I'd like to thank the Democrats for some free campaign training...

Thanks, Democracy for America!

The good folks at DFA have put together online training that is free, relevant, and vital to running a progressive campaign. Remember, when they say "Democrat" just think in your mind "Green Party." DFA is trying to run and elect progressive candidates, which is dandy. However, the Democratic Party leadership really is not interested in that. Not at all. Not even close.

However, as Greens, we are the progressive alternative to the corporate dominated Democratic Party.

So lets jump to one of their 2010 training presentations "Messaging for Progressives." This will open an audio/visual webinar. This cannot be downloaded, but their slideshow can. You will need to give them your name and email address in order to access training. Or, a name, and an email address...

New Idea Alert: National Popular Vote

We all know that the President is not elected by popular vote. He or (someday, but hopefully not Palin or Bachmann) she must win at least 270 votes in the electoral college. Most states award all of the "electors" to whomever wins the popular vote in their state. Example, in 2008 Barack Obama received a majority of the vote in Iowa, so he received all of Iowa's 7 electoral votes. There are some states that allocate EV's (electoral votes) a bit differentl (Maine & Nebraska are examples), but most states follow the winner-gets-all model of EV allocation. 

"What's the problem?"** This might be the question you are asking yourself right now. The problem is permanent disenfranchisement. The majority of states are not competetive at the Presidential level. This is why we have the term "battleground states" (roughly 10 states) in the first place, they can, and do, swing back and forth from supporting liberal or conservative presidential candidates. This means, if you are a Republican living in New York state, your vote does not count. Why? Because you are simply outnumbered by people who vote for the Democratic presidential candidate, in nearly every election. Likewise, if you are a Democrat living in Tennessee, your vote does not count, because people who tend to vote Democratic for President are outnumbered by people who vote Republican.

National Popular Vote (NPV) is an interesting new idea getting a lot of attention across the country. In their own words, proponents of NPV say:

Under the U.S. Constitution, the states have exclusive and plenary (complete) power to allocate their electoral votes, and may change their state laws concerning the awarding of their electoral votes at any time. Under the National Popular Vote bill, all of the state's electoral votes would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538).

This sounds like an elegant solution that saves us the time, expense, and difficulty of amending the Electoral College out of the constitution. Also, this advances direct democracy, but transitioning the presidential election from 50 separate state elections to one, national election. After all, the candidates are not running to be President of Texas or President of California, they are running in the only nation-wide elected office we have in our system of government. It seems to make sense that the President be elected by a national popular vote, instead of the entrenced political tendencies of various states, or, but whoever can sway the majority of swing states. Is it fair that the President of the country be chosen, basically, by the voters of 5 states? No. Not at all.

NPV is not the only way to make our Presidential election more democratic, but it is another idea that gets us farther down the road to a modern, transparent, accountable voting system that lets everyone have a chance to be heard.

--

Daryl Northrop

**There is another major problem with the Electoral College. The constution does not compel individual states to allocate their EV's to the candidate who won the popular vote in that state. This means that rogue electors could cast their EV's for a candidate who "lost" the state, thus invalidating the will of the majority of voters. Some states, but not all, have passed their own laws that force electors to cast their EV's for the candidate who won the majority vote. This is one of the most crippling flaws of the Electoral College, and a travesty to democracy.

2012 Elections - because It Is Never Too Early

Hello fellow Greens, Progressives, Liberals, whatevers!

2012.

There, I said it.

It is not too early to start planning. In fact, now is exactly the right time to start planning your electoral strategy for 2012.

Which way do you want to go?

When thinking of Green Party electoral strategy for 2012, at the national, state, and local level, the first question is:

What is your goal? While the obvious answer is "to get elected," the reality can be more nuanced. Are you running to build membership in your local Green Party organization? Are you running to maintain ballot access? (Many states/cities require political parties to get a certain % of the vote in order to maintain official party status). Are you running to give voice to issues that the two corporate-funded parties are ignorning?

Once you know your goal, planning gets not only easier, but much more meaningful. Running candidates for office for the sake of running candidates is not a good enough reason.

If you have decided that running for office is for you, or running candidates is the way to go, check out these two articles for more info about running for office, and tactics for progressives:

10 Rules of Populist Power -- The Progressive's Guide to Raising Hell

Rule 1: Forcing Opponents to Make Mistakes Is the Goal of Effective Advocacy for Change; Promoting Issues Is Not Enough

Rule 2: To Make Big Changes, Target the Little Things and a Few People

Rule 3: Simple Moral Sentiments Can Change the World When Public Opinion Propels Them

Rule 4: Forget Sun Tzu: The Bigger the Fight, the Better the Odds; Fight Even If You Cannot Win Today, and Someday You’ll Win without a Fight

Rule 5: Creating the Record Creates the Seeds of Change

Rule 6: Keep It Human, Put People First

Rule 7: Make It Personal for Decision Makers

Rule 8: Seize the Moment—Don’t Pick Your Time, Have the Goods and Let Your Time Pick You

Rule 9: Exploit a Powerful Opponent’s Fear of Falling to Achieve Victory without Combat

Rule 10: Don’t Worry about Your Seat at the Table; Find the Rock to Throw through the Window

And here are some tips from Linda Piera-Avila, Green candidate for the California State Assembly (41st District) in 2010. From an email dated November 8, 2010:

Nuts and bolts:

Set up a campaign committee even if you don't intend to raise more than $1,000. You never know!

Keep track of all the filing deadlines - mark them on your calendar or iphone.

Identify a solid campaign manager. That person will be your lifeline.

Get a good webmaster and share the password with a trusted campaign volunteer. Set up paypal.

Get a political advisor who has an institutional memory for the party and its stance on the issues.

Get professional photography head shots for web and printed material so it's ready to go at a moment's notice.

Develop your "top three priorities" early on and expand as the campaign evolves.

Write your platform or borrow from others, with permission. Post on your website.

Translate your platform into Spanish or other significant second language for your jurisdiction.

Practice discussing the issues with colleagues to increase your comfort level discussing them before a larger audience.

Be ready to give interviews and answer questionnaires at a moment's notice - this is the nature of political campaigning.

Write op-eds and letters to the editor of local papers.

Raise donations for a specific goal, like producing a campaign video.

Hold meet and greet events.

Decide what form of publicity makes the most sense for your targeted voters with the money available; allow enough lead time to get the address lists and produce the piece to get it to voters the week before the election.

3 > 2. How do other countries deal with multi-party systems?

Here in the United States, we have a two-party system. But to be more accurrate, we have a winner-take-all, first-past-the-post voting system for nearly all our elections. Now, everyone (or nearly everyone, I'm sure the executive committees of the GOP and DNC don't) complain about the two-party system, and how we need more choices at the ballot box. Here in the US, the GOP and DNC choose not to change the voting system to accomodate the wishes of the electorate. Some states do have delayed-runoff voting, where if no candidate receives a majority (50% + 1) of the votes, a runoff election occurs between the top two vote-getters. The result is added tax-payer expense, low voter turnout, and no real challenge to the two-party monopoly on power.

While this blog has had posts about IRV (Instant Runoff Voting) before, but how do other countries deal with a multi-party democracy? As it turns out, there are a lot of options.

Proportional Representation: This article at Boston Review sums up proportional representation nicely - the basic principle is that voters would choose a party instead of an individual candidate, and a given party would win seats in the legislature in proportion to the percentage of the votes it earns. In a 100 seat legislature, a party that gets 7% of the vote would receive 7 seats. So in this system, there is a prize for coming in second, third, fourth, fifth, etc.

Mixed Member Proportional Representation: Because you can always count on the Germans to come up with a short, catchy name for something. Half the seats are allocated using single-seate constituencies (US Congressional elections use this method). The other half of the seats are allocated based on a form of proportional representation, with a 5% threshhold. At the individual voter level, each voter casts two vote, one for an individual candidate, and one for a party. In the US that would translate for a voter having the option of voting for a third party candidate, and for a major party.

This is just a sample of how other countries deal with more than two parties without it being an issue of "spoiling."

We can do better in our country.

---

Daryl Northrop

Election Dynamics Part 3: Putting it all together

As promised, this is part three, the final installment in the Election Dynamics entries. This somewhat rambling set of posts has been designed to help potential Green Party candidates think about elections in an organized and strategic manner - why are you running, where will you run, what type of office, what are the tools and techniques that can be used?

This last installment will be focussed on your incumbent and the race you running in.

Starting with the last first - the race you are running in. What is the best race for you to run in, as a Green Party member? That depends on many things, but most importantly - your interests, your ability to devote time/energy/resources to the campaign, and your incumbent(s),

What are your interests? Are they focused towards social justice, the economy, environmentalism, or something else? The issues and values you focus on in your race should be of great interest and passion to you. This translates in to something the voters can feel, and understand. Even if you are the area's biggest authority on transportation issues, if you sound bored with the subject and the values behind it, the voters will tune out on this. They will hear the message that you do not have the energy, and that you may not even care about the ideas you are trying to advance. Monitor the news, the opinion pages, blogs, and other media for hot issues in your race. If some or all of these issues coincide with issues you are excited and passionate about - seriously consider addressing them in your campaign.

What amount of time/energy/resources can you devote to the campaign: A good rule of thumb is - the smaller the amounts of each, the smaller your district should be that you are campaigning in. Continuing along that line of thought, at a certain point you will have to ask - "Am I able to give enough to have a chance of achieving my goal(s)?" Be honest with yourself, the people you have gathered to help you, and the Green Party organizing you are working with. It is better to delay running for office until the next cycle so you can do it right vs running a weak, poorly managed campaign that you cannot be fully engaged in. You can never devote too much time to your race, but think carefully when considering if you can devote enough.

The incumbent. This is what it comes down to - you have to defeat someone to win office. It may be an entrenched incumbent, it may be a field of other candidates if the encumbent is term-limted out of running again. But it will be you against someone else. The first rule of combat is Know Your Enemy. While that may be a bit much when it comes to politics, you will need to know your opponent as well as they know themselves. Their voting record, fundraising, professional history, educational history, public records, published articles, speeches. Their own record, action, and words can speak volumes about them, and against them. Now, I am not advocating for negative campaigning or a spree of attack ads. But, proper research on the incumbent is essential in knowing where they are weak on issues and values, and where you can show your strength. For example: if your incumbent takes massive donations from corporate special interests, and you do not (and you BETTER NOT as a Green Party candidate) - you have the opportunity to relentlessly and honestly hammer the point that your incumbent is more concerned with representing the wealthy and powerful then the regular folks of the district.

A note of caution: If you start to gain momentum in a race, and start to look like a contender for victory, you will be attacked (especially if running against an entrenched incumbent). So, look into that closet of yours and see what skeletons might be in there. Not a pretty thing to think about, but it can happen. On the upside, if you are being attacked, that means you are doing something right, so do not let up on your opponent!

Once you have done your research on your opponent, you can contruct a message grid which will help guide you in putting together a cohesive set of messages. I message grid has four quadrants:

1. You on you: These are messages that your campaign will advance about you, your values, your issues, and your ideas.
2. You on them: These are messages that your campaign will advance about your opponent. Again, this is not automatically negative campaigning, but highlighting of differences to your advantage.
3. Them on them: This is what the opponents campaign will say about themselves- their ideas, values, voting history, accomplishments, etc
4. Them on you: If they start talking about you/attacking you, these are message that they will use. Do not go easy on yourself. Have your meanest, snarkiest friend play the role of the opposition and rip into you from a messaging standpoint.

A note on message grids: There are entire books written about messaging and messaging techniques. A message grid is meant to be nothing more than a simple, useful tool, to help you get used to thinking in a multi-dimensional way. Think about big electoral races - both campaigns are constantly: talking about themselves, talking about their opponent, running positive ads, running negative ads, running rebuttals to attack ads run against them, etc. It is very common for some or all of the messaging modes to be running simultaneously.

That wraps up the three part series on election dynamics. I hope you have found it useful, and that it can be a starting point for your own ideas about running for office. Questions, comments, and feedback are always welcome - post those comments, people!

Election Dynamics Part 1: Know Your Environment

Hello! As promised, here is part one of the Election Dynamics article series. This series of articles will be discussing some of the important factors that Green Party candidates need to be aware of when deciding to run for elected office.

We are a political party, first and foremost, not an issue-advocacy group. There are groups out there for that, but this is about politics and democracy, and that means building support among the electorate and winning elections.

In this first article, we will talk about the basic steps that need to be taken when researching a run for office.

Know Your Environment

This is absolutely key when running for office. 

1. Scheduling: when are elections scheduled in your jurisdiction? They may be scheduled yearly or every two years. This is important because you need to plan enough lead-time in order to mount a successful campaign that has a good chance of meeting your campaign goals. The lesson to take away is: The more lead-time, the better. Knowing the election schedule will allow you to start earlier, which allows for more organizing time, more fundraising time, better messaging, identification of supporters, and planning. For example: I ran for U.S. Senate in Iowa for the 2004 election. I started planning and organizing in the late summer/fall of 2003, and started the campaign in December 2003 - nearly a full year before the elections.

2. Filing requirements: Filing requirements can vary greatly between jurisdictions, and states. The vast majority of election law is written at the state legislature level, and this leads to some great diversity. If you are running for a state legislative seat, a state-wide elected seat (governor, attorney general, etc), or Congressional seat - you will want to visit your states Department of Elections or Secretary of State's website and familiarize yourself with the rules for candidates.

If you are running for local office (county-level or below), you will also want to check with the appropriate local election authority. Some jurisdictions (but not all!) have "Home Rule" and set their own election laws and requirements. Minneapolis, MN and St. Paul, MN are good examples of cities that set their own election regulations. 

Petition vs Convention vs Primary - or, "How the heck do I get my name on the ballot?!" - You will also need to know how to get your name on the ballot. Here are the more common methods:

A. Petition - the jurisdiction requires X number of valid signatures on or before a certain date in order to get your name on the ballot. Now, the art and science of signature gathering is far to deep and complex to get into here, but suffice it to say, you can never start petitioning too early (at least not earlier than permissible by law), and you can never have too many signatures. A good guideline is to gather at least twice as many signatures as required by law. If you need 250 signatures, get 500, etc. Some advantages to petitioning are: it's a low-pressure way to get your name out "Hi, I'm running for dog catcher, my name is John Smith, can you help me put my name on the ballot this November?" Don't forget to give them your pamphlet after they are done signing....

B. Convention - some states allow for party nominating conventions. Generally, a convention must be convened with a specified number of delegates from each county within the voting district (congressional district or state-wide if US Senate, Governor, etc). If you are a Green running in a state that allows this, and you have a strong, organized state Green Party, this may be the route to follow. Close coordination and early consultation with local and state Green Party leaders is key in order to lock in their support, especially if you have two or more Greens competing to run on the same ballot line. It's a nice problem to have, but can cause conflict and disruption within the party if there is a "contested" convention.

C. Primary - If your state Green Party has full ballot access like our adversaries in the two-party duopoly, you may have to participate in the primary contest. This is simply a process by which the voters of the state decide who the candidate will be. Getting on the primary ballot often requires gathering petition signatures as earlier mentioned. However, if you win the primary, you are generally guaranteed the ballot line in the fall without further petitioning requirements. Again, consult your state Dept of Elections or Secretary of State.

3. Misc: Other factors to consider....

Is the race partisan or non-partisan? Many local level races do not allow direct party labels or mention of party names in campaign material. You will need to consider if this is an asset or a liability. Also, this will factor into your messaging - as a Green Party member, you may have to put more specific emphasis on Green Party values and ideas to fully identify you as the true progressive in the race!

Single seat vs Multi-seat? Some elected boards (school, water, conservation, etc) elect multiple members at once. Often this appears as a list of candidates with a "choose no more than 3" on the ballot. Many times the number of people running is less than the number of open seats. This could be an easy win for you and your Green Party allies.

Defined geographic district vs At Large? Many seats (city council, legislative) are defined districts with residency requirements. However, some city council seats and other elected bodies (county board of supervisors) have "at large" seats that allow anyone within a wider area to run, and not be tied to a specific area of voters.

________________________

This concludes part one of the 3 part series on Election Dynamics. Hope you have found it useful and informative. Suggestions and comments are welcome! 

Stay tuned for Election Dynamics Part 2: What is the goal of running for office? (Hint - it can be for reasons other than winning the election? GASP! What?)

Daryl Northrop

http://www.darylnorthrop.com/

Coming soon: Three part series on Election Dynamics

Election dynamics covers a wide range of information, and I am putting together a three part series on election dynamics for Green Party candidates. The aim is to demystify the deciding what race to run in, what the situation is on the ground in your area, how to identify the goal of your race, etc. First section should be up in the next couple of days!

--Daryl Northrop

Greens helping Greens

As a soon-to-be-graduating student from the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University is to help my fellow Greens and regional Green Party's (DC/VA/MD).

In the VA area, I am working with the Northern Virginia Green Party to help them get their message out. Right now, they are more focused on issue work, as opposed to electoral, which is fine. The chapter has recently started to get more active again, and it will take a bit of time to grow membership, energy, and finances to a point where supporting candidates for local office is viable. I look forward to helping them use email, twitter, facebook, youtube, and other tech tools to help them with the strategy. Helping them get control over their message and get the message out the community and press is something I think is vital!

Over in Maryland, the U.S. Senate race to unseat Senator Mikulski is heating up! Natasha Pettigrew, a Maryland native, and law school student at University of Miami has decided that it is time for Marylander's to stand up against the two party system - she is currently meeting with local Green Party's across the state, and working to earn their ballot. Today, she was in Baltimore, meeting with the Baltimore Green Party, and she will address other party groups in the near future. Natasha's energy, drive, and respect for the citizens of Maryland will make her a great candidate, and I look forward to assisting in her campaign!

2010 will be a busy year for me and my involvement with the area's Green Party groups!

--
Daryl Northrop