|
We had inside information that the Republicans would not field a candidate in this race in order to ensure that the Greens existed as a major party. This benefits the GOP since having a strong GP (taking 10-15% away from the Democrats regularly) puts their guy in more often. I believe it was my work on Instant Run-off Voting (IRV) that led the Greens to pick me as the State Auditor candidate. I spent a lot of time and energy trying to show the Greens that the IRV model they were proposing was too simplistic and would fail under a load like the recent Albuquerque mayoral race with seven candidates. The counter-argument was that the neat jingle (I-R-V, 1-2-3!!!) would fail if we made it mathematically correct. I was pigeonholed as being the nit-picky, bitchy one. I suppose they thought that was a good qualification for being Auditor. I tried to point out that that since I was not a CPA, I would be somewhat less than qualified for the job. Of course, since my current opponent is also not a CPA that is a moot point, and anyway, the Auditor doesn't really audit anyone himself, but rather, directs the actions of the auditors. It is a policy and facilitation job, which I am qualified to do. I was initially reluctant to commit to this and made clear my feelings that candidates should not "run" for office. I feel that it is the job of the media to investigate and report on candidates, and not a candidate's personal responsibility to sell himself like laundry soap. With that hurdle overcome (and since they didn't have any other volunteers), I was nominated for the position of Auditor by the GP Election Committee. During the time in which signatures were collected, there came to be a proposed Amendment to the Green Platform called the "Labor Amendment" which was something I could not abide with. To be brief, it hopes to make non-union labor a victimless crime. I have a deep philosophical commitment to oppose victimless crime and have had some problems with GP proposals in the past. This conflict was direct and unavoidable. I went to the Election Committee and told them I could not run on a platform which included something as abhorrent to my ethics as this, and I would just like to resign membership in the party and return to normal life outside of politics. I was asked by one of my oldest friends in this state to continue on as he had already collected my signatures. I was told that we had enough opposition to keep it off the platform. I was skeptical, but continued on. At the convention, I gave a speech which was short, direct, and to the point. I started by asking for a show of hands for people who supported the concept of a victimless crime free state, and one by one, asked them to put their hands down if they would make an exception for any of the cases I mentioned. At the end of the speech, there were only three people left with their hands still up. I told them they were my constituency, and that I really represented them alone. In the question period which followed we achieved almost total consensus that I really was not representative of the Green Party anymore, and that I should just leave and go home. With that done, I went off to lunch secure in the knowledge that this would be the last time I would have to do this. Unfortunately, during lunch someone went about and managed to get me another eleven votes which put me in as the nominee. Strangely enough, I was the second highest vote getter in the primary. The highest was John McCall, who has since resigned as a candidate for Attorney General. John is also one of the civil libertarian, anti-victimless crime faction of the GP, and one whom I hope to get into a new party to continue the fight. I was two votes short of his total. I can account for one of them. I did not vote for myself since the question in the primary is whether this person represents the Green Party. I am intrigued and would like to know who the other one is if they care to come forward. I would like to mention here that I think the Democrats are being self-defeating in not attempting to foster the development of the Libertarian Party in the same way the Republicans are doing with the Greens. The LP will siphon off as much or more from the GOP as the GP does from the Dems. Although I mentioned that I would not resign from this race because of a promise I made to some folks at work, I should mention that ensuring that we have something better than a two-party system is also a goal of mine. The only way to achieve peace is to work for justice. Social justice means full representation. Full representation means multi-party democracy, and multi-party democracy requires some sort of proportional representation methodology to work correctly. Even if I am going to leave the party it only makes sense for me to work for the goal of meeting the Greens in the legislature some day to hash things out.
|