William Rivers Pitt spent the early summer of 2000 collecting signatures to get Ralph Nader on the Massachusetts ballot. Now, he’s trying to explain to Greens why they’re wasting their time with their presidential candidate. I agree with two points that Pitt makes. One, any party with presidential ambitions which doesn’t have an Electoral College strategy is just masturbating in public and undermining the overall strength of the left (or right). Two, to have an Electoral College strategy, you must start out with some kind of regional base.
But I don’t get why he chose Massachusetts to be that base. I understand that Massachusetts was a safe state for the Greens to play in 2000, unlike, say, Florida. But before the Greens grew strong enough to actually displace the Democratic Party in Massachusetts, they’d split the vote sufficiently to throw its Electoral Votes to the Republicans. The Greens can’t play like that.
The obvious answer for the Greens is to put everything into California, and to forget about presidential elections until they can build a sizable caucus on Congress. Why California?
It’s simple. The Golden State’s new election laws have created an open primary where all parties run against each other and the two top vote-getters square off against each other in November. What this means is that the Green can knock the Dem into second place in the primary without costing the Dem the opportunity to run in the general election. And if the Green can come in first or second, they may even discover that their opponent in the fall is a Democrat. The intent of these electoral reforms, at least in large part, is to create more moderate representation in Congress. But it still creates an opening for the Green Party to expand at the Democrats’ expense without it helping the Republicans.
With 53 congressional seats, and 55 electoral votes, California is the biggest regional base a party could have, and it has the most pickup opportunities. It also has a lot of very liberal areas that might seriously consider the Green Party’s candidates.
But the Green Party should also be realistic. This is a two-party country and we would have to amend the Constitution to really change that. The Green Party’s goal can only be to supplant the Democratic Party in the same way that the Republican Party supplanted the Whigs. And they must do it, somehow, without just splitting the left and empowering the conservatives. California gives them an opening to start that process in the primaries, but running against Democrats in general elections is counterproductive unless you win. And there aren’t too many places where the left is so strong that it can field a strong Green candidate without it throwing the election to the Republicans.
So, my advice is to focus on electing members of Congress in California. Build up a caucus in the House, and get your members some experience actually legislating. And then see what the next step might be. It could be electing a senator from California. It could be organizing to get other states to adopt California’s election system.
But, it’s time to stop the public masturbation. Get a plan.
