(This column appeared in the Bangor Daily News on Tuesday, November 19, 1996, Page 2)Green Party boasts unsophisticated appeal
by John S. DayThe few weeks between the November elections and Christmas are a period of thanksgiving for the major political players here. They gather to sing hymns, scan the electoral landscape and pat themselves on the back for conning the Republic one more time.
My invitation to the Clinton-Gore Christmas Party, a rejoicing for four more years of Democrats in the White House, arrived Monday. Another invite came from Cal Thomas, the conservative columnist who leads a prayer at his celebrations. This year's, no doubt, will praise the Lord for not firing Newt Gingrich as speaker of the House of Representatives.
The food is great. The talk is pretentious. Ten minutes of listening to Sam Donaldson and you walk away thinking the country would collapse were it not for these few hundred Washington icons.
That's not the style of the Green Party. I drove out to Middleburg, Va, on Sunday to cover its post-election skull session. In Maine, the Greens fell a little short of their objectives. Voters didn't enact the party's controversial ban on clear-cutting. But they also rejected Gov. Angus King's forest-industry-backed alternative, ensuring the clear-cutting issue will remain in the forefront of Maine politics for a while longer.
Neither Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader nor Bowdoin professor John Rensenbrink, the Maine party's Senate nominee, cracked the 5 percent vote barrier. That means the Greens will lose their official party status unless the Legislature enacts a bill drafted by Secretary of State Bill Diamond changing the 5 percent threshold.
Nationwide, the 1996 election was a moral victory for the alternative parties. Between them, Nader and Ross Perot got 8.6 million votes. Eight million were Perot's. Maine's Green vote total was the sixth best among the 22 states where Nader was listed as a presidential candidate.
The 10 percent showing nationwide by nonparty presidential candidates was enough to deny Bill Clinton his cherished 50 percent electoral vote mandate. That fact pleased the Nader crowd, which sees Clinton as having sold out most of his progressive beliefs to get re-elected and head off GOP investigations.
Sunday's post-election meeting was called to organize a national alliance of state Green parties. Thirteen local parties voted to join the Compact. One Green member equated that to the 13 colonies signing the Declaration of Independence.
Finding the Greenies was no easy task.
Elaine Broadhead, one of Middleburg's grand dames, hosted the event at her family's Glen-Ora farm. Historic Middleburg is home to some of the wealthiest blue-blooded families in America. John and Jacqueline Kennedy rented Glen-Ora from Mrs. Broadhead's mother during the three years JFK was president.
Take it from me, there are no signposts directing the unwashed to any of Middleburg's multimillion-dollar "farms."
After striking out all over town I found some knowledgeable media types getting ready to watch the Washington Redskins football game at the Middleburg Tennis Club. Brit Hume, the ABC White House correspondent, put me onto a guy wearing a "Fox TV" hat who drew me a map. Another man at Hume's table said, "Call us when you find those people. I'll send the Air Force to carpet-bomb them."
Nancy Allen, one of the Maine Green Party delegates, said the remark was typical of the media's attitude toward her party. There was only one other journalist at the Green conclave, a reporter for Pacifica, the San Francisco-based alternative news wire.
There's an unsophisticated appeal about the Greens. At Maine party meetings, when the debate bogs down, somebody proclaims "fist or five." An upraised fist indicates no support for the proposition. One to five fingers--five denoting total agreement--means continue talking.
Compare that to the major party conventions, the $100 million affairs with each line scripted for television by hucksters like Dick Morris. Nader, casually dressed in slacks and a cable sweater, seemed closer to the moderator of a New England town meeting than a presidential candidate as he took questions on Sunday.
There was no promise by Nader to run again--not even for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut, where he resides. The consumer advocate will be 66 in 2000, when Al Gore is expected to be the Democratic front-runner. The Green vote in Colorado may have enabled Bob Dole to carry that state, Nader said, a fact Nader raised with Gore recently to stiffen the vice president's environmental backbone.
The Green style is reminiscent of the low-cost political campaigns run before the advent of television. Some of the Middleburg delegates raised the money for their airfare at potluck suppers. Nader spent only $5,000 on his presidential bid.
In Alaska, a Green Senate candidate named Jed Whittaker spent just $4,000 on his challenge of popular GOP incumbent Ted Stevens. Whittaker was so cash-poor he hitchhiked rides with bush pilots to get around the state. Stevens was returned to the Senate in a landslide, but Whittaker outpolled the Democratic candidate.
That's something to build on.
The Maine Greens are holding a state organizatinal meeting beginning at noon Saturday at the Pilgrim House of the Pilgrim Church near Bowdoin College in Brunswick. Those interested should start practicing their "fist or fives."
Return to the Boulder Green Alliance home page