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I conducted this interview in December 2011 and originally published it for a now defunct blog on third party politics. Phoenix Woman’s recent diary on the Tea Party, Greens and third party politics got me thinking about these issues once again so I decided to re-post this article here at FDL.
The point I am trying to make is under the radar of mainstream media and even most progressive political discussions there have been long-term efforts at electoral politics from a left and progressive perspective that have been successful. The Vermont Progressive Party is one such example and I think their organizing and strategic decisions deserve a close look if leftists and progressives are seeking ways to break out of being marginalized in US politics and progressive voters are tired of lesser evilism in politics.
Website: http://www.progressiveparty.org/
Model for Change: http://www.progressiveparty.org/organize/model
The Interview
The Vermont Progressive Party is America’s best-kept secret of a third party which has become successful as a force to be reckoned with in Vermont state politics. According to its Wikipedia page the Vermont Progressive Party has elected officials in local town governments and local boards in Vermont; various offices in the city of Burlington, including its mayor, two ward clerks and several seats in City Council; seats in the Vermont House of Representatives and Senate. And of course, current U.S. Senator Bernard Sanders is a founder of, and is largely identified with the Vermont Progressive Party.
I recently corresponded with VPP Party Director Morgan Daybell and he was gracious enough to answer a few of my questions for Third Party Independent. Chief in my mind was finding out if there is a formula for the VPP’s success in Vermont and if it is possible for other political parties and organizations which seek to challenge the Republican-Democrat duopoly to duplicate that success elsewhere.
Q: What would you say are the key factors to the VPP’s approach to electoral politics that has established it as a force in Vermont state politics and which sets it apart from other efforts by third parties who have not been as successful?
The major difference between our approach and those of many other third parties is that we have stayed focused on local/state races. In those elections corporate money has a smaller influence, and over many one-on-one conversations with voters, you can begin to overcome the brand-awareness the Democrats and Republicans enjoy. You can’t do that at the Federal level without huge amounts of money.
Q: No doubt that the VPP has encountered the argument that portray non-mainstream candidates as spoilers in elections where they split the vote between the two parties who are closest ideologically to allow the opposing, major party to win the election. How do you deal with that argument in convincing voters to vote for VPP candidates?
No doubt! It is the challenge of having three viable parties in a two-party system. It has helped that our standard-bearer came in second, behind the incumbent Republican, in the 2008 Governor’s race. There is also an increasing awareness that the Democrats and Republicans who get elected are not that different in some fundamental ways. People are waking up to the fact that they are forced to choose between one candidate who will support policies that help corporations at the expense of the middle and working classes while telling you they will protect your gun rights, and another candidate who will support policies that help corporations at the expense of the middle and working classes while telling you they will protect your abortion rights. Abortion rights and gun rights are not going to be changed in Vermont any time soon. Budgets and tax bills get passed every year, and both the Democrats and Republicans currently worship at the altar of austerity and tax cuts for the wealthiest.
We also are trying different things tactically to neutralize that concern. In some cases, our candidates have entered, or won by write-in, other parties’ primaries in order to make the general election a two-way race. Sometimes we can keep an opponent out by announcing early with a strong candidate. In every 2010 Statehouse race we mounted, we were the major party opposition. This is hard to explain with our multi-seat districts, but where we ran in one-seat districts there were only two major party candidates—all a Republican vs. a Progressive/Democrat. In all multi-seat districts, for every Progressive that ran, there was one less candidate of the other two parties. That might have been two Progressives and two Democrats contesting a two-seat district, or three Republicans, two Democrats, and one Progressive/Democrat contesting a three-seat district.
Q: How does the party identify, nurture and develop high-quality individuals who will make compelling candidates to run in elections?
In terms of identifying candidates, there is no magic bullet. We have some come to us through the party and our members out in the towns. We work with many activist groups and labor unions in the state and try to recruit people from those ranks. Sometimes it is as simple as paying attention to the people speaking up at town meeting and writing to their local paper on issues important to us, and then encouraging them to take their advocacy to the next step.
Q: Does the party require a candidate pledge for every candidate who runs on the VPP banner? If yes, how does it enforce the pledge?
We have major party status in Vermont, which means that we have an open primary. Anyone can file signatures to run in our primary, and run under our banner if they win.
While there is no specific pledge, we only recruit candidates who support our principles/platform, and can choose which candidates receive party resources.
Q: How does the party decide which electoral races to enter and which not to?
For Statehouse and municipal elections, we look at a lot of factors—open seats, bad incumbents, strong Progressive candidates, districts we think progressives will do well based on Bernie Sanders’ past races and other statewide progressive races).
To maintain major party status, we need to get 5 percent in one statewide race. Generally we have done that in down-ticket races. In 2009, we laid out three issues that we would evaluate all gubernatorial candidates on: closing our aging nuke, supporting single-payer healthcare, and not balancing the budget on the backs of working Vermonters. The eventual Democratic candidate addressed those issues to the extent where we decided to stay out of that race. He won a close victory, and our entrance in that race likely would have reversed the outcome. As Governor, he has followed through on the first two, but done poorly on the third. We are evaluating that strategy, and whether it makes sense to stay out again.
Q: Does the VPP take positions on electoral reform issues — e.g. IRV or range voting, ballot access, inclusion in televised debates for independents and third parties, etc.? Is there a component of working for these reforms in VPP’s activism?
Absolutely! While the press is getting better at including Progressives in debates since we secured major party status, they and the legislature continue to exclude independents. We’ve long supported increased ballot access and argued against turning our elections over to Diebold. We’ve also been fighting for IRV statewide, although the irony is that the more we find ways to run without “spoiling,” the less incentive the Democrats have to move this issue forward.
Q: What do you think of the Occupy movement? Has the VPP approached or been approached by the Occupy chapter in Vermont or elsewhere about the possibility of working together?
We are supportive of the movement, and many Progressives are involved here and have made trips to NYC to protest there. We have been hammering on the themes of corporate control of our democracy and economy for decades now, and are glad this awareness is spreading.
OWS clearly does not want any outside groups co-opting their movement, and so our institutional involvement has been limited to encouraging our members to be involved. I have had some discussion with people involved locally with OWS, but not with us, who do want to see OWS challenge elected officials. Those are conversations between individuals, but we’d be proud to work with some of those folks on campaigns in the upcoming election.
Q: If you were to give advice — based on the VPP’s record of success in Vermont state politics — to the nationwide Occupy movement and other fledgling political reform efforts that aim to directly challenge the dominance of the two major parties in U.S. electoral politics, what would it be?
Get politically active outside of the two parties. Run locally.
Run locally for partisan office as a Progressive or Conservative or Green or Whig or Socialist or Independent or whatever.
Right now we can’t compete against the money from either party at the Federal level. But in a way, we don’t have too. We are a small state, but we abolished slavery as a state, and that eventually led the nation. We led the nation on civil unions for same-sex couples, and then we were the first to pass marriage equality without court order; the nation is slowly following. We may well be the first state to have a single-payer healthcare system. That won’t happen nationally until one of the states gets it right and serves as a model.
So, don’t run for President or US Senate or US House. Run for City Council. Or School Board. Work your way up to State House. That is where individuals can still make a difference.
Q: Anything else you’d like to say to readers regarding the Vermont Progressive Party?
Did I say run locally enough? I guess I’d just add a pitch to visit our web site, comment on what we are doing, and support us so we can continue this work for another 30 years.
19 Comments
Fantastic! I proposed something similar a while ago (see Wanted: Republicans who plan to sell off CA and NY, to pay the national debt), however my main concern was to give progressives some useful electoral pathway, who were living in heavily red districts and states.
Your interviewee is more concerned about utilizing a Republican ballot line – with attendant possibilities for an expanded debate – in areas where Democrats hold sway.
Excellent! Good for them, for thinking strategically, instead of being self-constrained via what I call an abortive thought process.
I stopped reading this diary as soon as I got only this far, because this breath of fresh air demanded an immediate, encouraging comment!!!
Bravo!!!!
Hmm. On re-reading, it looks like I read more into the interview than was intended.
Apparently, what was intended was something like: in an area where Republicans hold sway, look to place a VPP’er on the Democratic ticket. (Not what I assumed.) In areas where Democrats hold sway, look to place a VPP’er on the Republican ticket. (This is what I assumed.)
Well, those are both useful strategies to entertain. What makes them relatively easy to pursue is that even most party faithful (of both D and R persuasions) don’t show up to vote in primaries.
From an openleft.com diary about turnout in PA during an off-Presidential year, it was mathematically obvious that you only need about 1 out of 15 eligible voters to dominate the primary.
In Presidential elections (and perhaps others), you have to deal with superdelegates, chosen from Party faithful, so this can’t be as useful a strategy.
I don’t agree with this. If your run was primarily to recruit and teach, and you were honest about your chances of victory, while making explicitly clear that your main concern was, indeed, recruitment and teaching, then I don’t see the problem. Rather, I see an opportunity cost of not participating. (Well, I suppose you could just as strongly argue that whatever time and energy you put into Federal races also represents an opportunity cost for your party’s state and local races. So, the real question is: what is the net/net?)
What would you teach about, in a Federal run? Well, one thing I’d hope you’d do is teach about strategy for degrading the D/R duopoly (e.g. by intervening in D and R primaries), the futility of continuing to support that duopoly, and just how corrupt that duopoly is. You’d teach about the history of how 3rd parties had their agendas usurped by mainstream parties, and how this nevertheless represents a win – a win that wouldn’t have happened unless the 3rd party attained sufficient numbers to constitute an electoral threat. You’d also recruit people into supporting your parties local and state races.
Any Federal candidate who didn’t begin and end their stump speeches with calls to commit to a long-term effort, would be liable to be publicly spanked by party/movement elders! (Just kidding about the spanking.)
You’d teach about the need for perserverance, and the need for party and movement building between elections. Which, hopefully, Federal candidates would set stellar examples of, by explicit commitments that go well beyond their time in the sun, as candidates.
The people who live in Vermont must be proud.
Thanks for posting. Rec’d!
Many thanks metamars for the kind words! I appreciate it!
For anyone interested in local elections, consider this from the New Organizing Institute:
Candidate Project
The Candidate Project has very helpful resources on local elections, running for local office, finding out the rules for filing a candidacy in your local area, and has a library of training materials and presentations on the nuts and bolts of fundraising, communications, volunteer management, running a campaign, etc.
The NOI is closely tied with organizations which work with the Democratic Party. But as far as I know, the NOI is nonpartisan and there are no restrictions on the free access or use of these tools — a Green, independent, Socialist, etc. can use these tools in considering a campaign or a run for local political office.
In the absence of an infrastructure that supports independent candidacies outside of the two major parties, I see no reason to not pay attention to free resources such as the Candidate Project.
The long-term goal of 3rd parties ought to be electoral reform enabling better democratic representation. State and local based strategies (which may succeed in implementing electoral reform in addition to other useful legislation) are extremely helpful in this regard. But state and national ‘spoiler’ campaigns are also helpful for getting the message out, pressuring Democrats, and educating people on the problems in our democracy and the corporate duopoly.
I agree it’s great to elect representatives who can govern, but we shouldn’t neglect the educational raison d’être for 3rd parties just because the 3rd party doesn’t want to piss off Democrats.
Metamars on the Front Page! Who could have anticipated? And he is so chatty.
I apologize Metamars, for implying your were working for the Koch Brothers or Exxon. That is wrong. Who do you work for?
And congratulations for you degrees in Math and Science. Someday, maybe not today, your scientific genius will be recognized and honored.
Key point: You can stop framing, marketing, selling and start doing real politics, exploring issues together, identifying with depth understanding what people seek out of government and out of political action outside institutional walls. The mutuality, the depth, and the continued engagement of a local party cuts over against the top-down marketing of consultant-driven short-term ephemeral campaigns.
Just a quick shot before heading out: In New York State, I think the Working Families Party is a force to reckon with, although it’s not clear how much clout they have.
Nice job!
Now let’s see if it’ll work in Mississippi.
Appreciate this. Maybe you could do a comparison/profile of the Working People’s Party (sic) in NY?
New York State also has a Conservative Party which usually-but-not-always sticks to the state Republican platform. But in the end, it’s the same duopoly that governs national politics, it’s just that the two big parties each have lots of smaller parties that are usually aligned with them, much as feudal great powers had other, smaller powers as allies and who did much of their heavy lifting.
Book Salon up with Susan Clark and Woden Teachout’s Slow Democracy: Rediscovering Community and Bringing Decision Making Back Home hosted by Riki Ott
We are.
The big parties used to function as big tents in which compromises among the smaller parties were worked out. In the 1960s, conservatives determined that parties should be ideologically aligned in the same way that they are in some European countries. And they set out to make a captive party–they succeeded in capturing the Republican Party–a self-consciously ideological party. Through a generation of successive primary purges, conservative narrowed and focused the ideology of the Republican Party. However, the Democratic party refused to become explicitly ideological–even the McGovern campaign was not fundamentally one of progressive ideology but of a specific program of actions.
That difference remains. Although as traditional fusions of interests, as the Republicans became more ideological and culturally oriented, the Democrats worked to take away a substantial part of the Republican corporate base. So what you have in interest is a corporate-urban party versus a corporate-rural party.
Any third parties can work on folks who are ideologically dissatisfied with the two parties or those folks whose interests have been overlooked by the two parties. I think that those parties that build on interests likely will win. When it came down to it, a lot of the Tea Party movement folks were small business owners or self-employed or seeking to be one or the other. Opposition to taxes, regulation, and labor standards comes logically from their interest. But the folks who were elected as Tea Party candidates on an ideology that seemed to be aligned with those interests turned out to be just another ideological Republican, voting for government privileges that small business and the self-employed cannot access and which disadvantage them in competition with corporations. This is all aside from the nature of the people who were motivated to turn out and vote Republican because of Republican messaging, which was not exclusively Tea Party-ized.
Thanks Matthew Detroit! Good idea on making a profile of the Working Families Party as my next diary entry. Lemme work on some questions to ask them.
To whet your appetite I recommend two books which have a pretty good introduction to the Working Families Party and their success on the local level in New York State.
Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America by Micah Sifry
(starts on page 258)
The Uprising by David Sirota (starts on page 91)
From what I understand, the WFP uses electoral fusion as its primary strategy to influence electoral politics.
Fusion used to be more widespread and legal until the two major parties passed laws to outlaw it in most states (see the Wikipedia entry).
1. Recommended.
2. Yes indeed, “all politics is local” strong candidates, running locally building on that.
Good luck.
mfi
Recommended. I have a few problems with the Progressive Party. They should have run somebody for Bernie Sanders’ seat when he moved on to the Senate. And perhaps they could have pressured Sanders to not be so supportive of Petraeus and Panetta. They have all this time that could have worked with the Green Party, and have…what? — Intentionally thrown away that those opportunities?
Most people in Vermont are on the Left, in fact, far to the Left of the Democratic Party. I spend time there, I know lots of people in Vermont. They shouldn’t be so un-knowledgeble of Green politics. I wish Vermont had a better Left-wing Party.
Hello there Phoenix Woman. Not quite sure what you mean by your response. I posted this diary inspired by your original post on the Greens and Tea Party. I detect a hint of sarcasm (please correct me if I am off the mark with that observation) but I don’t understand why.
My intention for posting this is to give an example of an effort from the Left delving into electoral politics outside the duopoly that has been both long-term and has demonstrated success. I blog about politics because: (1) I am tired of seeing the left and progressives playing a marginal role in US politics; (2) I am genuinely curious about any success stories.
Sure, there may be limitations to their approach, to participating in electoral politics in general, and deciding to build something outside of the Democratic party. And what may work in Vermont may not work elsewhere. But the point is they are doing something. What they are doing is working. To me, that means they deserve a close look.