Speaking of insults: Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 13:24:00 -0500 From: "Guy Western" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> [Original Message] >> From: Andy Driscoll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> >> "Primaries *you* have."? >> >> A little knowledge of city government goes a long way. > > It might be of interest, here, to point that not every municipal electoral > scheme in the country includes a convention AND a primary to nominate or > endorse. Add to that the pretense of a quasi-non-partisan municipal > electoral process in which the major political parties may endorse, but not > nominate, candidates, and I quite agree: whatever committee it was that > concocted this charade would have benefitted greatly from a modicum of > knowledge of city government. I grew up in an electoral system where the > nomination was decided by a primary election, period, and in non-partisan > races the candidates could only mention their party affiliation IF they > were card-carrying members. I made an honest mistake about YOUR > nomination/endorsement process, I admitted it and thanked those who pointed > out my mistake, however ungraciously. I didn't slander anyone in the > process. Now, I'd really appreciate it if we could forego any more insults > and move on. You mean insults like the following? >> Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 18:42:34 -0500 >> From: "Guy Western" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Subject: RE: [StPaul] Dave v. Vance >> To: "David Shove" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> >> What Dave means to say is that we, in the Green Party, prefer to focus on >> positive, innovative solutions like Instant Runoff Voting and not involve >> ourselves in the DFL's internal problems. . . don't you, Dave (come on now, >> or we'll have to take your coffee away like we do in the meetings.) >> >> Guy Western >> the West Side > > > The fact remains that Mayor Kelly is a Democrat, he was well-known to > differ with the Democrat party line on a great number of issues, he didn't > support Wellstone in 2002, his potential apostasy has been predicted since > before he became mayor, and the St. Paul voters who supported him in TWO > elections--a primary of questionably value, and a general election--really > have no business claiming to be shocked and betrayed by his failure to toe > the party line in this presidential race. My point was that a lot of > people, including anyone who may be genuinely surprised by Kelly's maverick > endorsement of the incumbent POTUS, voted with their gut instead of their > knowledge of his positions on issues. > > If the DFL wants to be a "big tent" and make room for anti-choice, > anti-gay, anti-liberal members who reserve their right to withold support > from party nominees, then DFLers' complaints about "betrayal" by these > impersonators is going to be met with yawns by those of us who aren't > members of the DFL. Call me what you will (and I've been called plenty > lately by Minnesota-nice DFLers), but I don't have a lot of sympathy for > either side in this intra-party flap. > > Similarly, scoff at the Green Party, if you will, for being marginal but we > don't fight our convention battles in your forum. Scoff at the Green > Party, if you will, for being idealistic, but their policy of Instant > Runoff Voting is a simple and effective remedy for electoral ills from the > arcane, undemocratic electoral college at the national level to the > idiotic, costly charade of "non-partisan" primaries at the municipal level > right here in St. Paul. Scoff at the Green Party, if you will, for being > anti-Democrat, but we don't blame the Democrats every time we fall flat on > our face in an election, and our presidential nominee, David Cobb, is > running an extremely sensitive and sensible campaign to promote the local > identity of the fastest-growing political party in America. > > - Guy Western > the West Side First of all, no one was talking about elections and endorsements across the country. I was speaking of St. Paul's full nonpartisan elections which use primaries to nominate the top two candidates for the General Election - essentially a runoff - with no party designation on the ballot. The system couldn't care less which party endorses and which doesn't. That means every party-endorsed candidate run against every other party endorsed candidate in the primary along often with many candidates altogether unendorsed. So, there's no quasi-anything about the nonpartisan elections. There's no law keeping parties from endorsing an announced candidate; for that matter, a grocery store could endorse a nonpartisan candidate. The law sees no endorsement at the city or county level, and while you and newspapers want to claim elected officials are of one party or another, the law sees it otherwise. Nothing in the record identities them by their party affiliation. Furthermore, I don't know where you're from, and couldn't care less, but in Minnesota, the only thing that makes you a Green or a Democrat or any other party member is your say-so. You can vote any way you damned well please in any election, the only restriction being that in partisan Primary elections, you may vote for only one party's candidates, but if you choose to cross over and vote for an opposing party's candidate(s) in the Primary (and it's done by partisans all the time to try and affect who the opponents' nominee(s) might be), you can vote across any number of party lines in the General - a DFLer for governor, a Green for the House, a Republican for State Auditor and an Independent for state senator. It's sloppy, but that's the reality. All to say - Kelly's declaration as a DFLer is the only mark of identification he has - but, say what you will, it's his political and policymaking behavior that betrays him for the conservative - now Republican - that he is and has been for many years. No one's scoffing at the Green Party. In fact, it IS the fastest growing party in the country - in part because it has nowhere else to go. I welcome a strong multiparty system in the US and Minnesota, but even if we did pass the highly desirable instant run-offs and some other electoral reforms, the two majors would, for the short haul, win the majority mandate those reforms would yield. I've yet to see the Green Party show up with a monolithic mission, goal set, objectives and platform. It's the hypocrisy of all politics that pots can call the kettles black without looking within to see the same dysfunction so caustically claimed for others. No more than Greens are DFLers divided along several issue lines. I've been a Green - voted for Elizabeth Dickinson in the St. Paul Primary last year - and I've seen such nasty divisions as to curdle milk, including factions that don't even want the party in politics at all, saying elections are a sell-out to the establishment. We need not even go into the 2002 election season for an anatomy of a party divided on its candidates for the highest office in the state. I could go on, but you don't really want that, do you? So, we'll all hold out "sympathy" for the other, and just call it as it is - politics. As for the "big tent" slam, then, consider thine own, then dispense with the righteous assumptions that any party has a lock on hypocrisy, on dissent in the ranks (thank god) and on "the right stuff." As long as humanity occupies the membership rolls of any organization, attempts to label the organization as monolithically united in policy and processes fall flatter than hell's overcooked pancake. Many Democrats - as I've said time and again - falsely blame Nader - not the Green Party - for Gore's loss. I know of no other election where Democrats/DFLers have blamed Greens for bringing them down, and ,indeed, like all parties, the DFL, in particular, has shot itself in the foot by endorsing some of the least electable candidates available to them solely on the basis of an unwillingness of more electable ones to "abide" by an outmoded endorsement process. (They should endorse multiple candidates to ensure a claim on the candidacy.) I hear far more invective from Greens directed at DFLers than at Republicans, and that truly disturbs me and should the rest of the Green Party. Republicans are no potential pool for increasing Green membership. The DFL/Democratic Party is a deep one. Perhaps more practical progressives reside in the Democratic Party instead of the Green Party right now because of the compelling need to oust the current administration - and the only way to do so is elect John Kerry. Now, I get the impression that the anti-DFL tirade above assumes broad-based support for the Electoral College among Democrats. Wrong - again. If there was ever any justification for that ridiculous provision, it was lost over 100 years ago. I know of few Democrats who wouldn't revel in the repeal of that amendment. You can imagine the fear and loathing in the West over the very notion of its abolition, but voters and politicos of all stripes want out of that lousy institution. So back to my original premise - let's get off the partisan battleships and start looking at what we expect from our leaders - and if their party selection or their candidate selection happens to shift, then it's probably more reflective than their words of where they are politically and ideologically - and I say good riddance. Go home where you belong - if Republican Party is really home. Kelly could call himself a Green. Doesn't make him so. His performance and political machinations make him otherwise. The man's a loser and he best step down from a second term because, like most of his hand-picked prot�g�s, he's gonna lose. Right now we live a city with a need for people-oriented leadership in the executive office, not just a billionaire-chasing stadium builder who would rather make thousands of hospitality workers and families with children sick enough to die younger and more painfully than necessary just in order to ensure the highest alcohol sales tax revenues possible for stadium funding. Smoking begets drinking begets smoking begets drinking. And alcohol sales pay off big for owners and city governments. City folk should stop yapping at the heels and get to work on issues that mean something around here. Andy Driscoll Crocus Hill/Ward 2 ------ _____________________________________________ To Join: St. Paul Issues Forum Rules Discussion Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
