Posted on 05/30/2002 8:51:32 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
WILL THIS BE THE YEAR WHEN THE CALIFORNIA GREEN Party finally makes a significant showing in a statewide election? The Greens are banking on their gubernatorial nominee, millionaire and socially-responsible-investing guru Peter Camejo, drawing substantial support. And given widespread liberal dissatisfaction with Democratic Governor Gray Davis -- a dissatisfaction so deep that leaders of nine prominent organizations of people of color are considering bailing on Davis and supporting Camejo -- it might just happen.
What's wrong with Davis? "The governor thinks that he is the lesser of two evils and can ignore our concerns," said John Gamboa, head of the San Franciscobased Greenlining Institute, which advocates for minority business and housing interests. Earlier this month, Gamboa sent Camejo an intriguing letter signed by leaders of the National Black Business Council, the National Council of Asian-American Business Associations, the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Latino Business Association, the National Federation of Filipino American Associations, the Latino Issues Forum and the Southeast Asian Community Resource Center, as well as a prominent Oakland minister.
In the letter, the leaders declare that "neither major party is effectively addressing issues" of concern to their communities and that "a strong showing by a third party" could advance their agendas. Saying that "20 to 30 percent of the minority vote" could be secured by the Green campaign, they suggest a dialogue with Camejo, which is now under way. Gamboa said another round of meetings is scheduled for Friday.
All this talk is still a long way from actually slicing off a big chunk of the expected Davis vote, but it is a fascinating development that should have the governor worried. "Everywhere I go I'm struck by how much Davis has alienated Democrats and progressives," notes Camejo.
The Greenlining Institute has felt alienated for some time. Earlier this year its leaders played a serious game of footsie with the thenfront-runner for governor, Republican Richard Riordan, featuring him at their big dinner in January. Perhaps their flirtation with Camejo will work out better.
Founded a little more than a decade ago, the Greens want to become an alternative political force to be reckoned with, as the German Greens have been for more than 20 years. But progress has been slow. Indeed, the principal organizer of the successful drive to place the Greens on the ballot, Mendocino County labor organizer Joe Wildman -- who complains that Greens would rather talk than organize effectively -- is now a member of the State Democratic Committee. Even the presidential standard-bearer Ralph Nader, with all his fame and publicity, could garner only 4 percent of the California vote in 2000. Green candidates have won several dozen local offices, mostly in left-liberal enclaves, but their non-celebrity candidates for statewide office have been mostly ignored.
This year will be different, Greens say. Santa Monica Mayor Michael Feinstein is the Greens' most prominent California elected official. In a conversation earlier this year -- at the state Democratic Party convention of Governor Davis at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, which Feinstein crashed -- the best-known L.A.-area Green predicted that Camejo's ethnicity would help the party gain many new adherents in communities previously ceded to the Democrats, most notably the Latino community. Camejo is a Venezuelan-American.
WHO IS PETER CAMEJO? IN ADDITION TO BEING A BAY AREA maven of socially responsible investing, he is a Berkeley activist of the 1960s who was the Socialist Worker Party candidate for president in 1976. Is Camejo a socialist now? Was he then? "There are many different definitions of socialist," he says. When asked to use his own definition, Camejo declines to answer whether he is a socialist either now or when he was a socialist candidate for president.
Despite those very politicianlike responses, Camejo has had limited exposure to mainstream California politics. For example, he has never met the target of almost all his invective, Gray Davis. (Camejo offers little criticism of Republicans.) Though Davis is not easy to get to these days, he was almost impossible to avoid during his quarter-century climb to the governorship. But Camejo does know one Democrat he likes, State Treasurer Phil Angelides, whom he praises for directing public investment into low-income areas.
Camejo says his campaign is about energy policy (he is a sharp critic of Davis' $44 billion portfolio of long-term power contracts), political corruption ("the Davis administration is pay-for-play"), social justice (he calls for a statewide "living wage" and a crash program for affordable housing) and peace (he is a staunch opponent of the Terror War and believes the American people would support the establishment of a World Court that might indict American soldiers "for terrorist acts" if only they understood the issues).
He is also concerned about education, and has entered into a dialogue with another Davis critic, California Teachers Association chief Wayne Johnson, who recently embarrassed the governor by revealing that Davis had asked the teachers union for a million-dollar contribution. (CTA gave Davis $1.3 million in 1998.)
Like the teachers-union chief, Camejo is against Davis' rather popular education-reform measures, notably new testing requirements. "Testing is often discriminatory," says Camejo. He does not say how students' progress can be measured before their joining adult society, but does call for more education spending.
In a lengthy conversation, Camejo seemed quite engaged intellectually, less so politically. He acknowledged that he was essentially unaware of two historic environmental bills winding their way through the Capitol, Palo Alto Senator Byron Sher's bill to require that 20 percent of California's electric power be generated by renewable energy sources (wind, solar, geothermal, biomass) by 2010, and L.A. Assemblywoman Fran Pavley's bill to fight global warming through cutting tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases.
After asking the Weekly to describe the bills and where they are in the Legislature, Camejo said, "A requirement of 20 percent renewables by 2010 would be a great achievement." Davis, by the way, is pushing the bill.
I'VE FOLLOWED THE GREENS FAIRLY CLOSELY over the years and knew the late Petra Kelly -- victim of a murder-suicide committed by her live-in lover, a retired general -- who once led the Green factions in the German and European parliaments. The Greens' success in Germany, where they have had members of parliament for decades and are now junior partners in a governing coalition with the Social Democrats, has been a beacon for American Greens.
But unlike Germany, America doesn't have a system of proportional representation, which encourages smaller parties. So without a major change in the voting system, it is difficult to see the Greens winning offices outside cities like San Francisco (the most liberal Democratic city in America), Santa Monica (where a coalition powered into office by Tom Hayden's late Campaign for Economic Democracy, a left-liberal Democratic organization, now includes Greens), and small college towns like the far North Coast's Arcata, where Greens briefly held a majority on the City Council until one key council member stepped away from politics.
The danger, as has been pointed out by many liberals and progressives since Ralph Nader's last-minute stumping in key battleground states like Florida helped hand the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush, is that a sizable Green vote will have a spoiling effect, electing candidates even more antithetical to Green goals than centrist Democrats. Greens alternate between reveling in this potential power to punish Democrats and denying the effect. Indeed, in a speech given in Redondo Beach last year, shortly before Bush unveiled his massively anti-environmental energy plan, Nader declared himself pleasantly surprised by Bush, who he claimed had "discovered that global warming is real."
Camejo acknowledges that other Green leaders want to defeat Davis as a prod to the Democrats to institute a new system of instant runoff voting (IR), in which second- and third-choice votes would be added to a candidate's total, but says that is not his goal. "Davis and the Democrats should simply call an emergency legislative session and pass IR if they want to avoid that," he says.
Of course, like Camejo now, 1998 Green gubernatorial nominee Dan Hamburg was touted by his party as a breakthrough candidate. Hamburg was a former Democratic member of Congress, a staunch environmentalist with an air of celebrity, having been named one of People magazine's 50 most beautiful people. But Hamburg pursued a quirky course, spending much of his time in the vicinity of the proposed Ward Valley nuclear-waste site, organizing against it, rather than stumping the state. He ended with 1.2 percent of the vote even as Davis smashed his right-wing Republican opponent of that year, Dan Lungren, 58 percent to 38 percent.
Camejo seems much more focused and disciplined than that. And if his gambit with the Greenlining Institute pays off, he could create a problem or two for Gray Davis.
It's worth noting, though, that there has been nothing but lousy news for Davis since the second Field Poll was released. Oracle and the true magnitude of the budget debacle both came out after the poll.
True, he might have gotten some traction from the "Yes, Enron and friends WERE gaming the market" stories. But I'm guessing it won't hold, since the type of person who reads those stories at all is going to find out pretty quick that the amounts involved were trivial.
I'd have to guess, then, that the two candidates are close to dead even at this point. Simon hasn't had a good month, but he hasn't had a bad month either; he simply has not been present in the mainstream media. When the candidates debate, he'll have a chance to define his positions positively.
The really good news is that no amount of campaign cash or slick commercials can hide a $22 billion deficit, about a quarter of the total budget.
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Of course it's possible. But what we have are four polls in a two-month period all essentially showing the same result (within margin of error). Then we have one significantly outlying poll a couple of weeks later. So this poll is either 1) a throwaway, or 2) accurate. If it's to be considered accurate, we have to presume something happened to demonstrably alter the equation in Davis' favor. I saw nothing during that time period which would account for that. Now I'm not saying I'm all knowing; I simply would like to see another poll showing results close to a 14-point Davis lead before I believe that's actually reflective of voter opinion.
No; I was saying that a worst-case scenerio using the best evidence we have is sound analysis, and I'm sticking to it.
But again, that doesn't mean the Field Poll is accurate; it simply means that for the purpose of strategizing, I should assume it is.
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If you consider the people whose only political involvement is to occasionally hear TV commercials for candidates, well, in a just society, they simply wouldn't vote.
But since we're stuck with them, I'm also pretty sure they would forget anything they heard this far from the election. I don't think Davis is running any commercials at this time, is he?
Right now, Davis is doing a very good job at self-destructing, and if there's any significant Green involvement in this election, I really think he's toast regardless of the amount of money he has. He can create commercials to scare people, yes, but he can't create passion or enthusiasm. I think people will be enthusiastic about Simon and the Green, and that will swamp him.
We'll see if I'm right ...
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(*) Last time I turned on my TV to do something other than watch my own video productions: September 11, 2001. All the web sites were clogged, so I couldn't get the news any other way.
But doesn't evidence works best, when examined. In my immediate circle, I see a reasoning friend, conservative in life style, who will probably vote for Davis. She has lack of time to hear 'evidence', and is exposed to the Union-speak for more hours per day. She is also over-scheduled/worked and thus to tired to 'examine evidence'. It's the union sheeple that may save Davis, unless those blessed Greenies give us a gift! The average CA union member, working the prisons, cleaning offices and teaching are all thinking about their 'rights' and benefits more than the taxes their kids will have to pay.
OPM [Other People's Money]
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