[GNC] Re: Ballot Access

Sat Aug 7 10:23:37 EDT 2004

At 10:11 AM -0400 8/7/04, Gil Obler wrote:
>I respectfully disagree.
>
>I think this sends the wrong message on several levels:
>
>1) The Naderites - The Nader folks already offered us a deal where we
>	help them get ballot access. We told them the price was
>accepting
>	the USGP nomination. They refused. Now we want to help them get
>	ballot access anyway, or worse offer empty support after the
>	fact? This would either make us seem like poor negotiators or
>	like duplicitous posers. I have a taste for neither.

Who exactly offered this deal to the Nader campaign? I'm not aware of 
any official GRP decision to offer to help Nader get on the ballot 
here if and/or only if he would accept the USGP nomination. - David

>
>2) Other political parties - If our true goal is proportional
>	representation and coalition governments, we must be respected
>	as negotiators. See above for why this would be a horrible
>	precedent in this regard. The message should be "Deal straight
>	with us or suffer your indiginities alone".
>
>3) The working poor - I started parting ways with Nader in 2001 when
>	I was volunteering for a week in Portland, Maine for a Democracy
>	Rising Nader rally. I was told by the Nader folks not to join
>	and participate in a local take-the-streets protest against
>	housing gentrification being organized by Maine Greens and other
>	local groups because it would tarr Nader as "too radical". I
>	chose to stand with my brothers and sisters in the streets.
>	These "radical rejects" got John Eder elected.
>
>	What I believe prevents the working poor and disenfranchised
>	in general from joining us is they do not believe that we will
>	be tough enough in fighting for them. They think we will abandon
>	them for intellectualized "principles" when the chips are down.
>
>	If we are going to protest something, how about why the Nader
>	folks in Pennsylvania were willing to pay liberal white college
>	students to collect Nader signatures but refused to pay homeless
>	people who also wanted to collect signatures?
>
>                Gil Obler, "Hoffa" Green-Rainbow
>
>                GRP Alternate (MA), USGP Coordinating Committee
>                Middlesex Delegate, Green-Rainbow Party State Committee
>
>
>======================================================================
>email                                             greengil at comcast.net
>home phone                                               (978)455-3984
>cell phone                                               (617)388-5445
>======================================================================
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: gnc-bounces at green-rainbow.org
>[mailto:gnc-bounces at green-rainbow.org] On Behalf Of Yarden
>Sent: Friday, August 06, 2004 11:11 PM
>To: Green National Convention; mrg-discuss at green-rainbow.org
>Subject: [GNC] Re: Ballot Access
>
>
>
>On Friday, August 6, 2004, at 11:07 PM, Yarden wrote:
>
>
>Hello to everyone who is trying to think ahead in terms of Party
>building:
>
>I just heard on NPR about Nader's difficulties in getting ballot access
>in Massachusetts. I believe that it is important that the Green-Rainbow
>Party of Massachusetts protest any Democratic Party attempt to keep
>rivals off the ballot. Interference with someone seeking the electoral
>authority to speak for a constituency is damaging to all of us. The
>failure to protest unjust bureaucratic regulations is damaging to all
>who seek justice. Just because the organizers of the DNC and their
>cohorts fail to protect general access and participation in political
>discourse -- to privilege their own -- our refusal to take cheap
>advantage of Nader's absence from the ballot. For us to accept this
>favor from the Democratic Party would be even more disgusting than Nader
>accepting money from the Republican Party in swing states.
>
>It would be best to get to people who know precisely what is going on
>before making public any Party position.
>Elie Yarden
>CAmbridge
>
>
>
>Nader effort to gain Mass. ballot access is in doubt
>
>By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff  |  August 6, 2004
>
>The effort to place Ralph Nader's name on the Massachusetts presidential
>ballot this fall is "in serious trouble," the state's top election
>official said yesterday, a sign that the third-party candidate's
>troubles have extended even to the generally liberal Bay State.
>
>Secretary of State William F. Galvin said yesterday that "it is in
>doubt" that the Nader campaign will get the required 10,000 certified
>voter signatures necessary to get the presidential candidate's name to
>appear alongside that of President Bush and US Senator John F. Kerry on
>the Nov. 2 ballot.
>
>Galvin attributed the problem to the campaign's failure to meet
>Tuesday's deadline to submit signatures for certification at local city
>and town halls because many of the papers were mailed too late and
>missed the legally established 5 p.m. deadline.
>
>"Because of mistakes made by his campaign in filing their papers too
>late, I think he is in serious trouble in getting on the ballot," Galvin
>said.
>
>Nader's campaign disputed Galvin's assessment. "I don't share that
>view," Michael Richardson, the national ballot access coordinator for
>the Nader campaign, said when informed of Galvin's statement. "I feel
>pretty confident we will make it."
>
>Richardson said the campaign submitted between 14,000 and 15,000
>signatures to local officials and he expressed confidence that a high
>percentage -- enough to qualify for the ballot -- will be certified.
>
>Galvin's election division yesterday notified the Massachusetts Nader
>campaign that it faced serious problems getting on the ballot and
>apprised them of their rights to review the certification process.
>
>Galvin said that his office's computerized system that monitors the
>certification process showed that Nader had 5,700 valid signatures late
>yesterday, with most of the communities that would be Nader strongholds,
>such Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston, having reported.
>
>"We are getting calls and other communications that the city and town
>officials are receiving them late in the mail, after the close of
>business on Tuesday," he said. "They cannot count them." Galvin said
>that, because the Nader campaign is facing a potential problem, he has
>asked the local election officials to speed up the certification
>process.
>
>"We want to make sure the Nader campaign can pursue his right of
>review," Galvin said.
>
>Nader won 6 percent of the Massachusetts vote in 2000. His trouble in
>Massachusetts this year prompted analysts to note that he is facing
>difficulties nationally, compared with his draw among the left wing of
>the Democratic Party in 2000. Nader is frequently blamed for costing
>former vice president Al Gore the 2000 election.
>
>"It is a completely different political atmosphere," said Elizabeth
>Sherman, a research fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government's
>Center for Public Leadership. "Ralph Nader's message that the others are
>Tweedledee and Tweedledum, that there is no difference, no longer
>resonates."
>
>"A lot of Nader voters rue the day that they voted for him in 2000
>because we can now see it has made all the difference in the world --
>the Iraq War, women's reproductive freedom, and now big changes looming
>on the Supreme Court," she added.
>
>But Richardson said it is a Democratic "myth" that Nader cost Gore the
>presidential election four years ago. He conceded, however, that the
>concept has taken hold in Massachusetts.
>
>"The hostility on the streets was huge," Richardson said, relating his
>organization's experience collecting signatures. He said that one female
>petitioner was physically assaulted in Harvard Square.
>
>"The anybody-but-Bush virus has taken a particularly hostile strain here
>in Massachusetts," Richardson said.
>
>Richardson also expressed frustration with the Massachusetts ballot
>access laws and said that he finds most other states far more efficient.
>He complained that Galvin's office had not responded to his request for
>forms that would allow him to add Nader's late pick for a
>vice-presidential running mate, Peter Camejo, to the petitions.
>
>"I have been querying the secretary's office and finally the attorney
>last week said they would make a form up, but I haven't gotten
>anything," Richardson said.
>
>Galvin, saying his office "bends over backwards" to get candidates on
>the ballot, said the charge is "a red herring." He noted that
>Massachusetts has one of the lowest thresholds for gaining ballot access
>for a presidential candidate. As for the forms, Galvin said there is no
>official form that his office can provide the Nader campaign to place
>Camejo's name on the ballot.
>
>"We would find some way, if Nader were to be certified, to substitute
>Camejo's name," he said. "The substitution is not their problem. It's
>whether Nader will be on the ballot." 
>CCopyright 2004 The New York Times Company
>
>
>
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