[Pnp-wg] Trial Balloon Apportionment Formula

[Steve Greenfield]

> What use will a perfectly democratic delegate apportionment/nomination
> process* be, if we have no candidate with even the slightest hope of
making
> an impact on the process as a whole?

Do you know Matt Gonzalez?

You also overlook the possibility that good candidates will make themselves
available if we get our act together, and we have three and a half years to
do it.

> * in my opinion, not possible, for all the reasons Owen has outlined

Although we probably can never have a perfectly democratic system, that's no
reason to surrender and not try to create the best system we can. After all,
we are the Green Party and Grassroots Democracy is one of our 4 Pillars.

> and most other activists will have a pretty good idea of who is going to
be
> nominated later that year, simply on the basis of credibility and
> connections within the party's activist core

This is precisely why we need to reform the process, so that this won't
happen again. The decision power has to be taken away from the activist core
and given to the membership. If they have a stake in the selection, they'll
volunteer, and they'll vote on Election Day even if they didn't get the
candidate they personally favored.

> Quiet honestly, I think focusing our discussion on apportionment of
> delegates is putting the cart before the horse (not to mention fighting
the
> last war, to use an unGreen metaphor, as the likelihood of apportionment
> playing intot the resolution of a similar division in 2008 is small at
> best).


There is a critical element you may have overlooked that makes democratizing
the process itself the top priority: Joe and Jane Average Green are the
people that have to carry the petitions to get any candidate on the ballot.
Cobb's low vote total wasn't entirely a consequence of his low profile. He
also was on the ballot in only half of America, and not in most of the
heavily populated states such as New York, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, and
Florida. All of these states made the ballot in 2000. The problem, as we saw
so clearly in New York, was that the disenfranchised membership, having no
interest in Cobb whatsoever and stunned by the convention results, simply
failed to materialize when petitioning got under way. Lots of them
re-appeared carrying Peace & Justice petitions and successfully got Nader on
their state ballots. The Green Party already had existing ballot status in
22 states at the start of petitioning. Cobb only got onto 6 other states.
The Convention approved Cobb, but The Greens promptly voted "no" on Cobb by
refusing to get him on the ballot. And getting on the ballot is not so
impossible as you've been led to believe .By contrast, the Libertarians got
their candidate on 49 ballots, and their convention was just as close as
ours. They also kicked our ever-loving asses in the ballot booth, despite
the fact that nobody had ever heard of their candidate either, so being
acceptable enough to the membership to have them work to get on the ballot
in nearly all states clearly has a positive impact on vote totals.

In other words, if we don't actively provide the best estimate of grassroots
democracy that we can, the grassroots will have a way of expressing
themselves anyway, most particularly through their refusal to volunteer.
Democratizing the process, and actively publicizing that we have done so,
will invigorate our membership and raise their interest in participating
even if the next candidate is not famous. And figuring out how to recruit
good candidates is the work of the Exploration Committee, not this one.

Steve Greenfield
New York

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Thomas Leavitt" <thomasleavitt@hotmail.com>
To: <Pnp-wg@gp-us.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2005 8:10 PM
Subject: Re: [Pnp-wg] Trial Balloon Apportionment Formula


> Jeff Peterson said:
>
> >
> >There are only two numbers that are available for all states: total
> >population and Green Party membership, by which I mean not voter
> >registration, but dues-paying (or not) folks who have filled out a
> >membership form to join the party. (Perhaps I'm going out on a limb
> >here, but I'm assuming every affiliated state has such a form.) I am
> >aware of and appreciate the arguments that using either one of these
> >alone might skew the allocation of delegates one way or another.
> >
>
> As a point of reference:
>
> I've never filled out such a form, and it is my guess than an overwhelming
> majority of the "active" Greens in California (the folks who have attended
> one or another formal party organizing activity such as a General Assembly
> meeting, a County Council meeting, plenary, etc.) haven't either. I've
> donated plenty of money over the years, but I've never paid "dues" to any
> Green Party organization (local, regional, or national).
>
> ***
>
> On another note:
>
> Quiet honestly, I think focusing our discussion on apportionment of
> delegates is putting the cart before the horse (not to mention fighting
the
> last war, to use an unGreen metaphor, as the likelihood of apportionment
> playing intot the resolution of a similar division in 2008 is small at
> best).
>
> What use will a perfectly democratic delegate apportionment/nomination
> process* be, if we have no candidate with even the slightest hope of
making
> an impact on the process as a whole? If our field of candidates is as weak
> in 2008 as it was in 2004, then we can simply write ourselves off as a
> "national" party. David Cobb's results in 2004 were entirely predictable -
> for no other reason than he simply had no national profile whatsoever...
> even among most Green Party members!
>
> Think for a moment: it is January of 2008. Assume for the moment that
Nader
> is not a factor. We have a field of candidates for the nomination similar
to
> what we had in 2004. In all likelihood, one, maybe two candidates internal
> to the party with a profile among party activists active at a national
> level, and half a dozen other "favorite sons" and "favorite daughters",
plus
> three or four local activists with no real means of mounting a national
> campaign. At that point, I'd say that apportionment will play almost no
> significant factor in how the "campaign" for the nomination plays out.
>
> In fact, my guess is that, absent a late celebrity/high profile entrant, I
> and most other activists will have a pretty good idea of who is going to
be
> nominated later that year, simply on the basis of credibility and
> connections within the party's activist core (especially given how few
> primaries we'll be eligible to participate in, and the inability of all
> candidates to reach even a fraction of the Green voting public).
>
> To put it another way: what is the point in tearing ourselves apart over
> apportionment, if the end result is the nomination of a candidate whose
> campaign is utterly irrelevant to the national outcome, and does damn
little
> to build the party at a local level or accomplish much of anything else?
>
> I think we should focus our energy on the candidate recruitment process.
>
> Regards,
> Thomas Leavitt
> California resident, Lavender Greens Caucus rep.
>
> * in my opinion, not possible, for all the reasons Owen has outlined
>
>
> --
> Thomas Leavitt -- thomasleavitt@hotmail.com, Sr. Systems Admin For Hire
> Resume at http://www.thomasleavitt.org/personal/resume/
>
> Wired since 1981. Internet-enabled since 1990. Web-enabled since 1993.
> Older, wiser, and poorer, post-crash. :)
>
>
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