local... to some extent.

[David Strand]

In MN, it all depends on where you are.  The
Libertarians as a free standing entity running it's
own candidates have pretty much disappeared from the
scene.  I believe that many Libertarians here are now
members of Jesse Ventura's Indpendence Party which
appears to have little ideology of it's own aside from
a what they consider a moderate place in the middle
but has ballot access and electoral structure for a
mish mash of candidates of various ideologies(I don't
think they agree where "the middle" is) and some sheer
vanity candidates.

SO... a link up with Libertarians here would be nice
if you could find 'em. 

I do know where the Ron Paul Minnesota campaign
headquarters are because they are only a block away
from the Minnesota Green Party State office in the
state capital St. Paul(interesting neighborhood as one
of the Democratic Farmer Labor Senate candidates has
his campaign headquarters in the next block and a
socialist bookstore, communist party group, and
anarchist drop in center are a block away in another
direction, we are next door to ACORN in a space
formerly headquarters for Dykes on Bikes)

Our locals are all pretty solid and usually are
comprised of at least 30 members.  Contact lists for
locals in our state run from as low as 30 to as high
as 8,000.  When they get below 30, they tend to shut
down and we have lost locals in Rochester, Northfield
and Otter Tail County of late while seeing the local
in Winona revive.  When they get as large as 8,000,
you never actually see all those people in the room at
one time and meeting sizes fluctuate greatly depending
on the level of interest, i.e. endorsement meetings
generally draw more people but not necessarily. 
Sometimes issue speakers or other events draw more.

Not all of them are as active as others however.

In Minneapolis all 32 publicly elected offices are
divided up between Democratic Farmer Labor folks and
Greens.  There are no elected Republicans to be found
and no matter how you drew the lines, you couldn't
elect one.  SO... in this environment, such an effort
doesn't seem as worthwhile as campaigning for the GP
candidate for president and that is something the
public is receptive to hearing.

The current sitting Mayor of Minneapolis sought our
endorsement and was a member when he ran for election
and lost it narrowly when it became clear that he was
going to run as a DFL'er with or without our
endorsement.  The next time we ran a Green- Farheen
Hakeem- most known at that time for her antiwar
activism with the Antiwar Coalition, against him.

The top voter in the city's history is a Green, Annie
Young who is elected to a city wide seat on the Park &
Recreation Board.

There is currently one elected Green on the city
council---Cam Gordon in Ward 2.

There previously were two who were both redistricted
out of their seats-- Natalie Johnson Lee in Ward 5 and
Dean Zimmermann in Ward 6.

2 of the other city councilpeople are former Green
Party members who sought the DFL endorsement to take
out their competition before the primary and then got
absorbed into the DFL machine.  

On the Hennepin county level, Phil Wilkie was elected
with more than 87,000 votes to the Soil and Water
Conservation Board for a particular county district
and he didn't campaign or even have a website but DID
mention he was a Green party member in his description
in the paper and that seems to have sealed the deal.

The incumbent Mayor of St. Paul narrowly beat out a
Green challenger in the last mayoral election there
which means we will likely do much better their next
time.

In Duluth, the fourth largest city in the state after
one large suburb(Bloomington) of the twin cities,
there is an elected Green who didnot seek re-election
on the city council.  The Duluth local is the oldest
in the state AND the most strategic.  They've been
around in one form or another sense in the 80's and
long before the ASGP or GPUSA formed.

There are places in our state where your proposed
outreach efforts would be useful but you have to be
someplace where there are sufficient Ron Paul folks to
reach out to.

MOST antiwar activists and groups here are very open
to Greens and elected Greens and Green party leaders
often speak at antiwar events.  The biggest problem we
have here is that Greens who do so often don't do so
in way that makes the presence of Greens visible.  We
have organizations where the entire leadership are GP
members for the most part but they don't want DFLers
to be turned off be that and what to be nonpartisan in
order to keep peace while working toward the common
goal.

Dems here in the Peace movement don't bat an eye at
protesting Dems as well as Republicans support for the
war.  Surprisingly though, many still believe they can
influence the DFL Party and help it change.

The Ellison votes for war funding though have been
very damaging to peace community and DFL relations and
many are looking now for altnernatives as he won the
DFL endorsement for an empty seat largely because he
was the darling of the peace movement within the DFL.

There may not be a "national" strategy for Greens and
Libertarians because the possiblities and
opportunities are quite different from place to place.

While working to recruit Ron Paul supporters or work
in common cause where YOU(john) are may make the most
sense, it might not make any sense in Minneapolis, but
it very well does in Morris, Moorhead and Marshall in
west Minnesota.

In Minneapolis, association with Ron Paul and
supporters would likely do less to grow our party, or
further antwar activity than other opportunities  that
are available but that is obviously not true
everywhere.  I believe the rascist associations with
St. Paul would hurt us far more than what we share
with him would help us.

There is no doubt that the Green presidential
candidate will be on the ballot line as you can
collect enough signatures to get a statewide candidate
on the statewide ballot with three people in one day
if they stand in front of the three most popular food
coops out of the 42 in the metro.

What do you think of encouraging Ron Paul to run on
the Libertarian Party line and work to open up the
political process that way?

There are some former Libertarians in the state Green
Party I'm sure but off the top of my head I can only
think of one.

I'm all for broadening political diversity and
eventually breaking up two party dominance.

David Strand





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