It's Not Easy Being Green

Four years ago or so, when the debate over Nader Vs. Gore was raging among centrist Democrats, progressives, and radicals alike, I'd sent out a group email to my list explaining why I would be voting for Ralph Nader for President of the United States, and asking other folks to consider doing the same. Knowing full well that a Green candidate could not win this nation's highest elected office (it'll never happen, people!), I made my case to my family and friends by emphasizing the fundamental rationale of a Green vote for President.

I wouldn't have been able, in good conscience, to give the Democrats my vote in 2000 because, in my opinion, the party had moved inexorably to the right, particularly since the election of Bill Clinton. The Dems had failed, systematically, to champion the interests they give quite a lot of lip service to: workers' rights went by the wayside when Clinton spearheaded NAFTA, pushing thousands of manufacturing and garment industry jobs out of the country and funneling the profits from this downsizing to the coffers of the nation's wealthiest corporate heads. Along with the immense loss of jobs spurred by NAFTA, the Democrats had set a dangerous precedent with the passage of the historic trade agreement, sending environmental protections and worker safety provisions to the shredder.

Clinton also buckled under right-wing pressure to pass a comprehensive welfare reform bill that eviscerated federal assistance programs for hundreds of thousands of the nation's poorest families (while he paid no mind to the corporate welfare cheats robbing this country blind with their insider trading, tax loopholes, and illegal overseas shelters.)

The Democrats had also failed to promote the kind of multilateral leadership in the world they often tout as one of the fundamental differences that sets them apart from the Republicans.

Bush and Gore: cut from the same cloth
(Photo courtesy of Andrew Boyd and billionairesforbush.com)

Under Democratic leadership, the US refused to pay upwards of $2 billion in back dues to the UN, failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Kyoto Protocol, failed to sign onto international bans on the use of landmines and chemical and biological weapons, and ignored nearly every international effort to enact agreements on children�s/human rights, and to legitimize the authority of the World Court. And let's not forget that, under Bill Clinton�s tenure as President, the United States continued to bomb Iraq and starve its people under the sanctions regime for the entire length of his term, and that, while serving as this nation's commander-in-chief, he invaded Haiti, Somalia, Rwanda, and Colombia, illegally bombed Sudan and Afghanistan, went to war in Kosovo, and continually used US military forces around the globe to further the US economic agenda under the guise of "humanitarian peacekeeping missions."

And it becomes fairly obvious that the Democrats' march to the right owes, at least in part, to the fact that they are beholden to identical corporate interests as the Republicans, and they have the same corporate backers to please when elected (or re-elected). A telling example of this trend is the list of top campaign contributors for both Al Gore and George W. Bush for the 1999-2000 election cycle (courtesy of the Center for Responsive Politics).

Building an Alternative To the Two-Party System

I implored my email list to vote Green for President in 2000 owing not only to my views on the issues, but to my personal commitment to building a long-term strategy that will shift the way politics work in this country. I believe firmly in moving governance in the United States toward a multiparty system, where any registered political party can have equal access to public campaign funds, to radio and television spots for ads, and equal time at all candidate debates. I don't believe fair democracy thrives on a business model, wherein the richest candidate will nearly always win--and that is a good description of the two-party system as it exists in this country. I believe that we must open up the political process to independent parties, first by building public support for them through organizing and voting, then ultimately working to advocate for a more inclusive political process, such as proportional representation. These types of changes will invigorate the democratic process and create a more responsive government that serves its people, rather than hijacking the concepts of "freedom" and "democracy" in the perpetuation of militarism and global economic dominance.

The Spoiling Question

There have been a lot of sour grapes about the Greens having �lost Al Gore the election� in 2000. I want to contribute a few thoughts on this, as the question of whether to support alternative parties will become more relevant in every major political contest in this country over time.

Al Gore's campaign, it must be acknowledged, was weak from the start. He had inherited the increasingly conservative legacy that Bill Clinton had etched out before him. By the late 1990's, millions of people the world over were protesting the United States� role in corporate globalization, and thousands of people descended on the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in the Summer of 2000, demanding that the party acknowledge and make amends for their march rightward.

At the DNC, 2000: Demonstrators rally against Gore's ties to the Occidental Petroleum Company--a partner in the military occupation and displacement of indigenous U'Wa people in Colombia.
(Photo courtesy of Change-Links.Org)

Gore only slapped disenfranchised voters in the face with the appointment of right-of-center running mate, Joe Lieberman. It was entirely clear that Gore had chosen the conservative path, and in that choice, he effectively alienated thousands of potential voters. Some of those voters would vote Green or for another independent party, and some of those would simply not show up to the polls. The voter turnout for the Presidential election of 2000, according to the Federal Elections Commission, was about 51% of eligible voters. And, although the Democrats are not at fault for low voter turnout in the United States (indeed, US voter turnout is historically among the lowest of all countries with democratic elections) I believe very strongly that Al Gore betrayed his traditional Democratic constituencies (organized labor, people of color, the working class, environmentalists and other progressives, young voters, etc) and that betrayal, that failure to align his campaign with progressive values, cost him the margins that he needed to secure the election. Add on top of that the massive public consternation toward the Clinton administration (and Gore, by proxy) over "Monicagate" and Gore's own incredibly dull public persona (a Google search for "Al Gore" and "wooden" just returned about 22,000 results!) and maybe we might begin to appreciate the reality that Al Gore lost not because of the Greens, but because of Al Gore.

But there were still other dynamics at play: while Gore did win the popular vote, at 48.38% to George W. Bush's 47.87%, he ultimately lost the race, thanks to the antiquated, irrelevant Electoral College system, shameful electoral fraud and irregularities in Florida and other states, and a Republican-heavy Supreme Court that decided to end the counting despite the continued confusion. Bush was declared the winner, with 271 electoral votes to Gore's 266, as a result of all these factors.

On a close look at the state-by-state breakdown of votes in the 2000 election, we see that the Nader vote did factor into two state's races. Bush won, handily, the popular, and thus, the electoral votes he needed in all states but New Hampshire and Florida. In the vast majority of states that went to Bush but also had a large percentage of Nader votes, like Colorado (Nader got 5% there), Bush had enough of a margin to win (51%), even if, hypothetically, all those Green votes had gone to Gore (still the loser at 42% plus the hypothetical 5%). It's also instructive to remember that, in the absence of a Green ticket in the race, there still would not have been a guarantee that all those Nader votes would have fallen neatly into the Gore camp: there were plenty of other "third party" candidates (thirteen in all, not including Nader).

If in New Hampshire, Gore got all 4% of Nader's votes, Gore would have taken that state's 4 electoral votes (the race was very close, with Bush at 48% and Gore at 47%.) Theoretically, in this scenario, Gore would've won the Presidency, at 270 to 267 electoral votes. Again, if Gore had actually embraced his constituents and run an effective campaign, he likely would have enjoyed a higher Democratic voter turnout across the country, and the 4 New Hampshire electoral votes would have made no difference at all.

The case of Florida, we can all agree, was an utter debacle, and the bounty of that state's 25 electoral votes was the single most important deciding factor in the Presidential race. There are hundreds of firsthand accounts of voter disenfranchisement, primarily from African American voters who were denied their right to vote in scenarios as outlandish as that their names "were similar to" the names of convicted felons in their voting precincts (my blood boils even to write about such vulgar racism as it persists in this country). See the US Commission on Civil Rights page for a fascinating summary on the irregularities of the Florida vote. With a dead-heat final result in that state (Both Gore and Bush received about 49%, and the race was decided on a difference of less than 600 votes) it's become clear now that, barring the irregularities and election fraud that took place in Florida, Gore could have taken that state and won the Presidency, regardless of the 2% Nader vote.

There is no doubt that the successes seen by the Green party in 2000 impacted the Presidential election, but to assert that the Greens "spoiled" Al Gore's chance at winning the race is to ignore the fundamental dynamics that destined Gore to come short of a decisive victory: he failed to differentiate himself from the Republicans, he failed to embrace his constituents, and he failed to inspire. Ralph Nader's candidacy, on the other hand, generated major media coverage on such grassroots concerns as global trade issues, US militarism abroad, and environmental policy that would otherwise have been ignored by the major candidates. The Greens' presence in the race mobilized thousands of volunteers around the country that challenged the Republican and Democratic candidates everywhere they traveled, forcing them to acknowledge the issues none of them wanted to touch. And that was accomplished despite the fact that Nader (as well as Pat Buchanan and other independent candidates) were locked out of the Presidential debates. Nader was even banned from viewing a debate in Boston as a ticket-holding member of the audience. How's that for democracy?

So what about 2004?

All that righteous indignation about the 2000 election aside, I find myself still rather confused about how to cast my vote this November. The year 2000 does seem remote now, after September 11 and its aftermath: the invasion of Afghanistan, the passage of the USA Patriot Act, the creation of the so-called Department of Homeland Security, the rising climate of hatred toward Arabs and Muslims sanctioned with a fresh batch of racist immigration and law enforcement policies, the war in Iraq and the continued occupation despite the overwhelming evidence that it was all predicated on lies. I think most people anywhere to the left of Pat Robertson agree that another four years of George W. Bush would be disastrous, and if there ever was a time to vote for "the lesser of two evils"--well, carpe diem, right?

I sometimes feel safe in my California cocoon, though, sure that my vote for a Green candidate will not tip the balance away from what most experts are expecting to be a locked Democratic vote in the state. But that sense of security could prove false--after all, Californians did just elect a Republican governor--one who had no political experience at all. And, in fact, with the exception of the three most recent Presidential elections (1992, 1996, and 2000) California's electoral votes have gone to the Republican in every election since 1968.

John Kerry will be sad if I don't vote for him.

I'm not thrilled with the ascendancy of John Kerry in the field of Democrats challenging Bush, but, then, what did I expect? If, by some miracle, Dennis Kucinich became the Democratic nominee, I wouldn't feel at all compromised voting for him. For any of the others remaining in the race, I will have to hold my nose as I stand in the little polling cubicle, filling in, with my official polling place pen, the arrow in my ballot that points to the rich white Democrat who has the best chance at beating the rich white Republican. Voting for Kerry, for me, will mean violating some of my own most esteemed principles: I would be supporting a man who voted to use "all force necessary" against alleged terrorists after 9/11 and against Iraq last year. I'd be supporting a man who has voted to militarize the border with Mexico and clamp down on undocumented workers, who has voted to approve many of the sweeping antiterrorism bills curtailing civil liberties in the wake of 9/11, and who has continually approved budget appropriations for a swollen, Cold War sized military budget. But it would be disingenuous of me (and rather ridiculous, at that) to say that John Kerry is "just as bad" as Bush. Kerry is solid on environmental issues and has always seen through the right-wing agenda, voting to protect Roe Vs. Wade, NEA funding, and affirmative action. And his leadership against the Vietnam war and against Gulf War One should be a reminder to those of us on the left that Kerry will be lobbyable, unlike Mr. Bush.

And, at the risk of alienating myself further from my radical brethren, I will throw out a heretical notion that I'm slowly coming to terms with: voting one's conscience, when it comes to Presidential elections, is ineffectual. The Democrat or the Republican will always win. But running an independent candidate in a Presidential race can do a lot for building a party, getting the public educated about the issues, and securing the required percentage of the vote to ensure public funding for its campaigns, allowing the party to win future victories in smaller, local races. Though public attention is usually on the Presidential race, it's important to note that Green Party members hold hundreds of local elective offices across the country, and the Greens' positive influence is being felt in those communities.

There is a slew of debate within the Green Party itself about whether to run a candidate for President this year. After their summer convention, it was generally established that they would run a candidate, but with the goal of generating membership and building the organization, while staying clear of campaigning in states where a close vote is likely to take place. David Cobb, a former General Counsel member of the Greens and one of the front runners for their Presidential nomination this year, expresses a clear strategy for his campaign that emphasizes growing the party over "tipping" votes in the race.

Still other prominent Greens are discussing the possibility of running a candidate in the early stages of the race for the dual purposes of getting the issues talked about and stimulating interest in the party--and then pulling out and endorsing the Democrat, even. This just might be the winning strategy for the Green Party this year--striking while the iron's hot to raise awareness and build the movement, but pulling out and endorsing the Dems before any chance of "spoiling" (or merely just to save face).

I like that idea a lot, actually, though it's quirky.

There is also a growing movement of people who voted for Nader in 2000 and are sorry for what they now characterize as a mistake for which they intend to repent. And thousands of Green activists, regardless of whether they are "repentant" about their 2000 votes or not, are some of the most dedicated volunteers for many of the Democratic candidates this year, pulling together with progressives and centrists alike with the common goal of defeating Bush. There may be different opinions about strategy, but it looks like the Left might be coming together on something for a change.

Peace, y'all,
Bree

previous - next