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UPDATE: As per my comment #33:
Sadly, nobody wants to address either:
QUESTION #1
QUESTION #2
QUESTION #3
QUESTION #4
QUESTION #5
Can somebody at least tell me why, given that a few people have posted comments, nobody wants to address my QUESTION’s?
Once again, I’m baffled by the progressive blogosphere….
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Stein/Honkala racked up less than 400,000 votes. This is far less than Obama’s 58 million +, and Romney’s 56 million +.
QUESTION 1
I have a question for Jill Stein voters. And that is: did she use her Presidential run to the best, long-term effect, for the Green Party?
I say “absolutely not”, and made a number of criticism/suggestions of her and her campaign. See, e.g.,
QUESTION 2
Do you think that Stein WILL commit to party building (with an explicit plan, however imperfect), now that the election is over?
QUESTION 3
Do you think that Stein SHOULD commit to party building (with an explicit plan, however imperfect), even now that the election is over?
QUESTION 4
Should Green Party supporters look to pamphlet schools*, with or without Jill Stein’s leadership? (Schools and churches being about the only points of congregation in suburbs. I assume shopping malls, being privately owned, will prohibit political activity. I’ve even read of somebody getting arrested, inside a mall, for wearing a political tee-shirt that mall management didn’t like.)
QUESTION 5
Should high-profile public individuals (e.g., Noam Chomsky, who supported Jill Stein) be petitioned not to support any 3rd party candidate who won’t publicly commit to explicit party building long after their campaign? (See my ‘new rule’, above.)
Insofar as 3rd party candidates don’t show leadership in building up their respective 3rd parties, after and between elections, I think that donkeytale is essentially correct (though not in the sense he claims) that such presidential candidates are “vanity candidates”. It may not be their intention to be vanity candidates, but it’s hard to distinguish what the effects are, between their candidacies, and a (hypothetical) “vanity candidacy”.
* I mean by utilizing public spaces – like sidewalks – next to schools. I don’t mean trying to get inside school building, though I suppose that’s worth a shot.
80 Comments
Do you have a statement from Stein that you are responding to?
I don’t know what Jill or other 3rd party candidates could have done to change the numbers. Even people strongly critical of Obama did the lesser of 2 evils thing.
Unless you’ve got Perot money, I don’t know if there is any hope of 3 parties getting much. The media has most everyone locked in the “2-party” frame.
No, and I have looked for one at her web site.
I don’t know what Jill or other 3rd party candidates could have done to change the numbers. Even people strongly critical of Obama did the lesser of 2 evils thing.
Unless you’ve got Perot money, I don’t know if there is any hope of 3rd parties getting much. The media has most everyone locked in the “2-party” frame
Well, her number of votes is not the main thing that bothers me about her candidacy, though I suppose it’s natural to think otherwise, just based on the title of this diary.
As I’ve mentioned in other diaries on this subject, I personally think she should have prioritized growing the Green Party over the short term goal of achieving a respectable result in the 2012 election.
But, what do you think? Did she achieve all she could have achieve, for the Green Party (not herself), during her time in the sun?
What is your answer to Question 1?
Of course I’m for all of us resolving to be more
effective in a country where Chancellor Otto von
Bismarck might have been denounced as an “extreme
socialist” because he did favor a social safety net!
And as member of the Green Party who’s voted Green
consistently in a number of presidential elections, I
feel fairly as much subject to judgment as Jill Stein.
But the simple reality is that I cannot vote for
candidates who support the death penalty or
extrajudicial killings: if I had no third party or
write-in candidate to vote for, my only choice would
be abstaining from voting for this office, although I
would still go to the polls and hopefully have other
offices and propositions to vote on.
Since I have a vote, why not use it for a worthy
although human and therefore imperfect candidate such
as Jill Stein who is actually speaking for my values
and letting me join her in bearing witness against
injustice? That doesn’t mean that we, along with many
other Green Party members, couldn’t find ways to be
even more effective.
And Instant Runoff Voting might be a big part of the
equation.
I pointed out before the election that Stein didn’t give the impression of somebody who was ready to serve as President, for which I was roundly ridiculed by some of the very folks on this thread. So I can only believe one of two possibilities:
1) You’ve realized I was right after such a poor showing by Stein.
2) You were ridiculing my opinion reflexively, while simultaneously accusing me of behaving in a mindless, reflexive manner.
“It’s easier to forgive somebody for being wrong than it is to forgive them for being right”
J.K. Rowling
I wish I’d had a good, solid Green candidate to vote for, I truly do but agreeing on issues isn’t the sole, (or even sometimes the most important), factor in choosing a candidate. I am not so facile as that.
Why don’t you ask her and then comment on her response about what the future lies for her. I understand there will be matching funds of @20 million for 2016. There was no doubt if you listened to all the candidates she earned the votes she got. If the Green Party expands (there were only 89 candidates on ballots) her candidacy will have helped.
If austerity and plutocracy of the status quo continue progressives and other factions of the big D party will need somewhere to go. The fact that you are writing about Stein shows it was worth it. Yes we need a grassroots movement but the grass needs some water to grow. Proud to vote for her again and any other Greens in the future.
Running a third party Presidential candidate has very little to do with party building outside of reminding people of the brand.
I was expecting about 0.5% this year, so I am a little dissapointed, but third parties overall didn’t do well this year.
Building the Greens or any other third party is going to take money. Until we come up with a suitable funding mechanism (something between bake sales and accepting Koch cash) we’ll never get very far.
Well said. “I’d rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don’t want and get it” E. Debs
It don’t know that the number of ballots cast is the best metric. A poll testing for awareness of Stein in particular and the Greens in general would be much more useful. Of course, the election results are the only available metric there is at the moment.
That .35% figure doesn’t surprise me. The mainstream media was pitching the idea of a razor thin race between D’s and R’s like mad. And the R’s had a number of truly crazy candidates this year. It shouldn’t be a shock that a lot of progressives ended up making the lesser evil choice.
Should the Greens be building a more comprehensive party? You bet. Are they not going to do put work into that in the coming months and years? Your post implies that – but nothing in it indicates that you know one way or the other.
To get matching funds for this election she needed to raise a certain amount of money in a certain number of states, which she did (don’t remember the details). For the Green Party to get the $20M in public financing for 2016, she would have needed to get 5% of the national vote. Another reason why it’s sad that even people who felt that Obama was the lesser evil, in reliably red or blue states, didn’t vote for her. Don’t know how a party that doesn’t accept corporate contributions can ever be competitive in a national election without public financing
I voted for Jill Stein. I didn’t criticize anyone individually for not doing so.
Personally, I don’t think her poor electoral showing reflects on her potential capability as president.
According to GreenPartyWatch there were allot of Greens elected to local offices this year(12 new ones in CA) and Stein qualified for matching funds for 2016. This is very incremental movement in the right direction and Stein was a great ambassador for the platform of the Green Party. True she is no slick willie so people should stay with the Dem’s if that is what they value because they have a bunch of slick willies in the wings for 2016 if their convention was any indication.
Vote your fear is the hobgoblin of the two party system.
“Vote your fear is the hobgoblin of the two party system.”
Yes, it is.
If, however, you make the assumption that homo sapiens is a species without fear, then you are going to have, as the South Park boys like to say, a bad time.
By the way, just to be clear, I am not advocating for the lesser evil approach. I’m just saying it explains much.
And not that it’s anybody’s business, but this year I did not vote my fear, I voted my conscience.
Debs said it very nicely.
All I know if I ever win the lottery and run for any office, I am definitely putting a hundred thousand or two smacker-oonies into financing my “opponent” That opponent will be paid per word of verbal female attack: “God likes rape” “Pregnancy resulting from rape must be carried full term – God wants it.”
I was hassled at least a dozen times with the “philosophy” that if I didn’t vote for Obama, then I was deliberately rewarding the misogynists of the Republican side of the aisle with my full approval.
Well, she got my vote… in Florida… something the Democrats could never have achieved.
And I vote a big FAIL on your not-too-cleverly-hidden dismissive questioning of her “efforts.” And as Bafflebrains reports above – something you should have researched before painting with a broad brush – the Green Party did in fact win some elections.
meh…
Thanks for some true results – I was hoping to ehar some good news about the Greens.
Also, I am rather sure that in California, where the most serene and beatifically smiling “indie” “Clerk of the Court, Registrar of Voter” is nothing but a hack willing to flip at least ten thousand votes per county on any issue or candidate that pays them to do so, that many Greens and indie candidates faced an algorithmic formula embedded inside the Opti Scan machinery so that those votes were flipped for one of the major candidates.
I did not direct that statement at you but just as a general affirmation of what you said.
I agree with a lot of the other comments here, people believed the race was too close to risk voting for Jill Stein this time around.
We’re in for a long slog to get out of the pickle we’re in, and one election cycle is not enough to judge a candidate on.
The Green party will take years to develop, and it wouldn’t be fair to blame one candidate for lack of enthusiasm, or effort.
We all have to ask ourselves; “What have I done to make things better?”
MY vote, git it ?
With your vote you give your consent to be governed by those you vote for, individually.
I myself would rather be on the leading edge of a growing movement rather than the thundering herd that finally turns in the right direction after a few lead us in another direction. That’s why they did in the Kennedys, real leaders not hand maidens of the 1%ers, who were turning away from the big bad military.
It occurs to me that I came across as defensive – which is not all how I meant to sound.
I know you weren’t reproaching me in any way. It’s just the the subject of 3rd parties is such a touchy one around these parts that it makes a person want to overcompensate about what they are saying exactly.
Also, I’ve been thinking a lot about that very hobgoblin you speak of, wondering what can be done about it.
She gave me someone to vote for. I’m proud, and grateful. And I think she would have made an excellent President. We who did vote for her will remain happy that we did so; it’s kind of like saying you marched in Selma, only this time it was for the planet.
I mostly question her judgement, and that of her campaign.
Is it too much trouble for you to answer either:
QUESTION #1
QUESTION #2
QUESTION #3
QUESTION #4
QUESTION #5
??
Sure, you can ‘answer’ a question that I didn’t ask, or just ad-lib on the title of this diary, colored by your imagination regarding “not-too-cleverly-hidden dismissive questioning of her “efforts.””
I have been, and am being, quite specific in my criticisms. Saying that I’m “dismissive” provides a way for you to duck my specific criticisms.
If that’s the best you will do, so be it, but don’t expect me to spend any more time on you.
metamars, you QUESTION everything, but DO NOTHING to try to CHANGE IT.
Ladies and gentlemen, please don’t feed this troll.
x2
She’s building the Party. Didn’t you get her invitation to the Convention? Didn’t you see her appearances since the Election?
She’s building the Party as her main job, as she always has done. If you’ve met her, she may have asked you to join. That’s how I joined – at her invitation. I know lots of other people who did too.
She’s got a college degree or three, so she knew that she wasn’t the likely winner, but after we Left activists pushed her into running, I think she has done a brilliant job of raising the Party’s visibility and viability.
She’s made it a legitimate Party. I’ve been a Leftist activist for decades, and known about the Greens all along. I’ve voted Green. But I never considered it a reasonable Party that it made sense to join until after I worked for Jill Stein’s Gubernatorial campaign in 2010.
Jill Stein has taken major steps to extending the Greens’ 10 Key Values to its logical conclusion, criticizing Obama foreign and domestic policies in concepts that are not sound bites, and without the money that it takes to invade everyone’s consciousness.
But we’re not done. Not by a long shot. We’re not even slowing down. The Green Revolution has reached America. Climb on board.
Do you think she damaged the Greens by running then ?
I have a question for Barack Obama voters. And that is: did he use his Presidential run to the best, long-term effect, for the Democratic Party?
Good one.
I voted for Jill Stein without problems……. and have felt something of a release since. I’m no longer ‘invested’ in Obysmal and now feel rather dispassionate about the next four years. Whatever happens will be expected, because that is how O. operates, based on the last four years.
I’m just glad that Romney didn’t win.
You’re lying. Again.
Plus, stalking me even on my own diaries is bad form, even for you. Not that I think you care.
Sadly, nobody wants to address either:
QUESTION #1
QUESTION #2
QUESTION #3
QUESTION #4
QUESTION #5
Can somebody at least tell me why, given that a few people have posted comments, nobody wants to address my QUESTION’s?
Once again, I’m baffled by the progressive blogosphere….
No, not that I noticed. However, when I say “building the Green Party”, I’m talking about something that’s primarily about recruitment. Conventions are for people who are already in the club/organization/Party (right?).
No, have not. However, it’s only the 2nd day after the election. To have made appearances, since then, is not such a big deal.
Can you point to a link that gives her appearance schedule for the next 2-3 years? More realistically, can you give a link that points to her explicit plan for building the GP over the next 2-3 years? Lacking that, can you point to a web page, or quote (perhaps from one of her “appearances since the Election”) that GP members can proudly point to as a sign that she will aggressively lead recruitment efforts over the next 2-3 years?
As I have argued elsewhere, third parties can manifest considerable political muscle by threatening one of the legacy parties with a loss. However, 0.35% is just too small, for most elections, to pose a serious threat. Hence, if there’s no workable plan for building GP turnout to, say, 5%, then the GP will forever remain unable to force concessions from the Democrats.
1.) time will tell 2.) yes 3.) yes 4.) sure why not? 5.) no
I voted my conscience, but I live in a blue state. I’m still not sure that I would have, if I lived in Ohio or Florida. The tons of money behind Romney certainly ratcheted up the notion that he could actually win. Jill Stein would have been a force to be reckoned with if she had that kind of dough backing her. Until we get rid of the money in politics and electronic voting machines that can be hacked there is no chance for any 3rd party candidate.
Thank-you for answering my questions!!
Can you tell me your reasoning behind 5)? Imagine if all high-profile endorsers of progressive candidates demanded long-term, committed leadership in growing their respective parties. Would that not help force the issue, in a way that would be beneficial for the 3rd parties.
What is the downside, here?
Anyone can go to the Green Convention. But remember, if you go, you might turn Green.
Nobody has their next few years scheduled, but Jill Stein is now the de facto leader of the Party, so she has her work cut out for her.
Here’s one example of rallying people for the continuing struggle: http://www.jillstein.org/the_well_versed_green_party_presidential_candidate_jill_stein_talks_doing_away_with_politics_of_fear
Well, certain key findings now available tell a disturbing tale for anyone checking on them. Most importantly, on Nov 4th this year, 116,299,881 people voted in the election. But in 2008, an additional sixteen million people voted. The candidate who can get those sixteen million people will be noticed.
Combine this with USA Today discovering via their polling that a “slight majority” (i.e. 50%) of eligible voters no longer think our nation is served by having the two major parties we have. USA Today was not particularly happy with this discovery. Nor were the Pew Research people happy when they discovered the same thing, some four eyars earlier!
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
#1) Yes, Presidential Candidate are high profile and raise awareness
#2) Yes
#3) Yes
#4) I suppose – why do you focus on schools?
#5) No.
I’ve answered your questions – Now I have some of my own.
“insofar as 3rd party candidates don’t show leadership in building up their respective 3rd parties, after and between elections,”
What evidence do you have that Stein does this?
Why are you restricting your 3rd party inquiries to Stein – when there were other 3rd party candidates that were on ballots this year?
“I say “absolutely not”
Given that you are answering your own questions within your own post – why are you surprised when posters don’t take your pleas for answers seriously
What is your motive in posing these questions?
Metamars, it is rather obvious that you have no real interest in Jill stein or any of the third party candidates. If you had a real interest, you would have probably seen the Democracy Now, third party Presidential debate, that was on simultaneously to tone of the Republican/Democratic Pres debates. During the debate, Jill Stein outlines her plans for the Green Party at that time. But if you missed that debate, then perhaps you might have caught the C Span debate moderated by Larry King. (You can google C Span, Larry King” and “Third Party debate” and go and watch it.) Again, Jill Stein laid out her outline for the Green Party.
Then there was also a Sunday Nov 4th debate hosted by Ralph Nader. I didn’t watch that one, but I bet Jill Stein once again articulated her vision of what the Green Party will be attempting to have happen over the next three years.
There is a saying that Rome was not built in a day. Nor was it built up overnight. None of the major accomplishments of the third parties that Americans have experienced were done overnight. Not the Suffragette movement. Not the child labor laws. Not the forty hour work week. Not the rise of the Unions.
And even Martin Luther King Jr almost gave up, as his fellow ministers told him to “cool it” and quit provoking the white people. Instead, Martin took his message to kids in High School, and in college, and that is how we ended up with massive civil rights change in the sixties. (When you realize Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a bus in the mid fifties, and the Civil Rights Act was not signed until 1967, well, just more proof over how difficult it is to have real change, not “Pretender” change.)
You cannot demand leadership. They either got it in ‘em or they don’t.
Is this your fond desire, or is there a sound basis for this claim? How do you know that she will not simply go back to being a doctor, mother, etc.?
? This link leads to an interview. While she says a lot of good stuff, I really can’t divine a plan, from this interview, nor a commitment to either developing her own plan, or else following some sort of consensual plan.
Well, even if you don’t agree with this quote, I’m still not seeing a plan, nor a commitment to a plan.
I’ve been working with her for two-and-a-half years at Party building. Many times she’s driven hundreds of miles to get to events that I dreamed up.
She does not do it to feed my dreams. She does it to grow the Party.
Here’s a quote from the first paragraph of that link “how to continue building a Green movement after November 6, 2012.”
You know nothing about her if you’ve missed the plans. Bye.
False. What I don’t have is a lot of time for getting this information. I looked in the most natural place for it – Jill Stein’s website – and didn’t see it.
Attempting to contact Stein and her campaign manager was futile, so I’m not inclined to ask them. However, here at MyFDL, where a lot of Green sympathizers are, I am inclined to ask.
Actually, that was the only Presidential debate that I heard most of, precisely because of the Democracy Now ‘addition’. I frankly don’t remeber her discussing her plans for growing the GP, in the sense of recruitment. Did I really miss this? Is there really a point to listening to that, again, or (more reasonably) looking at a transcript?
Let’s say that Jill Stein really did, at least, outline a plan for GP growth, in that program/debate. Is that information on her website? Is it going to be on her website?
If the answer to the second question is “no”, then I’ve no reason to take these “plans” seriously. While I may be willing to read a transcript of the DN program, most people aren’t going to bother, for an election that has already passed.
If Jill Stein has a plan, it’s not my job to beg her to tell the world about it, in a natural way (i.e., prominently linked to via a website).
Yet still you feed him. Wake up, people. He’s got nothing better to do. And you’re helping him do it.
If I understand you correctly, her “building of the Green Party” was making personal appearances, at various unspecified types of events, and that is what she will continue to do.
While that speaks well of her level of commitment, past and future, that has about 0 chance of growing the Green Party, significantly. While I find her charismatic, she’ not an MLK. Thus, depending on a charismatic draw to overcome lack of TV exposure, isn’t a viable strategy for significant growth. (I welcome her to surprise me, of course. Also, I’m assuming that she will significantly scale back her public appearances. This, however, is a guess on my part.)
Do other GP-aware people, posting here, agree that this will constitute the bulk of Jill Stein’s commitment to and leadership towards recruiting into the GP, for the next 2-3 years?
Ah, do you know what the word “insofar” means?
I made very specific criticisms of Stein, in the diaries I posted. My expectations of her future behavior is based on the common sense notion that it is likely to be similar to her past behavior – unfortunately, without even the spotlight of a Presidential election to draw non-true-believers into the fold.
I would like those expectations to be wrong (in a positive way).
As for “why I focus on schools”, I’ve already said why!
Dennis Kucinich ran on a progressive platform, for President. That “raised awareness”, too. And? So what? I think his failure to use his Presidential run to recruit into the Progressive Democrats of America was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in US politics. (Except perhaps for some idiotic comment of Rand Paul’s after the Gulf Oil Spill and crazy statements about rape by some nutty Republicans.)
This isn’t strictly true. When Michael Cavlan solicited question to be asked of Rocky Anderson, my main (and I think only) question was what he intended to do to build up the Justice Party, after election day.
I frankly didn’t find his answer very convincing.
This comment doesn’t make much sense to me. Why should my answers suffice for anybody else, unless my reasoning is stellar? (Which I hope it is, but I still want to hear other people’s explanation for any contrary answers to #1, #3, #4, and #5. #2 is sort of a freebie.)
That is an excellent observation. Why exactly did those 16 million not show up as voting in one of the third parties this year? Did the Green Party in fact deliver a large percentage of Jill Stein supporters to actually vote? Is there internally the canvassing data that will allow the Green Party to determine this?
Are local parties building lists of existing Green Party supporters as volunteers for various policy-driven efforts during the coming four years?
Is there really an infrastructure there or its it just a brand?
So yer back, and dissin this or that.
Fuck off, yer a hoser.
I voted for Stein.
You generally, look to suck and mess with people’s heads.
Get OUT of here, ya useless creep.
If the Green Party continues to attract towering intellects, such as yours, to their cause, I’m sure that they will go on to even greater glory! At much the same pace as yesteryear!
Have you considered advising Jill Stein on her recruitment efforts? I’m sure you’d, ah, leave a mark!
QUESTION #1 — yes
QUESTION #2 — yes
QUESTION #3 — yes
QUESTION #4 — who the fuck cares?
QUESTION #5 — no, if people have the energy to petition, they could better spend that time working for the Green Party rather than another meaningless clickathon.
But you give it away in your title:
The obvious conclusion implies that if she had a better plan, she’d have gotten 0.36% of the vote. You have no sense of getting from here to there, of what kind of results could be achieved by the actual resources at hand. People held up signs, registered voters, had lit tables at universities and street corners, made phone calls, all the standard stuff. With the money and numbers and skills they had. No Steinian magic bullet was going to magically transform this.
In fact, in the past election, the right-wing threat was even scarier than in 2008, and yes, people were really scared. That’s why her final tally was less than she had polled earlier in the campaign. Yet she got 3 times the McKinney vote of 2008 and qualified for matching funds, no small accomplishment. Is that concrete enough for you?
And it’s not our job to present you with some master plan.
Wrong. Shows what you know about parties and organizations. Conventions are outreach and organizing events themselves. Often, the actual votes taken are their least important aspect.
Take it outside. One aspect of parties is that they attract all sorts of people, some you like, some you don’t. Don’t use Larue to take a cheap shot at the Greens.
http://my.firedoglake.com/normanb/2012/11/08/welcome-to-jill-steins-victory-party/
Throw rocks or help
On the bus or off – I live and vote in Florida – I refused to be “fear-mailed” by the corporatist democrats for 20 years since McGovern I tried and tried to convince green and libertarians to vote for milqtoast dishwater dems rather than what their heart and democratic soul told them the country needed.
I could not vote for a would be monarchist who willful destruction of the shreds of the constitution that remain – I would not vote for that. I heard Dr. Stein speech, passionate intelligent, and future oriented. Finally a candidate I could fully endorsed.
The question, of what will she do to build the party? What will WE DO – a political movement needs more than charasmatic leaders it requires the commitment of thousands. Ask better what will you do to give American voters options so when the araparachiks of the duoply sneer and say …. Where else you going to GO? We can tell them where they can go.
solidarity & peace
Rick@AveryVoice.com
1. It doesn’t matter. The purpose of her running was to offer Americans the chance to do something transcendently beautiful and immeasurably more important: to immediately change the course of history and improve the lives of billions of human beings the world over by electing an American President fully committed to peace instead of war, justice instead of criminality, social solidarity instead of hierarchical oppression, and love and compassion instead of hate, greed, violence and fear.
2. It doesn’t matter. I can’t imagine wasting my time wondering what Jill Stein might or might not do in the future, and even if I did, why would anyone care?
3. If Stein wants to, sure.
4. If the supporters want to, sure.
5. I can’t imagine why they’d want to, but If the petitioners want to, sure.
Having now dispensed with the five questions, I’ll answer the question posed in the title above:
Yes, something is very wrong with the picture. Millions of Americans missed an opportunity that comes around only once every four years: to immediately change the course of history and improve the lives of billions of human beings the world over by electing an American President fully committed to peace instead of war, justice instead of criminality, social solidarity instead of hierarchical oppression, and love and compassion instead of hate, greed, violence and fear.
Who cares if GP recruiters exploit just about the only gathering place in suburbia for pamphleting? If this attitude is true of the GP, in general, then I can’t say I have much hope for them. It’s not like they’ll ever have much money for TV advertising.
Online petitions are basically zero cost activities. Their “transaction costs” are zero, in the lingo of “Here comes everybody”.
For dealing with a corrupted government official, who has a good idea of how low petition transaction costs are, they have no motivation to buck their plutocratic masters. They know that the petition signers are not likely to do anything else.
A Noam Chomsky, OTOH, is not corrupt, and the low transaction cost of a petition is irrelevant, since he has no motivation to stonewall a good idea. The purpose of such a petition, therefore, is more to communicate the idea, rather than to strong-arm, as it would be with a Congress critter.
No, that’s incorrect. Her low percentage doesn’t bug me, as much as the fact that a low percentage should have been anticipated (just as Kucinich should have anticipated a loss in the Democratic primaries), and thus recruitment for the future be given a higher (and explicit) priority than standard electioneering (even if with a non-standard message).
And what did sticking to the “standard stuff” do to position the GP for 2016? Apparently, you think the “standard stuff” was optimal. I don’t, and wrote a few diaries, with numerous specific criticisms and suggestions.
I’d rather Stein have gotten .18% of the vote, and converted 3x the future worker bees that she did pick up during the campaign, than the other way around.
No, it’s not. You’re describing concrete but standard campaign activities. You make no indication of efforts made to retain, e.g., sign holder for the long term (“worker bees”). Also, I have questioned the Stein campaign’s judgement. We’ve had previous discussions about what Stein could have done, and frankly, though I laboriously picked apart your “ludicrous” comment, found it without substance. You seem dead set on believing that I believe Stein has powers that I, in fact, don’t ascribe to her. I just don’t have any appetite for another such one-sided conversation, not on this point, anyway. Suffice it to say that, e.g., both Dems and Repubs test memes, and they continue to spend $$ doing so. In this sense, they show more inquisitiveness and openness to experimentation than I can discern from the Greens.
So don’t! Speaking for myself, that will certainly quench any enthusiasm that I could dredge up for the GP. Just like it did for any enthusiasm I might have dredged up for the Justice Party, when I read Rocky Anderson’s response to my question about the day after, and it’s seemed awfully “political”.
I’m just one person – essentially, completely insignificant in the big scheme of things. If, however, the GP party as a whole feels they will be successful getting their millions of voters with their version of “standard stuff”, I don’t think they should hold their breath.
(Also, not completely sure what you mean by a “master plan”. That may imply a level of definiteness that is not very smart.)
That’s nice, but nobody in my family has ever mentioned going to a political convention.
Is that how the Chavistas recruited in Venezuela? That would have left out the extremely poor, who are forced to rummage for food in waste dumps.
Is this a recruitment pathway that more than 5% of converts experience?
Willfully dense. My point is that conventions can be part of a recruitment drive, as are local speaking appearances, which you disparage as mere publicity gimmicks.
If I had advanced that the Green strategy should be to hold as many conventions as possible, then your response might seem minimally coherent, but I did not.
I thank the troll because the rest of these comments were very encouraging to me on the whole. Suggest metamars answer Question #6..What would you do to build the Green Party? Send that manifesto to Dr. Stein, she could use all the help you can give her.
Suggestion; ask better questions.
My vote, my choice.
I didn’t even get a canned response, from either Stein’s contact page, or her campaign manager, when I tried to contact them.
I suppose reporting this qualifies me for being called a “troll”, eh?
I find that Greenbot-ism does nothing to improve my general view of the progressive blogosphere, any more than Demobot-ism.
Such as?
The whole thrust of my criticisms towards Greens is basically the same as my general concern about the state of activism, in general, in the US since the 60′s. Activism, when it opposes the plutocracy, generally doesn’t work. It’s basically a massive FAIL.
Defeating a systemic problem of corruption (in my lifetime) requires efficiency. Figuring out what is most efficient is a matter of hitting a moving target. Therefore, it will require experimentation and constant adjustments. Also, it will require not being taken in by “vanity statistics”. You can grok the sort of flexibility I’m talking about by reading “The Lean Startup”.
In the case of the Greens, we can easily infer that they are not efficient.
Let me put this another way. If the Greens had a management accountable to startup entrepreneur shareholders, who were knowledgeable about lean management, and Jill Stein was their CEO, I expect she would have been fired. Stubbornness and doing things the “standard” way are not considered virtues.
If a few percentage of Greens can be recruited through a convention, that doesn’t excite me. Nor should it.
What’s baffling is why that would excite you; Indeed, if this is the low percentage conversion route that I expect it is, a better question is why are you not embarrassed to even mention it?
As I’ve said many times before, nobody is questioning Jill Stein’s intentions. Rather, her judgement and strategic smarts (and that of her campaign) is what I’m questioning.
I wish I had more time to ponder/write my reasons for the need for different questions.
But, they’re releasing my 89 year old mother from the Rehab Nursing care in 3 days and I’m chasing equipment and panicking about my skill levels as a caregiver.
I think the questions are too oriented to an “inside the box” mentality about our election process. I don’t mean that as snark. They suppose the numbers are real and the election machines aren’t hackable. They seem impatient with a candidate who put her body on the line, who was denied media coverage, who is at the beginning of a political reawakening.
OK, you’re excused. Good luck to your mother.
So who’s excited? All I said — in response to your total dismissal of conventions — was that they could be an organizing device. Given what I’ve said, on this thread and elsewhere, about Green organizing, your inference about this is a matter of willful ignorance.
This is far from your best work, and has degenerated into you having a personal snit.
Apparently, my “total dismissal of conventions” is derived from
I still don’t see them as very relevant to efficient recruitment. You didn’t answer my question
If it’s less than 5%, then I’d dismiss conventions as an efficient means of getting converts.
For boosting morale amongst the already converted, I suppose conventions are wonderful.
Oh, yeah. You say,
but that is news to me.
Your comments remind me of a recent communication with a friend of Gary Null, who fought for Proposition 37 via (AFAICT) speaking appearances. Well, he also made videos on the subject, which he posted on his website, asked people to spread around, etc.
Gary Null is an uber-activist. I certainly don’t question his work ethic, nor his good intentions. However, I don’t think he was very smart about fighting for Proposition 37. He has a large audience that he reaches every weekday, he acquired tremendous “social capital”, he could have done a whole bunch of smarter things to leverage his audience, and worked less hard to greater effect.
His friend thought I was out of line, and implied that I wasn’t grateful, but that was nonsense. Disappointed, sure, but she couldn’t process that; I assume because of tribalistic attachment.
I don’t think you and her are grasping what I’ve written, and you both come across as defensive. That doesn’t make for a fair evaluation of my arguments….
A perfect example of your utter density. I never argued that conventions are an efficient method of recruitment. Obviously not. I was merely countering your assertion that conventions weren’t a method of outreach at all.
http://thirdpartypolitics.us/blog/2012/11/09/jill-stein-lets-keep-on-moving-forward/
Ah, so you read
as equivalent to an
Meanwhile, you admit (“obviously not”) that they’re not an efficient method of recruitment.
Methinks you’re quibbling. And to what end? Since you are invested in the Green Party, in a way that I am not, and in a way that most GP voters are not, I would have hoped that you’d be more interested in the question of efficient recruiting than your typical MyFDL’er.
You certainly don’t give me that impression, though.
Which I find baffling.
Well, I like to think that Gary Null, now that he lost his anti-GMO fight, would be receptive to suggestions for making his next anti-GMO fight effective. But that depends on a sense of perseverance, as well as adaptability. It also means, as Gary himself often says, “checking your ego at the door”.
I don’t recall Gary Null ever quibbling on his show, with either a guest or a caller. That’s a good thing….
Are you amenable to seriously and fairly considering any critique of the GP’s recruiting efficiency or strategic smarts?
This may be a good sign, but frankly not very meaty, and most people would probably take it as primarily a fund-raising device.
Let’s hope that more details, as well as strong and non-opaque leadership is forthcoming from Stein, now that she has more time to reflect on her purposes in life, what matters most, and what matters less.
Of course. Your critique, however, is neither serious nor fair, and your persisting on the matter of conventions is you quibbling with me, but doing so very badly.
Really!
When can we expect to see critiques that are both “serious and fair”? I think that most progressives who are “serious and fair” would agree that a 0.35% showing in a Presidential election does indeed raise questions about strategy. Surely there must be somebody who can deliver the goods. And should we expect to get serious answers to these “serious and fair” challenges, when they appear? Or will they simply be ignored?
I got no answers, whatsoever, from the GP, when I recently attempted contacting them. While Mike Hersch of the PDA did engage me in some lengthy exchanges, he was sort of weasely, and his blog at the PDA web site where we had most of our exchanges has now been scrubbed. I’ve put questions to a big PDA’er (I can’t recall her name) about strategy here at myFDL, and was ignored. I had a suggestion to Donna Edwards at OpenLeft, where she briefly appeared for liveblogging, never got an answer, and she never came back. IIRC, I also put questions to blogs written by Adam Green, of the so-called “bold progressives”, and except to correct a factual error of mine, he had no interest in engaging me.
Being opaque is something I’ve come to expect from progressive organizations and so-called progressive leaders, and I take this to be evidence of the equivalent of an anti-pattern in software engineering. Not engaging serious questions about strategy is a sure way to avoid thinking about the subject – not to mention keeping clueless sheep in the fold, who otherwise might be infected by inquisitive memes centered on strategy.
Contrast that with a management team who is practicing a “Lean Startup” style of management, and it would be like night and day. Not only would the management team have to have a clear (but malleable) strategy, they would have to have a good sense of what their interim goals and supporting data would have to look like. Anybody who was a member of such a management team who sought to hide their cluelessness via vanity statistics or blabbering (even if not in so many words) about moral victories would be likely to be canned.
I suppose you could say that shareholders who practice a lean shareholding strategy also have to follow some of it’s precepts, like “pivoting” in terms of personnel who refuse to get with the program, when necessary.
The relevant stakeholders in the GP are their voting base, but especially their activists and worker bees. If they demand as little accountability and transparency of their nominees as the Democrats and Republicans do, they have only themselves to blame. Just like the Democratic and Republican stakeholders.
For starters …
The number 0.35% is completely and utterly meaningless, i.e., raises nothing whatsoever, apart from consideration of what that 0.35% was gotten with. Your complete and utter ignorance about that is what renders you neither serious nor fair.
Foithermore …
and
A management team has certain powers to give orders, hire and fire, that a political party like the Greens does not. Your using such a model reveals your corporate, authoritarian mind frame. As for your using the term worker bees for Green Party workers, well … Considering the lack of response you are getting, though, it might raise some issues about how ineptly you are trying to raise these issues.
In the immortal words of Donald Trump, “You’re fired!”
On the contrary, people who are familiar with the history of 3rd parties in the US know that their relative success (getting parts of their agendas absorbed by the legacy party, in an attempt to co-opt the 3rd party’s membership) hinges on their posing an electoral threat.
.35% doesn’t represent much of an electoral threat. Can you imagine the Democratic insiders huddling to see how much of the GP agenda they should embrace, so as to beat back the insurgent Greens?
So, the significance of .35%, from this perspective, lies in it’s insignificant magnitude.
Now, if it was 5-10%, that’d be another story.
I’ve already pointed out that I’m less troubled by Stein’s low numbers than lack of strategic leadership (that’s explicit, reasoned, and hopefully amenable to input by interested “little people”, such as myself). Even if she had pulled 10%, and the Democrats were consequently going nuts, I’d still want to know what ideas she has, and is going to lead on, wrt growing the Green Party, further.
I hope the Green Party, in general, doesn’t share your attitude. Regardless, why don’t you enlighten us about “what that 0.35% was gotten with”. I find that statement very cryptic.
Also, I noticed you didn’t answer my question about when can we expect “serious and fair” critiques of Green strategy to arise, and whether or not we can expect those critiques to get answered.
You seem awfully defensive, and I am getting no more information about the Greens’ strategic direction from you than I did from Stein and her campaign manager – and they didn’t even answer me. You, yourself are manifesting the ‘anti-pattern’ of opaqueness, that I pointed to earlier. I get the sense that you don’t want to hear or read any critiques, however “fair and serious”.
Concerning which: why don’t you yourself write an appraisal of Jill Stein’s leadership? It seems you find her quite adequate, and her level of strategic smarts at least acceptable. Well, you could explain why Jill Stein merits whatever virtues you claim, for her. Also, you could also explain what flaws are evident.
Of course, if you think opaqueness is a good thing, or Jill Stein should not be criticized because her motives were good and she spoke truth to D/R power, you will not want to write such an appraisal.
Lean startups generally have very few people. (Recall apple computer started in a family garage, by Jobs and Wozniak, maybe a 3rd dude, etc. I like to think Stein’s staff consisted of at least 2 people…) It’s also well known in startup culture that you have to wear many hats. “Corporate and authoritarian” don’t adequately describe their culture, at all. I’ve been going to meetup.com tech startup talks, and nobody, but nobody, has ever described any startup as “authoritarian and corporate”.
On the contrary, startups tend to be considered exciting, and founders generally want people who are enthusiastic. They are not looking for 9 to 5′ers. They want people to share a vision for changing the world. It’s not for nothing that social entrepreneurship is NOT considered a contradiction in terms.
Although I’ve seen nasty politics even in very small companies, I’ve heard nothing (that I can recall, anyway) about nasty politics in startups, either.
Yeah, there’s a CEO who can fire (and be fired). There’s generally no volunteers (except an intern or two, maybe).
The point of bringing the Lean Startup into the conversation was clarify the difference in leadership, attitude, strategic and problem-solving approach. You seem to have missed those points, instead relying on stereotypical thinking, which is not relevant. If I had pointed to a book on the wonderful management of IBM, then you’d have a point.
Perhaps if you read the Lean Startup, you might learn something of value. It’s not a big book.
What I do tell you, you fail to comprehend. Go to their damn website and you’ll get some picture. It doesn’t look at all like your fun little startup.