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How should NDFA deal with Green Party candidates?

June 6, 2012 - 2:41pm — Carl Nyberg

Last night I attended Democracy Burlesque. Dave Ehrlich one of the Green Party candidates for Metropolitan Water Reclamation District spoke. Afterwards Ehrlich and I walked to the Red Line together and rode it into Downtown.

Ehrlich expressed an interest in making his pitch to Northside DFA.

I propose sending a formal message to the Illinois Green Party. The theme would be: if you want NDFA to take Green Party candidates seriously, the Illinois Green Party has to take organizing seriously.

While the particulars of what constitutes serious organizing can be debated and honed as part of the text of the formal letter, here's some minimums I would like to see.

State party
1. Full-time staff
2. A membership acquisition plan that is building toward enough people to win elections.
2a. A membership acquisition plan than recruits dues-paying members at least 85% of the time. If the "members" are not paying dues, it's an email list, not a membership list.

A Green organization like NDFA
1. Monthly meetings
2. Average over 40 people per month attending
3. Have 40+ people who volunteer on campaigns at least thrice per year

NDFA exists to support socially progressive, fiscally responsible and ethically committed Democrats.

The Greens may feel like their road to growth is winning the support of Democratic Party infrastructure one institution at a time.

I believe this is flawed. The Green road to growth is to organize their own infrastructure. When the Illinois Greens build sufficient infrastructure to win elections, then the party will be in a stronger position to negotiate with other organizations.

Comments

June 6, 2012 - 7:16pm — Melissa

Serious candidates

Seem to feel that people will vote for them because they are virtuous, but present no viable plan for letting people beyond their inner circles know about their virtue, or why virtue would make them good office holders.

To take them seriously, there should be a fundraising plan, a communications plan, and a strategy to win elections based on more than "but the other guys are so awful!" Sometimes the other guys are AWFUL, and it's still not enough.

Getting progressive Democrats in a place where they win elections is hard enough, but at least they mostly know the basics, even if the execution is not quite there.

At the moment, I'm feeling like fixing the Democratic party is hard enough -- could we win a few elections, please? -- without taking on fixing the Greens as well. It might be nice to have a viable third party, but it will take a lot of work, and a willingness to learn from past mistakes, analyze problems and figure out how to fix them.

"If you plant ice you're gonna harvest wind." -- Robert Hunter

June 6, 2012 - 4:48pm — Carl Nyberg

a question posed privately

If Greens don't help progressive Democrats, what's the incentive for progressive Dems to help Greens?

June 6, 2012 - 3:20pm — Carl Nyberg

the Illinois Greens should have a written plan

to grow their organization.

It should be on the website.

People should be able to see how their work fits into building the organization.

And people who are being asked to support the party or its candidates should be able to see if the current leadership is doing a reasonable job of fulfilling its own plan to become a viable organization.