Untitled Document
From the stage of the Chicago Symphony Center, Rich
Whitney struggles to regain control of the more than 500 delegates and
proxies to the Green Party’s national convention.
At issue is one item contained within the
party’s proposed platform that calls for temporary-worker programs
for immigrants who hold jobs in the U.S. but do not want to forfeit
citizenship in their home countries — language that some in
attendance feel is too favorable to guest-worker programs.
“A guest-worker program is nothing but
legalized slavery — and the Green Party is against slavery!”
screeches Latino Caucus member CeCe Wheeler, to rumbling applause.
Whitney, the Illinois Green Party’s
gubernatorial candidate in 2006, scolds the dissenters: “Where was
this input during all the months of planning by the platform
committee?” he asks amid chants of “No, No, No!”
Sangamon County Green Party chairman Marc Sanson,
standing in the back of the room, quips: “I knew there was a reason I
didn’t sign up to be a delegate this year.”
The flare-up catches everyone off guard, including
the orange-armband-wearing peacekeepers designated to keep fellow Greens
from bum-rushing the podium, which Georgia Green Hugh Esco tries to do in
an effort to make a point of clarification before he’s stopped by a
couple of peacekeepers and party co-chair Phil Huckleberry of Illinois.
The declaration on the printed convention schedule
— “9:45: Adoption of 2008 Party Platform” — proves
premature. In the end, delegates overwhelmingly reject the proposal, which
means an automatic reversion to the previous platform, adopted in 2004.
Minutes later, a woman calling herself Isis, who has
the word “PEACE” scrawled down her arm in black marker and who
professes to be seeking the party’s presidential nomination, begins
to repeatedly disrupt the proceedings, demanding to read a statement. When
officials ignore her, she storms from the auditorium, grumbling about
unfair bureaucracy.
So much for the notion of the Greens as the party of
peace and love. Maybe that’s a good thing for them.
Despite already having more than 200 local offices
across the country and notwithstanding small victories in states such as
Illinois, where they secured ballot access in 2006, the Green Party would
like very badly to shatter stereotypes of Greens as undisciplined leftists
and establish themselves as a major force in American national politics.
They draw inspiration in part from Green parties in
other parts of the world, particularly parliamentary bodies in Europe,
where other parties routinely must seek alliances with Greens: government
by coalition, in other words.
In addition to morning yoga and workshops on such
progressive topics as LGBT and peace and social-justice issues, stopping
war, and dismantling the military-industrial complex at this year’s
convention, traditional sessions on campaign fundraising, messaging, and
strategy, as well as viral marketing, were being offered. And instead of
holding the annual meeting in a muddy field or other low-cost venue, the
Greens opted for the opulent environs of downtown Chicago’s historic
Palmer House Hilton and the Chicago Symphony Center.
But nowhere is the U.S. Green Party’s desire
for legitimacy more evident than in its selection of Cynthia McKinney
— the ex-Democratic U.S. Rep. from Georgia, who famously asked what
the administration of George W. Bush knew about the possibility of a
terrorist attack before Sept. 11, 2001, and when they knew it — as
their banner-carrier.
Unlike previous Green Party picks — consumer
advocate and perennial campaigner Ralph Nader in 2000 and Texas
activist/attorney David Cobb in 2004 — McKinney has actually won
elections.
After serving seven terms in Congress, McKinney says,
she decided to jump ship when the Democrats came into power in 2006. She
explains the switch: “Nowhere in the Congressional Democratic agenda
for their first 100 days in the majority was there any mention of an
investigation into the Pentagon’s loss of $2.3 billion, nor was there
any plan to get that money back for jobs, health care, education, and for
veterans. And instead of articles of impeachment to hold the criminals
accountable, impeachment was taken off the
table.”
On capturing the 2008 nomination on the first ballot,
with 313 of 532 votes cast, McKinney danced the Electric Slide to John
Lennon’s “Power to the People,” which is also her
campaign slogan. Her parents, Leola and Billy McKinney joined their
daughter onstage as she introduced them as two of the Green Party’s
newest members. Billy McKinney served in the Georgia State Assembly as a
Democrat.
Days before the convention got under way, McKinney
tapped 35-year-old Rosa Clemente, a hip-hop activist, journalist, and
community organizer, as her running mate, the third time in a row that a
woman has been picked for the No. 2 slot on the Green Party ticket.
Clemente, who was born in the Bronx and now lives in Charlotte, N.C., calls
on members of her hip-hop generation to become politically involved and, of
course, join the Green Party.
“We can lead the nation with a microphone.
Hip-hop has always been that mic, but now the Green Party can be the power
that turns up the volume of that microphone — and blow the speakers
out,” Clemente told the crowd during her acceptance speech.
McKinney, Clemente, and the party faithful deny that
they’re spoilers who will take votes from the more progressive of the
two major-party candidates; instead, they say they have trouble
distinguishing between Democrats and Republicans on important issues. But
although McKinney pays lip service to the idea that she could overtake U.S.
Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, her goal is to win at least 5 percent
of the national vote, which would establish the Green Party nationally,
making it eligible for federal matching grants in future elections.
Breaking through that canopy will be anything but a
walk in the park.
Besides having to contend with the war chests of the
major-party candidates, the Green Party, which was only established
formally in 2001, also lacks a prominent central leader, eschewing such an
arrangement for leadership by a steering committee comprisingseven co-chairs.
Even in the digital age — news organizations
have long cited the constraints of newspaper and the airwaves as the
primary reason for shunning third parties — the mainstream media
remains largely uninterested in the Greens or any other fringe party. With
the exception of C-SPAN, which aired Saturday’s events at the
symphony hall, no major national media outlets covered the convention.
For now, the Greens understand that their best chance
for electoral success lies in small-town mayoral races and in elections for
city councils and commissions. For example, in Illinois, one of 21 states
with a standing Green Party ballot, more than 30 individuals have signed up
to vie for seats in Congress, the state Legislature, and county boards.
Rita Maniotis, a Green running in Illinois’
21st House District who attended the convention, says vital Illinois issues
such as education-funding reform, oversight of nuclear reactors (of which
Illinois has more than any other state), and examination of the link
between autism and flu vaccine have been put off in Springfield for too
long.
“Very few houses need cleaning more than
mine,” she jokes, “but one of them is the Illinois
Statehouse.”
Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Jul 10-16, 2008.
