Independent Politics: The Green Party Strategy Debate is a collection of over fifty essays examining the history and future of the Green Party, its role in electoral politics United States, and the larger role of progressives in electoral politics. The majority of the discussion focuses on the Green Party’s involvement in the 2004 election and the lessons that can be learned for future elections, while also touching on the strategy that the Party can pursue in the future. The essays, divided into five categories—“Green Independence? The Debate Begins,” “Green Tactics and Strategy,” “The Milwaukee Convention,” “Independence Versus Anybody but Bush,” and “Lessons from the 2004 Election”—explore the internal debate within the Green Party over strategy, the question of running candidates, the Party’s commitment to internal democracy, the role of Ralph Nader’s 2004 independent presidential campaign, and the role of other progressive groups and Democrats in influencing Green decision-making. Moreover, the book explores in detail how the Green Party came to the decision to run David Cobb as its presidential candidate in 2004, who despite running as a Green Party candidate, adopted a “smart-growth” strategy that would not challenge Democrat John Kerry or Republican George W. Bush in so-called “unsafe” states where the election was close and never seriously worked to win the election. Similarly, Cobb’s running mate, Pat LaMarche of Maine, stated that if the election were close she might not even vote for herself in the election.
The prospects for any meaningful definition of “success” in a Presidential campaign is no doubt limited when a Party nominates a candidate that is not serious about winning the election, as such a campaign is likely to further marginalize so-called “third parties” in the United States. Yet, despite a clear understanding of this, the Green Party in 2004 nominated a relatively unknown candidate, David Cobb, for president in 2004 who made his primary goal overcoming the notion that the Green Party was a “spoiler” party after the loss of Democrat Al Gore in 2000. In order to do this, Cobb formulated a strategy where he would campaign in states where the election was not close (states where poll data suggested that a Democrat or Republican was ahead by a substantial margin) and would encourage Greens to vote out the Bush regime in such states. This strategy was in turn supported by a number of prominent Green Party activists who, due to a combination of absorbing criticism of Ralph Nader’s 2000 Green Party campaign and an analysis of the Bush administration that dictated that the urgency of defeating the Bush administration was such that it justified voting for the Democratic Party candidate. Of course, this was not the position of all Greens and there was a lively debate within the Party over the best course to pursue in the 2004 election. Many Party activists, including Nader’s 2004 vice presidential candidate Peter Camejo, vehemently objected to encouraging Greens to vote for Democratic Senator John Kerry in the election, as it was clear that neither he nor the Democratic Party were interested in supporting Green issues. Some in the Green Party supported to the “Avocado Declaration,” an analysis of the Green Party, progressive politics, and the Democratic Party in which it is argued that the Green Party must pursue its own independent electoral strategy. As this internal debate raged, Ralph Nader announced that he would run again for President and indicated that he would like to work with the Green Party again, and the debate expanded as Green activists around the country argued over whether or not it strategically made sense to support Nader, to run another candidate, or run no candidate at all. In advance of the Party’s 2004 convention the debate was deeply divided, but a “Unity” plan advocated by Peter Camejo where the Party would endorse its own candidate (Cobb) and Ralph Nader and then allow the state parties to decide which candidate they would support, was circulated but ultimately rejected and Cobb was nominated. However, there is also strong evidence that this debate was purposely stifled, as multiple essays criticized the procedure used to decide the Green Party’s presidential nominee, with the process used at the 2004 Green Party convention stacking delegates for Cobb and structuring the procedures in such a way that Cobb was nominated despite only have 12% of the votes.
Several writers also explore the campaign against Ralph Nader in the 2004 election, which was one of the most intense attacks ever mounted on a third party candidate. Once Nader announced that he would run as an independent without the support of the Green Party, the Democrats mounted an intense campaign to deny Nader ballot access by developing 527 organizations to fund a coordinated campaign, organizing volunteers to challenge petition signatures, and even working with law firms that primarily supported Republicans to mount legal challenges to Nader’s effort. Other Democrats also mounted attacks on Nader, with Howard Dean gay-bashing Nader on NPR saying that Nader accepted money from anti-gay Republicans and the Congressional Black Caucus of the House of Representatives telling Nader to “withdraw” from the election. Progressive Democrats like Dennis Kucinich were used early in the primary elections as a means of attempting to absorb progressives into the Democratic Party, and even after Kerry won enough primaries to secure the nomination, Kucinich kept going in the Democratic Party creating an illusion of a progressive view within the Party despite none of his positions being adopted and the Democratic Party once again completely ignoring the concerns of progressives. However, some of the most virulent anti-Nader attacks came from “progressives” such as The Nation’s editors who advised Nader to avoid running for “the good of the country, the many causes you’ve championed, and for your own good name.” The magazine also published other articles highly critical of Nader including one calling Nader “Bush’s Useful Idiot,” while many other prominent progressives made a series of comments highly critical of Nader’s campaign.
In addition to the exploration of the Green Party’s internal debates and the status of the Party in 2006, the book also raises important questions about the progressive involvement in electoral politics and the relationship of progressive movements to the Democratic Party. Several essays in the book make it clear that the Democratic Party is now dominated by corporate interests and has an institutional role of accepting and neutralizing dissent as a means of preserving the status quo on economic and foreign policy rather than providing any substantive challenge. Similarly, the Democratic and Republican Party’s focus on social issues such as abortion, is a means of distracting the electorate from the fact that there is a consensus on much of their agenda. In light of the failings of the Democratic Party, the book makes compelling arguments that progressive electoral strategies must focus on independent politics and building movements outside of the Democratic Party. An inherent part of this is restructuring elections in the United States to incorporate reforms such as instant run-off voting (IRV) or proportional representation in order to be able to build parties that can make concrete improvements in people’s lives, as such electoral reforms would go a long way towards eliminating the “spoiler” questions. It is also clear that running a candidate without aiming to win is a bankrupt strategy. Following Cobb’s dismal showing in 2004, the Green Party lost ballot access in several states and received little media attention for either his campaign or Green/progressive issues. Moreover, progressives got nowhere in the 2004 election and with the loss of John Kerry and the millions of dollars spent to get him elected, a variety of movements were temporarily dispirited. Of course, since there were no demands made on Kerry in exchange for his vote, there would have likely been a similar period of disempowerment once the realities of his lack of commitment to progressive causes became clear to those that glossed over it during the election.
Independent Politics is an important and engaging examination of both the Green Party and progressive electoral politics in the United States. Unfortunately, as we enter the final months of the 2006 election it seems that we are poised to make many of the same mistakes of the 2004 elections with many progressives once again voting for Democratic Party candidates who will largely ignore their issues once elected. To that end, progressives would benefit greatly from reading this books and committing themselves to genuinely independent politics.
Howie Hawkins, ed., Independent Politics: The Green Party Strategy Debate, (Haymarket Books, 2006).
