GOP consultant in Arizona pulls strings to get Green Party on Texas ballot

[pampango]

Source: Dallas Morning News

The liberal Green Party's uphill battle to get on the Texas ballot this fall has been fueled by a surprising benefactor: an out-of-state Republican consultant with a history of helping conservative causes and GOP candidates. If the state validates the petitions the consultant arranged for the party – for free – a Green Party slate could drain support from Democrat Bill White in his bid to oust Republican Gov. Rick Perry.

Green Party officials said an outside group gathered the 92,000 signatures and gave them as "a gift" to the party, which delivered them to the secretary of state, who oversees Texas elections. If the secretary of state determines that enough of them are valid, the party will be able to field a slate of candidates for statewide offices for the first time since 2002.

"It's good news for Rick Perry, in the sense that the Green Party label draws votes away from White rather than Perry," said Rice University political science professor Mark Jones. "It's likely to take a small amount from White. This is only going to have an effect if it's a very close election." But it's clear that the Green Party is much more likely to draw voters from the left than from Perry's conservative base of support. The party supports raising taxes on and boosting environmental regulation on corporations, abortion rights, same-sex marriage, publicly financed elections, universal health care and requiring schools, hospitals and the military to provide vegetarian meals.

Swift said she has no concern that the funding to get her party on the ballot might have come from Republicans who don't share the party's liberal philosophy on issues. "Wherever the money came from doesn't bother me," she said. "If it came from Democrats, which I doubt, or if it came from Republicans – whoever made this donation supports an open ballot, open democracy. And that's the whole point. People are trying to open the ballot to increase democracy and so, who cares how they vote?"

Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/state/stories/060610dntexballot.243bca8.html

[CanonRay]

1. She's an idiot if he thinks the Rethug really supports open ballots

and this was some kind of altruistic move.

[secondwind]

2. Republicans sure have novel ways of playing their dirty tricks, gotta hand it to them.

[Historic NY]

3. and people fall for them too....thats how they win divide & conquer

[rucky]

4. Dems help put Tea Party on the ballot.

problem solved.

[No Elephants]

19. +1

[scentopine]

24. LOL! Greens learned bi-partisanship from the 3d chess master himself. -nt

[AlphaCentauri]

28. or vote Green and problem solved

republicans would fall under their own sword

[onehandle]

5. So? What difference could a Green candidate make?

[L. Coyote]

21. That photo has "Ask Ralph Nader" written all over it, and they still had to steal the WH

Bush could not and did not win fair and square even with the Nader syphon.

[BreweryYardRat]

50. True, but Nader made the vote close enough to steal. n/t

[defendandprotect]

32. Gore won in 2000 . . . . and Gore won in Florida . . . despite 300,000 "Democrats" in FL who

voted for Bush!!

[defendandprotect]

33. Doesn't seem to worry Democrats who are not moving to IRV voting . . .!!!

Maybe Democratic Party doesn't get what you're saying . . . ???

[skipos]

6. This makes sense, if you know what "Green" stands for

G etting
R epublicans
E lected
E very
N ovember

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pattmarty]

8. Jesusfuckingchrist, wake the fuck up! NOW is the time for alternative...........

........parties, the more the better. If you can't see that we have a basically two party dictatorship, then you are indeed politically blind.

[elocs]

9. How about the politically blind in Florida in the 2000 election?

That worked out well, didn't it?

Maybe it's a case of the blind leading the blind.

[pattmarty]

40. How many times has that been debunked now? No, you're like............

........Rip Van Winkle, you've been asleep since then.

[elocs]

46. Sorry, I don't buy that debunking. I don't swallow everything, some do though.

There were too many people in 2000 who were not awake enough to figure things out and some things never change, even today.

[pattmarty]

47. I have a general opinion on fact & fiction, if you see/hear something.............

...........long enough, then you can pretty much figure that most of that particular fact is true. But, go ahead and believe in the "legend".

[Frances]

10. The Green Party

members are spoiled kids who think that if they can't have their way they'll spoil it for everyone else.

I was patient with them until I saw the outcome of their thinking in 2000.

[skipos]

13. "two party dictatorship"

The 2nd dumbest thing I have read on this thread. Yes, millions of people voting for parties you don't like = dictatorship. :eyes:
I have no problem with 3rd party candidates serving as spoilers for Republicans or Democrats, but I can admit that they are spoilers. This has been going on for decades, with 1912 being a great example.

[pattmarty]

41. Then keep on voting for "either or" and also keep getting fucked.......

........by both of them.

[L. Coyote]

22. WRONGO! Now is the time for progressive candidates in the Democratic Party

Instead of defeating Democrats, elect good ones!

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[L. Coyote]

39. Obam was not a Progressive and we all knew it. The People decide the primaries, get used to it!

And third parties skew the general election, ask Perot and his buddy Clinton, ask Bush and his buddy Nader.

Why do you suppose the Republicans took over and purposefully bombed the Reform Party?
Why do you suppose the Tea Party stays in the Republican column? To rebrand Bush's Party!

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[No Elephants]

25. Sometimes, it seems as though we have about 1.25 Parties, rather than 2.

[AlphaCentauri]

29. +1

[defendandprotect]

34. Fear continues to rule ... despite reality of . . .

Gore having won the election in 2000 -- including Florida

even with 300,000 "Democrats" voting for Bush in Florida!!

Amazing how "scapegoating" is always believed and never questioned!!

Good post --

and we need IRV voting which neither Dems nor Repugs will move on because

they want this two-party lock on the system--

:)

[Renew Deal]

12. lol

How true.

[Joe Bacon]

18. +1,000,000!

You got it, Skipos!

[Sailing]

11. Beware of Republicans bearing gifts (nt)

[Democat]

14. Where is Ralph "I Love Bush" Nader?

Probably down in Texas supporting the GOP.

[mzteris]

15. divide and conquer

a vote for the "green party" is vote for the Republican candidate.

Just like a "i'm not gonna vote 'cause my petthing isn't the most important. . . waaaahhhh" is a vote for the Republican candidate.


I'm all for MULTIPLE parties - more than two - more than three! (That or I'm for the NO party system - but that most definitely isn't in the cards for ever happening.)


I do "vote for the PERSON" - not the party. But for the past couple of dozen years, I'm sorry, but there's not ONE Republican I'd vote for (except one judge in NC that I knew personally and I'm still not sure why he's a "republican" 'cause he acted more Dem . . . but I digress...)


There has not been ONE acceptable VIABLE third-party candidate in a major race. "Sending a message" by voting for a person who can't get elected and ensuring the person you most desperately DO NOT WANT in the office to get elected, is - imho - shortsighted.

[depakid]

16. That's so full of contradictions that one wouldn't know where to start...

[depakid]

17. dupe

[defendandprotect]

35. First, people usually vote GREEN when it isn't a threat to the Democrat . . .

note that we probably got Clinton because of the Perot candidacy . . .

at least that's what Poppy Bush and Repugs thought --

We need IRV voting so that people don't have to vote for the lesser of evils --

It is only because the Dems/Repugs want two-party control and no competitition that

we don't have IRV voting --


Also note that Gore won in 2000, including in Florida despite 300,000 "Democrats" in

Florida voting for Bush!

[scentopine]

20. LOL! The people we have contributed to, worked for, and voted for have walked away from us and

now they are yelling at us because we are foolish enough to demand representation. Obama had plenty of information to prove MMS was a disaster when he took office. He knew there were reckless cries of "drill, baby, drill". He also knew that to build credibility with the tea party party, he could take a big gamble and try to beat them at their own game by opening up nearly the entire eastern seaboard to deep water drilling. And the centrists want us to chant its all Bush's fault.

The centrists democrats and republicans controlling democratic party yell at us, call us retarded, call us "those on the left" in a false equivalence with "those on the right". And true to their right wing core, centrists and republicans work to protect the mainstream monopoly and deny representation to millions of people angry about it.

Every dollar I used to spend on democratic party now goes to alternative groups who work outside the party. Every meeting I attend and labor I volunteer is outside the party.

Many of us are very unhappy and angry with the democratic party. Rather than just sit on our asses and let the centrists continue to make fun of us, we are working on constructive alternatives to this arrogance. I used to laugh at Nader. No more - I will continue to apologize to all those I laughed at - from Jon Anderson back in 1970s to Nader, Perot even Ron Paul. There needs to be a challenge to the mainstream death grip on American politics.

They continue to deliver us - war, torture, trillions for Wall Street, economic collapse, decaying infrastructure, legislation that exclusively benefits Fortune 500, environmental disaster (Massey, mountain top removal, Gulf of Mexico, and licking chops over Eastern seaboard, Alaska, etc)

Democrats have been deferential to those with power and money and callous and irresponsible in attacking "those on the left".

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

I have to know that given the opportunity to fix what is wrong in this country, I have a choice to do the right thing or wrong thing. You are delighted with Obama? Great. Just don't attack me for not being happy with Obama nor the republicans. Every year I need a more powerful microscope to find the differences between democrat and republican (excluding the bat shit crazy types who get all the media, its the "mainstream" ones that do all the damage).

Change has to start somewhere - every time there is an ember of change, democrats and republicans waste no time stepping on it - eventually they won't be able to keep up and we will have heat to go with along with the light.

[hayu_lol]

26. Texas already has the Texas Two Step...an election that doesn't count...

and then the Caucus dance which determines the actual candidate and now Greens...have to wait and see if the military in Texas will vote for 'Veggie meals.' Now there is an important national cause.

Here we go again.

[defendandprotect]

37. Vegetarianism is "an important national cause" . . .

which the UN spoke on this past week --

If you are concerned about destruction of environment/planet -- then

veggie/VEGAN is the way to go.

[defendandprotect]

36. Great post . . .

and obviously many of us feel the same way --

It is corporate control over our elections and corporate control over our

two-party system which has done this harm to America and her citizens --

certainly not Greens or any other third party.

We need IRV voting -- and at some point, Dems are either going to have to give

up continuing on pushing for two-party control -- or wake up out of office.

[No Elephants]

27. Getting on ballot should be easier for everyone (but I don't want Republicans to win elections).

[defendandprotect]

38. ... and that's primarily the choice til we get IRV voting . . ..

which means that Dems/Repugs have to agree to less control over elections

and less two-party system --

Unless they see some real threat of being replaced by Greens, Dems aren't going

to move on IRV voting!

[AlphaCentauri]

30. Capitalize on the republican investment, all democrats vote Green n/t

[defendandprotect]

31. We meed IRV voting so that people can vote for whomever they really want to see

in office --

That we don't have it is credit only to the two-party system which wants to keep

two-party control over elections.

[Tarheel_Dem]

42. Only activist types support Greens. It might feel good, but at the end of the day...

there are two political parties that matter. You can be as idealistic as you want, but if you can only muster support in the single digits, you're screwed. And you have the luxury of knowing that you stuck by your principles while being a tool of the Republican party. Who could ask for more?

[scentopine]

48. Let's examine Microsoft

they had nearly 100% market share and they sort of sucked but they were fearless and reckless and arrogant. And a bunch of really smart people said Fuck You, we'll do an OS the right way even if we have to do it ourselves.

And the mainstream s/w companies laughed and said it would never work - for christ sakes they are working for free! They said things like - yeah right go waste your time - its pointless. Go stick by your principals, I'll work for the Microsoft, the clear winner.

There isn't a day that goes by that MSFT wouldn't like to have a fraction of the linux business. Even Apple tried to make it their own and failed.

Dem and Rep party leadership is big, reckless and arrogant and they don't give a flying fuck about principals when they stand in the way of their next easy paycheck. As soon as an alternative gets rolling, dems and reps come by & kick em down, pass laws preventing 3rd parties on ballots with labyrinth electoral rules, and then say "see" they can't make it.

People are attacking greens on this thread because they are afraid. That's a good thing. It means greens are already having an impact, challenging the status quo. They angrily cry "IT"S LIKE VOTING FOR REPUBLICANS!!!" and then spit out "go ahead and get 1% of the vote, you don't matter." So - which is it? Either 3rd parties are important or they aren't.

I recommend you stay mainstream, go with the flow - its safe and comfortable and politically correct. All the talking points are served up by a complicit media, Fortune 500 is solidly behind you and its so nice and easy - red state, blue state, red fish, blue fish. Good vs. evil, a child can follow it. You'll be so happy with your rational choice that as your quality of life continues to degrade (assuming you aren't Fortune 500 CEO), you won't even notice that its exactly what you vote for year after year, convinced no other way is possible.

It will be quite funny to watch our two convergent mainstream parties stumbling to differentiate themselves in the wake of citizen's united. I wonder just how bad it has to get before progressives strike out on their own and even centrist democrats get pissed? A whole lot more pain has to go around before that happens, I guess.

[Jim Lane]

43. If the Greens want to present the people with a choice, they have an easy, nonharmful way to do it.

They can run their candidate in the Democratic primary. Then all those millions of people who are just waiting to vote for a true progressive will give that candidate the nomination, and there won't be the "spoiler" problem of a third-party candidacy.

Despite this alternative and the lesson of 2000, many of the Greens prefer to continue their egotistical third-party course.

Fortunately, however, most progressives have recognized this for the idiocy it is. In 2000, the Nader-LaDuke ticket received 2,883,105 votes, for 2.74 percent of the total. He hasn't come close to those numbers since. In 2004, Winona LaDuke herself endorsed Kerry. In 2008, the Nader-Gonzalez independent ticket received 738,475 votes, for 0.56 percent of the popular vote.

It makes sense for the right-wingers to fund the Greens, because Green Party ballot access helps the Republicans. Their strategy will pay off if the race is very close. Let's hope that Perry's silliness is obvious enough to outweigh that of the Greens.

[scentopine]

45. LOL! Egotistical - how about offering us some representation?

The people who vote for green party have this in common -

They do not support the acceleration of violence in Afghanistan. The spending rate is now exceeding that of peak spending of Bush in Iraq. We hit the point of 100,000 troops and 100,000 contractors in Afghanistan.

They do not support a stimulus package that loads a cannon with several trillion dollars and fires it at a hand full of investment banks. They believe that instead, the errant banks should be left to collapse under their own weight and taken into receivership. They believe stimulus should pump the trillions into real infrastructure projects. Wall Street bonus money in 2009 exceeded the total amount of transportation funds available from the stimulus package. Bonus money that paid the fuckers who caused the collapse. Banks are not buying back their shitty loans, companies are not hiring, and outsourcing continues. The bulk of "shovel ready" stimulus went to pay for projects already on the books when state/local governments went broke.

They don't believe tax credits should count as stimulus.

They don't believe we should look past torture and criminal prosecution for lies around a war that resulted in millions of dead and displaced people in Iraq and hundreds of billions of waste and fraud and thousands of dead and many more dismembered here in US.

They do not believe opening the Eastern Seaboard to off-shore oil drilling is a good idea. They don't trust Obama when he says it is safer than ever.

They don't believe having Exxon and GE and other Fortune 500 corps. pay zero US taxes while being in control of US legislature is a good idea.

They believe that as part of the stimulus package, more money should have allocated for R&D in alternative energy programs here in US. Money direct from government to US development and manufacturing. Instead, the money went to banks and the theory is the "free market" will determine the best way to spend that money. Its a self-defeating policy - starve US based R&D and manufacturing and then send R&D and manufacturing overseas because we have no R&D and manufacturing sector.

They believe single payer is a rational and well reasoned health care solution. They oppose the industry sponsored bailout plan for Fortune 500. They predict the next big cluster fuck that has tax payers bailing out a speculative investment bubble is when out health care system collapses.

They believe that the proposed Wall Street regulation will do little or nothing to prevent another speculative disaster in a few years. All the same mechanisms are intact that caused the crisis in the first place.

I don't know, I guess I could go on with more examples - mountain top mining, factory agriculture, eroding worker wages, benefits and rights, citizen's united, etc. These aren't fucking ponies. In the old days - people who stood for principals like this were liberals. Now they are the enemy.

So, some people are selfishly voting for these principals. How egotistical. How unrealistic. How wrong. LOL!

What are you worried about? There's only a few million of us who think this way - in the risk analysis of the 3d chess master's calculus - our influence is a remote possibility. Obama (leader of the party) is comfortable that we don't need representation in our government, he's focusing on bi-partisanship, centrists and right wingers and couldn't give a damn about "those on the left". He's following the money. The dem party will stay where it is with or without "those on the left".

There is no way in hell a green party member would survive under the static inertia of the dem party. That's exactly why progressives are stuck in the mud. There needs to be a place where people with common principals can work for representation and change. A green candidate would suffocate to death in the dem party.

[Jim Lane]

51. In politics, you usually aren't OFFERED anything. You TAKE it.

You field candidates who agree with your list of principles, and you campaign for them, and if there really is widespread popular support for them in that particular jurisdiction, then they'll win Democratic nominations. (And if there isn't -- then the Greens are clearly wasting their time.)

You write, "In the old days - people who stood for principals like this were liberals. Now they are the enemy." Please don't put words in my mouth. I agree with most of your principles. The difference isn't about whether the government should be more progressive, but about how to get from here to there. That's a point I've never heard a good explanation of from the third-party enthusiasts. If you have the votes to win a general election, then you have the votes to win a primary. In fact, in a primary you have more votes. In 2000, I would've voted for Nader in the primary. There wasn't much difference between Gore and Bradley, so I would've been willing to give up my chance to choose between them in order to vote for the candidate who came closest to my views. In the general election, though, that didn't apply. Nader's attempt to insinuate that there wasn't much difference between Gore and Bush was absurd.

Can a progressive candidate "survive under the static inertia of the dem party"? Well, I'd guess that Dennis Kucinich agrees with most of your principles, and he's survived (most recently, he survived a primary challenge from the right). The problem isn't some mysterious force within the Democratic Party that suffocates candidates who get the most votes. The problem is that, in most races, candidates like Kucinich just can't get the most votes, whether as Democrats or Greens, because the corporate media paint them as extremists. That smear job is much easier, however, in the case of a candidate who can't or won't get a major-party nomination.

Now tell me: What is your realistic projection of the earliest date on which someone will be elected President without having either the Democratic or the Republican nomination?

[scentopine]

52. Agree - I'm taking the opportunity to pressure for change from the outside

I appreciate the work the greens have done to get on ballots. I like DK, I've sent him money in the past. I've defended him here. But in raw effectiveness its just not working. Every one can see this. Where is the protest over off-shore drilling or net neutrality or torture or BP - where is the progressive voice at the policy table fighting for single payer, banking reform on and on? They are too busy fighting within their own party. How in the hell can two polar opposites get anything done without comprimising away all the value from the start? It is exactly what happened with health care reform and the costs are still soaring and CEOs richer than ever!

Dems have congress and exec. a massive amount of energy is required to move anything forward. The inefficiency and conflicts of interest are preventing change. Like leaving BP in charge iof the oil leak, its simply not working and likely to be making things worse.

You have to start somewhere, after 30+ years of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, I'm trying something new. Alternative political parties that are more closely aligned with positive aspects of FDR style liberalism is the right thing to do. Obama keeps throwing money down the neo-con/neo-lib rat hole. I'm done with it.

You are more than welcome to fight me at the ballot and outspend me during the campaigns. You'll have the smug satisfaction of voting for a "winner" as the country continues its slide into a giant shit hole of Fortune 500 oligarchy that neither mainstream party is inclined to change.

[Odin2005]

49. And then the DLC will kill their candidacies.

[Luminous Animal]

53. They wouldn't be able to mount an effective campaign as a Dem because

the Dem financial and "get out the vote" apparatus would not support a "Green" Dem. A "Green" Dem's primary candidacy would be starved for funds from the traditional Dem political machines and would have to go outside the party to run a viable campaign.

[dmallind]

54. Eh? Since when did the party fund any challenger? NT

[Jim Lane]

55. They can campaign more effectively as Dems than as Greens.

Just one example: Carol Moseley-Braun primaried a conservative Democratic Senator, Alan Dixon. She beat him and won the general election. He had the strong support of the party establishment, including even Senator Paul Simon -- he was a liberal who disappointed many of his supporters by backing the incumbent.

Even a Democratic Party candidate who isn't favored by the "traditional Dem political machines" will get more money and more media attention than a Green Party candidate. Also, a major-party candidate generally starts off with about 30-40% of the vote just from voters who are party loyalists.

I await your list of the progressives who've mounted effective campaigns as Green Party candidates. In my book, "effective" means winning, or at least coming close to winning, a governorship or a federal office. I'm not impressed by Green Party victories in races for state legislative seats and school boards and the like.

My point is that, for progressives, winning office as a Democrat is difficult but winning office as a Green is impossible.