Press Action

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

The Green Party Unravels From Within

By Josh Frank

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Posted 09/08 |

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Lloyd, Liz, Frank, and others are angry at the Cobb nomination and developed conspiracy theories about it. Counterpunch has also written other slanderous articles about the Oregon Greens, starting the day of the Cobb nomination.

The Nader supporters in Oregon are using any means necessary to attack the Greens, even to dispute actions supported by the vast majority of Greens at convention and at the CC. Note that they don’t reveal in the article what the Convention’s position on the issue was because it is very damaging to their analysis and near unanimous.

I’ll add, for example, Glickman was the one who got Teresa to run against David Wu in the 1st Congressional District and was preparing her campaign for that seat. To say that Glickman wanted her to run for Senate all from the beginning is ignorance. She changed her mind when she found out by Teresa that she found out that she wasn’t in the 1st Congressional District anymore due to a gerrymandering in the 2002 redistricting (all the precints around her are still in District 1).

I was there, neither Lloyd nor Liz were paying attention, I guess. This Frank reporter has also never been to any internal Green meeting.

Also, Glickman has been raising funds for Greens. Glickman’s own fundraising paid for Liz’s trip to the National Convention. Liz who above resigned and was a big Nader supporter—Glickman helped pay her way.

Glickman didn’t run again as a co-chair of the party (which is probably what was misinterpreted and reparaphrased by the anonymous Nader supporter in the bathroom—I was at the Convention and never heard anything like that from Marnie). Since the election, Glickman has still been working for the Greens and has been a campaign consultant for Green candidates, as well as pursuing her two other non-profit interests. She’s always talking about spoiling Democrats and what seats would be best to do that in (the 1st Congressional District was her idea to put somebody to run in). When Democratic Party issue front groups walk up to the door, she tells them they support too many Democrats, ad nauseum. I’ve seen few people in their ardent support for Greens, ever.

Most people don’t know this, but her husband is executive director and co-founder of a group co-founded by Nader himself. If it weren’t for Nader’s work in that, Glickman might not be able to afford to work with the Greens at all.

I could go on a lot more, but I’ll limit it to that since I have to get to work.

These attacks are pointless, not well researched (as with most counterpunch articles), and it’s best to take them with a grain of salt.

Seth Woolley
Secretary, Pacific Green Party of Oregon.

Posted by Seth Woolley from on 09/08 at 09:59 AM

I may not be able to speak on all that has been going on in the Pacific Green Party or in California, but one thing is for sure: David Cobb was NOT elected in a democratic fashion. The majority of those in the party did not even want him. If it were not for CounterPunch, we would not know all of the shenanigans that went down during that Convention in Milwalkee (The Nation and other liberal publications damn sure wouldn’t expose this; they were so happy that someone who doesn’t even want many votes won the nomination).

It is obvious that Cobb is a candidate for the elite in the Green Party who want to support John Kerry. The affluent, elitist left (Benjamin, Glick, Soros, etc) are controlling the Green Party will continue to back down from the Democrats.

And Josh Frank has done an excellent job covering all of this.

Posted by Brandy Baker from on 09/08 at 11:26 AM

As the elections administrator for the state of Oregon, I sent an open
letter to Donnelly about his earlier attacks on our process.

CounterPunch didn’t print it, of course, valid corrections are never
printed on CounterPunch—sources are usually some guy with an
anecdote.

Donnelly’s shotty reporting that had completely false characterizations
of the process that were from the time _before_ even the 2000 elections
(the last time he’s ever attended a meeting) were corrected. No
corrections were issued from CounterPunch explaining that in fact, the
processes he had criticized didn’t take place in the 2004 election
cycle.

I mean, seriously, if it’s been five years and countless bylaw changes
later, wouldn’t you want to look at the rules and processes again --
maybe attend the convention you want to criticize? After-the-fact
criticisms from the arm-chair are always right, eh?

I was the elections administrator—my name wasn’t mentioned, I wasn’t
contacted, and the article maligned our efforts to involve people in the
process with funds available (every member was notified of the
convention—Donnelly isn’t even a member, and I have the county
records to prove it).

State law mandates that minor parties nominate through conventions, but
we had changed our bylaws in emergency conventions to allow “absentee
voting” to involve more people, skirting the election law. Ironically,
the largest sample size polling we had done indicated that most people
didn’t want us to run a candidate at all. A convention decided against
the polling figures to run a candidate—the same group of people that
supported Cobb in a landslide.

To say that such and such is obvious with no data behind it only
discredits your opinions. If you want to advocate a viewpoint, then do
it, but don’t misrepresent people who you have never met, only guessing
at the supposedly large grassroots support that your idea has (of course
your idea is the most grassroots—that goes without saying—without
data as well).

Seth Woolley

Posted by Seth Woolley from on 09/08 at 12:16 PM

“CounterPunch didn’t print it, of course, valid corrections are never
printed on CounterPunch”

Well, first of all, your statement is inaccurate. Counterpunch printed “A Defense of Cobb” on July 20, rebutting Jeffery St Clair’s piece on Cobb and Cobb’s positions and actions in the Texas Green Party. Was George Reiter’s rebuttal true? I do not know, and neither do you, but that is not even the point.

Second,
you do not know who I have and haven’t met, so please refrain from speculating on such matters.

Donnaly and Frank are not the only ones who have reported the lack of Democracy that went down in Minneapolis:

Carol Miller and Forest Hill have done so as well. I am probably breaking fair use policies by copying and pasting the following from the Miller/Hill article below, but here it goes:

PRIMARIES: THE WILL OF THE VOTER

“In five states, registered Green Party members, who are the rank and file of the party, had the opportunity to vote in a presidential primary. These five primaries represent the majority of registered Greens in the country.

The five primaries took place in California, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Washington DC and Rhode Island. The total number of votes cast for a presidential candidate as recorded by Ballot Access News was 45,733.

The results from these primaries for the leading three candidates are as follows:

Camejo 33,255 72.7%

Cobb 5,569 12.2%

Salzman 4,953 10.8%

Others 1,956 4.2%

In the three largest States, California, Massachusetts and New Mexico David Cobb was defeated. In California he was beaten six to one by Camejo, and Lorna Salzman almost tied him for second place. In Massachusetts he was beaten by Lorna Salzman and in New Mexico by Carol Miller. Both Lorna Salzman and Carol Miller endorsed the Nader/Camejo campaign.

In DC Cobb received 37% of all votes cast. The total number of votes cast in the Washington DC primary, including write-in votes was 374. Cobb faced only one local opponent, yet received only 138 votes!

In the Rhode Island primary, the one state Cobb actually won more than 50% of the vote, only 89 votes were cast. The primary ballot only included Kent Mesplay and Cobb. It did not even include New York’s presidential nominee Lorna Salzman. The vote was 71 for Cobb and 18 for Mesplay.

Overall, the total primary vote for candidates who support Nader/Camejo was over 83% compared to Cobb’s 12.2%. Where Greens actually were able to vote, Cobb was roundly defeated.”

(more)

Posted by Brandy Baker from on 09/08 at 12:57 PM

The rest of the article does a great job detailing how tiny groups of nominating committes in other states picked their delegates(one example: Nader beat Cobb in Maine, but 18 out of 19 of the delegates Maine sent to the convention were Cobb delegates).

Here is the link to that article: http://www.counterpunch.org/miller08072004.html

Mr. Woolley, you said that state law mandates that you nominate throught conventions, but state law does not mandate this undemocratic and secretive system that gave Cobb the nomination. In Iowa, (where there isn’t even a Green Party), they get to send nine delegages to the convention. There are only 50 registered Green in Iowa, but there are 150,000 in California, and there are 150,000 delegates in California but they only get to send 132. And a few of those delegates revealed that they were Cobb delegates as soon as they got to the convention (they posed as Nader delegates on the way there). This is an Elctoral College type system and the Green Party is supposed to be against the Electoral College!

Also, Alan Maass fron CP: “Last year, when Nader was making his decision about whether to run for president again, 17 well-known Greens, among them Ted Glick, issued an open letter calling on Nader not to run. Now, many of these figures are outspokenly critical of Nader for seeking the endorsement of the Green Party, rather than the nomination. In other words, their gripe with Nader isn’t his relationship to the Green Party, but the fact that he ran at all.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/maass07012004.html

Mr. Woolley, if you are going to take CP, and its’ MANY writers who have been documenting the sham in Milwalkee to task, you must actually read all of the articles that have been published by all of the writers; and that is another thing: these people are coming forward who are NOT from the same parts of the country and I am sure who all do not know one another. So your theory about “conspiracy theories” of sore loser Nader supporters is the what lacks credibility.

You cannot pick or choose among what facts you will and will not contest in order to promote the blatent lie that Cobb won “fair and square.”

Posted by Brandy Baker from on 09/08 at 01:03 PM

*Correction to my last post: those from Califoria who revealed that they were Cobb delegates once they got to the convention were actually CAMEJO delegates, not Nader delegates; sorry.

Posted by Brandy Baker from on 09/08 at 01:08 PM

Also, Califonia had 132 dlegates out of a pool of 150,000 Green Party voters

Posted by Brandy Baker from on 09/08 at 01:14 PM

I have read many of them. I was at the national convention myself, I
read the rules for figuring out delegation allotments, and I know why
they exist (for one, many states simply do not have party registration,
so those states that don’t had to have some form of how to figure out
how much to representation to have). Anybody who wants to criticize the
representation and delegate calculation process for being too
electoral-college-like doesn’t realize that there really is no fair way
to use one method because of the particulars of state election laws.
This is tantamount to ignorance in the process.

The New Mexico vote had fewer people participate in it than Oregon, and
that state is held up as a state that voted against Cobb. Pot calling
Kettle?

Further, I did not say that one alternative opinion wasn’t published
(they got their token opposition in). I did say they don’t print
corrections. We’ve sent them numerous letters of correction to print,
and I haven’t seen a single one come up, nor even a small mention of it,
although perhaps they have a printed form that includes corrections and
they don’t publish it to the web.

Further, I didn’t say that they are a conspiracy themselves. I said
they developed conspiracy theories about the Cobb supporters that just
don’t hold any water. I know these people personally, I’m not on any
foundation grants, the ones I do know who are on “foundation doles”, as
Donnelly likes to say, got most of their support from Nader. I have a
regular 40 hour a week job managing the computer systems at a large
medical clinic. I often work more than 40 hours a week. At the same
time I volunteer to help keep records, maintain databases for Greens,
host and design websites for Greens and maintain the second largest
source-based linux distribution’s security team.
(more)

Posted by swoolley from on 09/08 at 07:25 PM

I don’t appreciate the conspiratorial approach the CounterPunch people
have decided to take when I’ve been “involved” in the “conspiracy”
pretty much from bottom to top--rather the Cobb supporters are
plentiful, diverse, and a lot more clear-thinking than the Nader
supporters who seem to rely on pure machismo based on their ability to
win emotional shouting matches of moralism that if you don’t toe the
Nader line, you’re somehow beneath all the Naderites.

Decry the result all you want, accuse it of being rigged. Realize that
there were six motions from the GPUSCC floor to change the election
rules put forward by the Nader supporters at the national convention (I
was there), all designed to give Nader more of an advantage. Realize
that states were on their own in deciding how they ran elections,
delegate selection, etc. This massive conspiracy you guys accuse the
Cobb people of spanned how many states, now? It was widespread and
pervasive? My wife worked at the Marion County Oregon Psychiatric
Crisis Center; this sounds more like her clients, not rational thinking.

Posted by Seth Woolley from on 09/08 at 07:32 PM

“Unfortunately, not all Greens believe it is Keane’s decision who she can run against.”

Nobody thinks it is solely Keane’s choice.

“Nor is it the Coordinating Committee’s who was called by Keane after her candidate swap”

It was before, and it wasn’t the CC that was called, it was the people who attended the convention.

“and asked whether or not they would have supported her nomination at the convention had she sought it.”

They were asked whether or not they would have voted her in for Senate instead of 1 CD. They already gave near unanimous support for running for 1 CD (only 2 people voted for Goberman).

“A small majority said they would have,”

It was nearly unanimous. Translating three or four people, mostly the small Nader contingent into a large minority is only comedy.

“but one who voted in favor now says he would not have done so if he knew by-laws were being broken.”

They weren’t broken.

“And where does this leave Pavel Goberman, who wanted to run against Wu but lost to Keane during their party’s convention?”

He didn’t get enough positive votes more than none-of-the-above if you continue the IRV election (this is his second try at the nomination for the PGP—last time, NOTA beat him as well).

“Nowhere in the by-laws does it say the Coordinating Committee can make that decision,” Trojan says. “It does say we can interpret, but we cannot create.”

We were only interpreting.

“And nowhere does it say anything about a candidate switching races.”

That’s all the more reason why the question of interpretation needed to be resolve by the CC, the body empowered to do this analysis because it is elected.

“It’s outrageous. Glickman and Cropp are way out of line.”

Why didn’t she mention myself or the other members who outvoted her? Why blame Glickman and Cropp? I was at the meeting where the discussion was made on what to do, with Marnie, Teresa, and Jeff Strang. Jeff Strang’s ideology radically changed after that meeting, which he let known in an email to another member where he opined about the media frenzy he could make about being the “principled green”. He had no desire to resolve the conflict within the party.

In fact, at the meeting with Marnie, Teresa, Jeff Strang, and I, the first idea was to move her to the 5th Congressional district, where she lived, but phone calls to Mitch Besser, the 5th CD candidate showed that he wasn’t going to give us back his nomination form until it was too late, so that was out of the question. The 5th CD is a tossup district. Marnie had advocated for that seat, even though she had worked with the incumbent before (Darlene Hooley). Jeff Strang was ok with the 5th CD change. His opposition comes from the fact that he didn’t receive the party’s nomination at an October nominating convention the year before for the US Senate seat.

Details are important in historical analysis. I’m…

Posted by swoolley from on 09/08 at 08:16 PM

Isn’t this fun? Woolley is a perfect example of what goes on when sectarians take over the Green Party. Even members that disagree are chastised. The facts remain. Two top Greens resigned from their posts. One left the party. This is just Oregon. One state. I’ve recieved emails from all over the country, and one thing is clear: the Greens are not united behind Cobb. Paint is as you will, but the reality is much different. We’ll see what the lawyers decide on the issue in Oregon. Woolley and Marbet for that matter don’t have the authority to do so. It will become a court issue now.

Posted by Josh from on 09/08 at 08:58 PM

“Isn’t this fun? Woolley is a perfect example of what goes on when sectarians take over the Green Party.”

Hi Josh Frank, glad to see you have to astroturf your own story. Yay for you.

How am I a sectarian? I’m not a religious zealot behind Cobb. I support Nader’s candidacy as well. I was instrumental in crafting and supporting the anti-safe-states resolution language at our last convention.

The question should be: why are the Nader supporters so adamantly against our state-wide candidates and willing to go to the press over a lost vote?

“Even members that disagree are chastised.”

Thanks, Pot. Meet Kettle. Chastizing them? No. Pointing out ulterior motives? Yes.

“The facts remain. Two top Greens resigned from their posts.”

Yep, it happened last year, too. Same thing, a co-chair resigned. People who want to be co-chair usually want everything to go their way. When they don’t, they get up and leave. This is politics, and it sometimes gets nasty. When the decision was voted on by the CC, it hadn’t reached nasty. It only got nasty after the lawsuit threats. Virtually every other person on the email lists decried that level of “sectarianism”—that’s the word you used, correct?

“One left the party. This is just Oregon. One state. I’ve recieved emails from all over the country, and one thing is clear: the Greens are not united behind Cobb.”

You’re correct, they aren’t united behind Nader, either. Wow, what a revelation. Don’t be so easy on me, next time, OK?

“Paint is as you will, but the reality is much different.”

It would be nice if you had evidence more than anecdotes. Is that how you determine reality?

We have absentee votes, votes at convention, extended polling, and other techniques. I’m sure you were paying attention to those votes the whole time, eh?

“We’ll see what the lawyers decide on the issue in Oregon. Woolley and Marbet for that matter don’t have the authority to do so. It will become a court issue now.”

Actually, the complaint was filed with the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State will probably be forced to look at the Party rule, then they will notice that, oops, they are forbidden by an explicit state law to decide on party rule (otherwise, we can file a complaint with the attorney general). The Coordinating Committee is given the power, under the PGP Constitution, to interpret party rule (organizational documents) and processes.

Marbet has no chance at all of winning any suit, and lawyers have said as much. The best hope they have is that the Democratic SoS and AG will bother pursuing us. This would only be a major publicity coup for us. A Democratic SoS and AG suing a challenging minor party and losing in court—that would look _very_ bad and _very_ partisan.

I’m sure they’re smarter than that.

Posted by swoolley from on 09/08 at 10:34 PM

Who cares about this Cobb guy anyway? Can’t wait to the votes roll in. What are you guys hoping for anyway? Better then 0% I bet? Saw that Cobb asked Kerry to debate EVERY WEEK! How noble! Thank god he wouldn’t except. Cobb would be murder for you guys. He ain’t ready for primetime. Saw him at a convention in Seattle not long ago. Where did you find this guy anyway? Texas? Oh wait.... At least this SWOOLEY guy has something to occupy his little mind with day in and day out.

Posted by Travis from on 09/08 at 10:51 PM

No, Seth I don’t think the New Mexico/Oregon comparison is pot calling kettle at all. Your example has nothing to do with my assertion about Iowa and California. Statewide, Iowa has many more delegates per Greens than California, which has far more Green Party members. The number of delegates in CA should be in the thousands, not hundreds, so your example has nothing to do with mine.

I stand by all of my above assertions about the sham in Minneapolis.

Mr. Woolsley makes general rebukes of CounterPunch, but cannot rebut specifics about Miller and Hill’s article.

Nader, Camejo, and Matt Gonzales help put the GP on the map, and the UNDEMOCRATIC nomination of Cobb by the petrified “leadership” of the Greens is tearing the party apart; hope you’re proud, Seth.

I am finished with this discussion. PressAction readers are smart; they should real the articles on CP and decide for themselves.

(Thanks Josh for all of your hard work).

I would like to end with a quote from (yes!) another CP article. This one being from Bruce Anderson:

“The true situation in America is this Boonville guy I know who has three hernias he can’t get fixed because he works on his own as a carpenter. Works hard, too. He can’t go on welfare to get the operation he needs because he makes just enough money not to qualify for Medi-Cal. His sons hope to get into the Army because there’s no work for them, not even as Pop’s helpers. Nader and Camejo talk to this guy, the Greens and the Democrats don’t.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/anderson07032004.html

Posted by Brandy Baker from on 09/08 at 11:12 PM

My rebuke of the Hill article is that it misunderstands how to do an
accurate poll.

The fact is that there are fifty different states (plus DC) that need to
be considered.

California’s primary is paid for by the state. That means that it can
poll everybody easily who is registered. In many states there are much
higher requirements for ballot access in primaries. In those states you
often have high Green Party support in candidates that receive votes,
but fewer regustered Greens. This is because without the ability to
have a funded primary, Greens are disenfranchised by the lack of funding
available to fully enfranchise them. Also, some states have more
recently provided people the opportunity to register Green as a check
box on the registration form, which greatly affects registration
figures. To address these _systemic_ problems, the different states got
together and negotiated a way to apply some number to representation
amount. Many states, like Washington, don’t even allow one to check a
box for Green. This means registered figures are vastly
underrepresentative of the actual support base, and too, in some states,
party registration isn’t even public knowledge—it is as secret as the
rest of the ballot. The representation system used generally allowed a
state that had high figures in some activity levels to gain greater
participation despite being deficient in others. This is progressivism.
This is multilateralism. The system had been worked on for a very long
time, after much discussion of how to resolve the problems of differing
tests for party participation among the various states.

This is affirmative action.

That Hill, et al. found that a single method (counting and summing raw
primary votes from entirely different election systems) as the only
indicator is _scientifically abhorrent_. I cannot underline that phrase
with any more possible emphasis. I would write it on the wall for you
guys, but you are blinded by obedience to a single thought at the
detriment of all other thoughts if you are going to take Hill’s article
at face value as a message from God to be inculcated into my “little
brain.”

That you take it as gospel because it was thusly written is personally
_offensive_ to me. I do not need your Nader religion being shoved down
my throat.

I have nothing against Nader personally. I do have something against
people who are incapable of rational thought about a complex issue. The
responses here have indicated that some humans indeed have a long way to
go before they are capable of addressing complex questions. And that
leaves me with great dismay.

And lastly. Should I even bother to respond to somebody who says, “Thou
shalt be enlightened by the absolute proof thou findest in here this
unbiased article!”?

And you guys do journalism? That doesn’t just take the cake, you just
bought out the bakery.

Posted by swoolley from on 09/09 at 01:47 AM

(I am posting this message for Seth since he had trouble posting)

My rebuke of the Hill article is that it misunderstands how to do an
accurate poll.

The fact is that there are fifty different states (plus DC) that need to
be considered.

California’s primary is paid for by the state. That means that it can
poll everybody easily who is registered. In many states there are much
higher requirements for ballot access in primaries. In those states you
often have high Green Party support in candidates that receive votes,
but fewer regustered Greens. This is because without the ability to
have a funded primary, Greens are disenfranchised by the lack of funding
available to fully enfranchise them. Also, some states have more
recently provided people the opportunity to register Green as a check
box on the registration form, which greatly affects registration
figures. To address these _systemic_ problems, the different states got
together and negotiated a way to apply some number to representation
amount. Many states, like Washington, don’t even allow one to check a
box for Green. This means registered figures are vastly
underrepresentative of the actual support base, and too, in some states,
party registration isn’t even public knowledge—it is as secret as the
rest of the ballot. The representation system used generally allowed a
state that had high figures in some activity levels to gain greater
participation despite being deficient in others. This is progressivism.
This is multilateralism. The system had been worked on for a very long
time, after much discussion of how to resolve the problems of differing
tests for party participation among the various states.

This is affirmative action.

That Hill, et al. found that a single method (counting and summing raw
primary votes from entirely different election systems) as the only
indicator is _scientifically abhorrent_. I cannot underline that phrase
with any more possible emphasis. I would write it on the wall for you
guys, but you are blinded by obedience to a single thought at the
detriment of all other thoughts if you are going to take Hill’s article
at face value as a message from God to be inculcated into my “little
brain.”

That you take it as gospel because it was thusly written is personally
_offensive_ to me. I do not need your Nader religion being shoved down
my throat.

I have nothing against Nader personally. I do have something against
people who are incapable of rational thought about a complex issue. The
responses here have indicated that some humans indeed have a long way to
go before they are capable of addressing complex questions. And that
leaves me with great dismay.

And lastly. Should I even bother to respond to somebody who says, “Thou
shalt be enlightened by the absolute proof thou findest in here this
unbiased article!”?

And you guys do journalism? That doesn’t just take the cake, you just
bought out the bakery.

Posted by Ben Woolley from Snohomish, WA on 09/09 at 01:49 AM

You might want to fix some bugs in your software. For some reason it was dropping my comments even though it passed all the word and character limits and had a name and email. It just silently sent me back to this page on a post.

Not sure about this losing comment note. You don’t have input validation at all entry points?

Posted by swoolley from on 09/09 at 01:59 AM

Looks to me like the same comment was posted twice - that is not allowed. Perhaps that was part of the problem? We will be upgrading the software this weekend, so hopefully this will take care of comment glitches.

Posted by Press Action from on 09/09 at 07:24 AM

I am sorry to see that Mr. Woolsey lacks the emotional maturity that is needed to engage in this important debate. He chooses to insult and berate anyone who dares to criticize the faulty system of picking a Green Party nominee. In his overzealous defense of this system, he still fails to address states that Nader or Camejo won sent a disproportionate number of Cobb delegates. And even with this system that he so vigously defends, Cobb only got more than 50% in one state primary: Rhode Island. Anyone who knows basic math knows that these numbers do not add up.

http://www.counterpunch.org/miller08072004.html

Trying very hard to sound like a statistician, he chides anyone for “failing to understand” the process and “being uncapable of rational thought.” He insults those who question the unfair process (or other questionable aspects of the party) by declaring that: “I do not need your Nader religion being shoved down
my throat.”

Facts are facts; and the facts are that the voting of the delegates at the convention did not truly represent the wishes of the Green Party members across the United States; this should be cause for concern for ALL Greens and those that are truly committed to the principles of democracy (no matter who they wanted for the nominee). Despite the fact that Cobb visited the locals before the Election, most of the Green Party voters in the US are not actively involved in their locals and did not even know who David Cobb was. I have talked to Greens and those who are not going to vote for Democrats and they think that Nader is the Green Party candidate this year. Most people STILL do not even know who Cobb is; another HUGE handicap for the Green party this year that will keep them from building in a way that they could if Nader, well known from his 2000 bid for the Presidency, were endorsed at the convention. But as I said, people can read Woolsley’s comments above and read the CounterPunch articles and decide for themselves.

I really did not post on here to continue the debate with Woosley, I am really posting here to address Travis’s comment above. Travis makes a good point about Cobb; a good friend of mine, who interviewed Cobb (months before the nomination process) for the local alternative paper. In the interview, Cobb did say that he was running a “safe state” campaign, a position that he and both Pat LaMarche (who said after the convention that she was voting for John Kerry) have now backed away from. Anyway, my friend admitted months after the interview that when he was interviewing Cobb, he was thinking, “This guy isn’t it.”

Travis is right about Cobb not being ready for primetime; he may be a nice guy, but he is certainly not candidiate material, another great fault of the Green Party. They need to run candidates who will be taken seriously.

Posted by Brandy Baker from on 09/09 at 01:54 PM

I don’t follow party politics like you guys do, but to me it looks like the Greens are sliding away into irrelevancy. Cobb, regardless of how he got the nomination, is not going to accomplish anything. If Nader/Camejo had the backing of the Green Party they would be getting unprecedented media coverage and attention. Even now, people are paying attention to Nader much, much more than ever before, even though Ralph won’t be on many state ballots.

Personally, I wish Nader had teamed up with Buchanan as his running mate. I remember there being talk about it for a while but it died out pretty quickly. I doubt Pat would be up for it anyway, but it would be fun.

Posted by Justin Felux from San Antonio, TX on 09/10 at 12:42 AM

I have nothing against Nader or anything. He is a great guy, and all. I voted for him in 2000. I just thought it was funny what Justin said that Cobb is not going to be able to accomplish anything, as if Nader would do more, and with Pat Buchanan, too. If Pat were involved in the current Green Party issue, he would probably have done the same thing he did to the Reform Party and declare himself a winner against decision of the convention, and split it into two.

Also, Brandy and Travis… Cobb not being ready for primetime? What is primetime? 3% of the popular vote like Nader? People took Nader seriously outside the Greens? If Bush is ready for primetime, anyone can be.

And Seth is right that you guys don’t seem to know about the details of the system, and how complicated it had to be in order to work around per state issues. I am sure it could certainly be a lot better, but it doesn’t look easy, and using primaries seems to be even worse to me, given the various state laws. At least the methods used at convention _attempted_ to work around various state laws.

Posted by Ben Woolley from Snohomish, WA on 09/10 at 07:49 AM

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

The Green Party Unravels From Within

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