[Green-Rainbow] FW: Straw Poll

[Daniel Melnechuk]

Gil et al,

I think this is a good first pass and will think more about the 
contents of the straw poll over the coming weeks. The idea of 
expanding the question from just about the name change is good, and 
the spread of your possible responses are well thought out as far as 
providing a range.

Peter, your comments about removing the possible response about not 
forming coalitions seems to be a reasonable one -- at least one side 
of me has that reaction. But if we are asking for the truth, we want 
to know what people really think. Even if it goes against what i 
believe where our power is and will be in building a larger and more 
inclusive party.

The responses to question 1 Gil has created defies the standard poll 
taking problem of framing the issue into a black or white question. 
If we were to go that route, the question would be "Do you think we 
should have changed the name of the party to Green-Rainbow?" with the 
only answers being "Yes" and "No". What Gil has created is a real 
outreach communications effort to the party members. And i think this 
is something we should be doing on a regular basis.

Frank, while i agree this will cost money, we need to uphold the 
decision of the convention to include a non-binding straw poll to the 
party members about the name change. Gil's idea to expand that to a 
straw poll about the whole direction of the Green-Rainbow initiative, 
and party direction in general, i think is the right idea. Perhaps 
someone will bring something up that will change my mind. But for now 
i think this is good.

But i think Frank is correct in that we need to concentrate on 
signatures and then QCs for the candidates over the next 4 weeks. I 
know i have no time right now to participate on this and would like 
to. Not that i want to hold it up but i think we should take some 
time to hash this out.

So i would suggest that we work on this over the next month until the 
signatures and QCs deadlines are past and then plan a course of 
action to abide by the decision of the convention. Perhaps shooting 
for the mailing in June some time.

One thing i think we should include in the mailer is a plea for 
donations, and to become monthly sustainers. This could help cover 
the cost of the mailing.

Also i think we will want to include a little history item about the 
Rainbow Coalition Party (RCP) for people who do not know who and what 
the organization is. I was just talking to a friend of mine who had 
never heard of RCP, except to say he thought it was the Jesse Jackson 
thing -- i corrected him but none the less folks young and old may 
not know anything about the RCP.

Last, i would be interested in hearing what Mark O'Lalor thinks about 
Gil's expanded straw poll.

That is my 2, well 3 cents worth for the moment. Back to signature 
and QC collections...

Peace,
Dan Melnechuk

At 10:57 AM -0400 4/30/02, Gil Obler wrote:
>Background/reminder - At the convention, we agreed to send out a
>non-binding referendum straw poll of the general membership as
>part of the consensus compromise on the party name change.
>
>Enclosed is my first draft of the straw poll. Obviously, everyone
>will want to give input on the scope, contents, and wording of the
>poll.
>

At 2:11 PM -0400 4/30/02, peterawhite at excite.com wrote:
>
>Hi Gil, nice job on this draft!!  I only have two suggestions: 
>first, as the merger is a done deal, I would remove the options from 
>question 1 that suggest seperating from the Rainbow folks, it may be 
>devisive and confusing.


At 5:39 PM -0400 4/30/02, Frank Gatti wrote:
>Gil, No please no! With the campaign for signatures coming down the stretch,
>with the state election in November, that would be a terrible waste of
>money. Let us ask each local to conduct a pole at their next month meeting
>and forward the results. That should cost nothing. It will of course miss
>all those who don't come to their local meetings but that is not a problem
>to me. People who actively are involved should make decisions.  frank gatti