[Pnp-wg] Introductory Comments

[Charlie]

My comments interspersed.

Charlie "What am I doing here?" Green
BRPP liaison and GPCO rep

Steve Greenfield wrote:
>>From Steve Greenfield, representing New York State
> 
> A few things I've been thinking about:
> 
> 1) I don't ever want to hear the word "nuanced" again in connection with the
> Green Party, and probably not elsewhere either.
> 

Either yer fer us or agin us. No Nuancing.

> 2) This group should not be thinking at all about what we want or don't want
> out of a presidential campaign. Our job is to try to come up with a fair,
> open, and productive nomination and election process. Period. My state
> didn't send me here to have discussions about the role of the national
> candidate in overall Green Party strategy. Any determination of what we may
> or may not want out of a campaign will inevitably inform the process we end
> up recommending. This in turn will bias the process towards candidates who
> conform to the rules best (again) rather than being open to a pure selection
> by the grassroots of the Party. There is another working group dealing with
> strategy, and the work of the two committees should not even be known to
> each other for either to do its assignment properly.
> 

Well said but I prefer the "candidates decide strategy" approach. Unless 
our candidates are droids. Or fully funded by the GPUS. Neither of which 
has happened yet.

> 3) I know a delegate to Milwaukee last year (ain't gonna say from where)
> who, when asked just prior to departure whom he planned to support, said
> "well, Cobb doesn't inspire me, and I'm not too pleased with the way Nader
> has been handling all this, and somehow I just think I'm leaning towards
> voting for a woman." If there is one thing that this working group needs to
> do, it's to make sure that a delegate like this should never be credentialed
> to vote unless he or she can prove they were bound by a primary vote or
> similar democratic process to vote NOTA or otherwise simply exercise
> indiviual judgment on the spot. 

How is this group or the GPUS gonna enforce such a thing? This seemingly 
elitist response to a seemingly sexist response is really kinda scary for a 
national Green source. States are autonomous. Telling them how to 
assign/choose/bind their delegations is a no-no. Some had no binding. Mine 
had a two-round binding (which some are still whining about).

Ideological screening was enforced in no states I have heard of. [further 
comments deleted]


We're supposed to be proponents of
> grassroots democracy. The Party's own processes must always reflect a
> commitment to that. We must transfer as much of a delegate's voting power to
> the electorate as possible.
> 

Or else.

> 4) There are bylaws in Texas that place restrictions on what candidates GPUS
> may select if Texas is to allow the candidate onto the Texas Green Party
> line. They place prior restraint on candidates requiring that they take an
> oath to turn over both donor lists and names and addresses of all campaign
> volunteers. They also actually place burdens on other states' right to
> determine party membership status in their own state. I don't know if Texas
> is alone in having such bylaws, but we should check. Part of this
> committee's work should be to establish that all states must share the
> national standard for candidate qualification. Such acceptance must be a
> requirement for affiliation. That is not the same thing as requiring that
> any state must accept the nominee once the nominee is selected. It just
> means that no state should be able to rule out certain candidates in
> advance, since to do so would unfairly influence the other states'
> primary/delegate selection process.

You are suggesting this WG should recommend altering the Accreditation 
agreement unilaterally for the member states to include all these demands? 
How grassroots.

> 
> Steve Greenfield
> New Paltz, New York
>