Green drops out of CO Sec of State race - endorses Dem

Rick VanWie, Green Party candidate for Sec of State in Colorado, dropped out of the race today.  Apparently, he has decided not to be a spoiler, and to endorse Ken Gordon, the democratic candidate, primarily for his stance on IRV and electronic voting machines.

/I believe if my candidacy played any role in helping Major Coffman become our next Secretary of State, our party would have paid a heavy price. Not only would I have helped elect Major Coffman, I would have helped defeat the candidate who, while not a Green, stands with us on Instant Runoff Voting, electronic voting machines, and campaign finance.

Many Greens disagree with Ken Gordon on his positions on issues that are not relevant to this race. However, he has come out publicly in support of Instant Runoff Voting. In the debate as well as in an e-mail to his supporters he represented that he supports IRV. In an article that was published in yesterday's Denver Daily News, he stated that although it would be tough work to make it law, he was willing to give it a try./

Let's hope than Ken Gordon, should he be elected, keeps his word.

•  Big of him :-/

  by bumblebums on Sun Sep 10, 2006 at 10:07:14 PM PDT

•  Yeah.

  This thread on Colorado Pols talks about it.  

  http://www.coloradopols.com/...

  Much to my dismay, Dave Chandler who is the green running for congress in CO-07 would drop out of that race.  He made some self-righteous remarks about VanWie's departure and still wants to be a potential spoiler in that race.

  by CO Democrat on Sun Sep 10, 2006 at 10:10:48 PM PDT

•  Best strategy for the Greens

  Take millions of dollars from
  the Republicans who finance your
  campaigns so that they can win.

  Then, drop out at the last minute
  and endorse the democrats.

  And the democrats should start funding
  radical rightwing candidates.

  And the democrats should all be for
  IRV.

  by hobo on Sun Sep 10, 2006 at 11:02:11 PM PDT

•  Will the rest of the Green Party follow suit?

  Please?  How long should it all Greens to figure out that running candidates in the general elections is anti-progressive in our current electoral system?

  by ortcutt on Sun Sep 10, 2006 at 11:07:16 PM PDT

  •  Apparently it would help...

    ...if Dems would get behind IRV.

    by gong on Sun Sep 10, 2006 at 11:14:20 PM PDT

•  I don't like IRV

  Frankly it is confusing as hell to me. And frankly the Greens have to offer more than just IRV. Anyway, I am glad that, in this instance, the Greens did the right thing. Can't say the same thing unfortunately for Carl Romanelli in PA.

  by jiacinto on Sun Sep 10, 2006 at 11:17:22 PM PDT

  •  It's suitable for non-partisan races

    We have non-partisan local races in California and that means that there is no primary election to whittle down the list of candidates.  Without IRV, there is a definite possibility of someone winning with 20% of the vote in a field of seven.  Nobody should be able to win with 20% of the vote.  That's basically the reason why San Francisco has IRV for local races.  IRV has worked surprisingly well so far.  But people need to remember that the lack of primaries was what made IRV so vital here.  Primary elections remove some of the need for IRV.

    I think FPTP with Primaries is less than ideal but OK.  A system with a simple majority requirement would be better but that would require runoffs which means added cost.

    The thing I will never understand though is why Greens run candidates in the current electoral system.  There are two possibilities.  First, maybe they are just stupid to figure out FPTP.  Second, maybe they are only faking being progressives and really don't give a shit about making things better.  I tend to believe the latter.  I think there's a strong streak of nihilism  in your average Green.

    by ortcutt on Mon Sep 11, 2006 at 12:01:33 AM PDT

    •  Well

      The reality is that there is a tendency among the far left to embrace hopeless and futile causes. I honestly don't get it, but there is a "martyr complex" that exists in way too many people on the left. For some reason they push unelectable candidates. They like to "send messages" rather than compromise. They would rather boast "that they didn't compromise" than actually elect someone who will enact some of their ideas.

      This is why you have people on boards like this embracing long-shot candidates with no chance of winning like Chuck Pennachio and Jonathan Tasini. They have some sort of romantic idealism when it comes to supporting fuitle and hopless causes. They have some romantic nostaligia when it comes to revisting the memory of George McGovern's 1972 49-state landslide to Richard Nixon.

      The Greens are probably what you described them to be: "they are only faking being progressives and really don't give a shit about making things better." Most of them are probably wanna-be 1960s/1970s radicals more interested in making noise than actually effecting change. A lot of those Greens are probably simply acting out "the radicalism" that they have some "glorified notions about".

      For what will happen is that when these wanna-be revolutionaries actually have to get a job, when Mommy and Daddy finally cut them off financially, when they realize that the government is taking a great deal out of their paycheck, they stop being concerned about "saving the word". Suddenly, when they reach their mid-to-late 20's, crime is a concern to them. They eventually move out to the suburbs and end up as conservatives.

      Many of their parents followed the same tragectories. They were out doing drugs protesting the world in the late 1960s/early 1970s. By the 1980s and 1990s they were conservative suburbanities living out in the suburbs.

      Anyway, though, if the Greens were actually serious as a political movement, they would ditch the party model. Instead they would do what the Christian Coalition did with the GOP: run their hardcore supporters for local offices in Democratic primaries. That way they could develop a backbench of candidates that would eventually contend fo rhigher offices.

      They would also develop a PAC, a think tank, lobbying organizatoin, and a direct media presence. They would use direct mail for their efforts to. That way the Greens would get more attention to their causes and influence policymakers. As a party they are doomed to be that asterik on election night in most races.

      At best I see the Greens being a regional party in places like Alaska, San Francisco, Berkeley, New Mexico, Montana, Colorado, Boulder, Madison, Chicago, Ithaca, Cambridge, Amhrest, and parts of Manhattan. Otherwise, beyond those enclaves, I see the Greens being irrelevant.

      by jiacinto on Mon Sep 11, 2006 at 12:45:49 AM PDT

      •  Greens have two choices

        They can play spoiler, elect hard-right Republicans, and drive the Democratic party towards the center in pursuit of swing votes...or they can run in Democratic primaries, stop playing spoiler, and move the Democratic party leftward.

        Why they are so content to be option 1 is a mystery to me.  I guess it is the whole self-righteous martyr complex.  They're happy to be spoilers while maintaining ideological purity, while us in the progressive Democratic community grudgingly work our asses off for conservative Dems like Sen. Ben Nelson and Rep. Jim Matheson because they are our best hopes in blood-red districts and states...and they ARE better than the alternative.

        by Skaje on Mon Sep 11, 2006 at 02:47:18 AM PDT

      •  conjecture

        Ah, jiacinto, as usual, conjecturing on the makeup of the Green party, and failing miserably.  How many Greens do you actually know?

        The Greens are probably what you described them to be: "they are only faking being progressives and really don't give a shit about making things better." Most of them are probably wanna-be 1960s1970s radicals more interested in making noise than actually effecting change. A lot of those Greens are probably simply acting out "the radicalism" that they have some "glorified notions about"./

        Greens do care about really making things happen, and they see a broken system, where neither party is getting things done, and the environment about to go down the tubes permanently because the corporations really run this country, and both parties.  Greens are involved in every bit on on the ground activism in NYC, while most most dems in brooklyn (there are  few exceptions), are content to let machine party politics, with 20 & 24 year incumbents never being challenged from within the party, continue unabated.

        Sure, there are differences in the two parties, and where the differences are clear, Greens are willing to work with Dems (as in the example in Colorado, or in the NY-11, where Brooklyhn Greens are working for Chris Owens).

        by green in brooklyn on Mon Sep 11, 2006 at 05:36:29 AM PDT

  •  PA Race

    BTW, whatever happened in that race? Did Romanelli get kicked off the ballot because of signature fraud?

    by TLS66 on Mon Sep 11, 2006 at 12:45:59 AM PDT

    •  Court case still pending

      From what I've seen though, based on initial reports, a great deal of Romanelli's signatures seem to be fradulent. The concensus is that the courts remove him from the ballot.

      by jiacinto on Mon Sep 11, 2006 at 12:53:30 AM PDT

•  The 'Corporate' Democrat Mind-Set

  What Ken Gordon demonstrated in getting Rick VanWie to quit the Colorado Secretary of State's race is how the corporate mind-set has become pervasive in the elite regions of the Democrat Party.

  Ken Gordon did not want to compete against a progressive opponent, he didn't want to have to go out to the voters and talk aggressively about IRV or public finance of campaigns or hand-counted paper ballots -- he wanted to eliminate the competition.

  It further shows how these kind of 'insider' major party politicians see voters as commodities to be traded or sold -- not as individuals who can make reasonable and conscientious decisions all by themselves.

  When someone votes Green because that choice is available and that truly represents what that person believes -- that is NOT somehow embezzling votes from the Democrat Party. Yet that is the attitude one constantly gets from the down-the-line Democrat hacks who are just the other side of the coin from Republican lock-step voters.

  It is too bad that there are Democrats who have lost their idealism to the win-at-all-costs mentality.

  So, here is another version of what Ken Gordon has involved himself in here in Colorado.

  We have just witnessed what a major party candidate is willing to do to shut-out and shut-down the Green Party and to deprive voters of a real choice in an election -- for his own political advantage.

  Put simply, while putting up a front as some kind of "clean green Democrat" -- Ken Gordon has demonstrated himself to be just another 'closed door', 'smoke-filled room' practitioner of business-as-usual politics.

  In our conversations with Rick, he related that Gordon would tell of a mysterious poll that allegedly showed him in a close race with Republican  Mike Coffman. We know of no such poll. All of this an effort to lay a guilt-trip on Rick about becoming a 'spoiler' in the Secretary of State race.

  This kind of heavy-handed approach by the likes of Ken Gordon is extremely unseemly and goes against everything that Greens stand for -- we believe in honesty and above-board interactions between political competitors. It is, furthermore, highly unethical behavior, in our opinion, for the candidate of another party to make such interfering and meddlesome overtures to an opposing candidate. Rick was the nominee of our party, chosen at our state convention, Rick made a solemn commitment at that convention to be our representative in the Secretary of State's race -- Gordon has shown a profound lack of respect for the official actions of the Green Party of Colorado by directly cajoling, persuading and pressuring our candidate.

  But most offensive of all, was Gordon's cynical, last minute ploy to publicly endorse Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), as a seeming quid pro quo for Rick quitting the Secretary of State's race. Greens do not believe in any way shape or form in this kind of politics. If Gordon genuinely believed in Instant Runoff Voting, then all he had to do was announce that position and then compete during the campaign process to win voters to his side with that issue. Likewise, Mr. Gordon could have also have backed public financing of campaigns and hand-counted paper ballots and made those issues  part of his campaign -- but instead he got his more progressive opponent to go away -- so now he doesn't have to address those 'Green' issues. To witness Gordon have a "come to meeting" conversion to IRV, and see then VanWie quit the Secretary of State race, must lead everyone to the conclusion that a 'deal' has been made.

  Gordon even went so far as to invite two of our other candidates to breakfast earlier this week to 'work' on them to get Rick out of the race (our candidates were NOT persuaded).

  We repudiate this kind of 'insider' behind-the-scene politics.

  We have many other determined and highly principled candidates running under the Green Party banner in Colorado this year. We sincerely hope that progressive of conscience will support us and our efforts to bring genuine reform and change and democracy to our state and nation.

  Tom Kelly
  Proud Candidate - Green Party of Colorado
  U.S. House of Representatives - 1st CD

  Dave Chandler
  Proud Candidate - Green Party of Colorado
  U.S. House of Representatives - 7th CD

  by Earthside on Mon Sep 11, 2006 at 11:42:41 AM PDT