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GP silent on Zimmermann

It's been nearly a week since former Green Party officeholder Dean Zimmermann was convicted of abusing his position as a city councilmember for Minneapolis by accepting bribes.

So far there has been no official reaction from the national party. The Minnesota Greens did issue a statement:

"The Green Party of Minnesota reaffirms its belief that Dean Zimmermann had no intention to solicit or take bribes. We base this on his record of more than half a century of service to his community and active work for justice. We recognize that he has made serious mistakes in the handling of funds, and we do not condone or excuse those mistakes. Nevertheless, we believe that he was never motivated by personal gain."

Most of us haven't seen the videotapes the jury did. None of us can look inside Zimmermann's mind, nor the motivations of the FBI agents who charged him.

But basic public relations demands that national party address the issue, not ignore it. Either support the man they once touted, or admit that even Greens are humans and unfortunately sometimes they fail to live up to our values.

Pick a side. Sitting this one out should not be an option.

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Mavor, what should the USGP say

in a press release? This is not an idle question. I am a member of the national party Media Committee representing South Carolina. I will take your ideas, and other folk's ideas, to the media committee and see what comes of that.

I imagine part of the reason it has not come up to us, and we can do press releases without being pushed to do so, is that we didn't think about writing one. I have posted a message at my blog about the Zimmerman case,which you can read here, and have commented on it in several places. Even so, I didn't think of writing a press release. Maybe because I don't know what we would say. What do you suggest we say Mavor? I'm not being flip, I really would love some text to begin with so we can have something to work on in the Media Committee.

Steve Kramer wrote this as a reply back in January to my post about Dean's indictment:

I'll also reserve judgment. Clearly, if the law was broken, that is against the values of the Party. I will say, however, that Zimmerman's DFL (Democrat-Farmer-Labor) opponent in the last election ran at one point against a fellow DFLer in a primary - and his opponent then was also investigated by the FBI right before their election.
# posted by Steve Kramer : 11:33 AM

  • By Gregg Jocoy at 2006-08-15 15:33
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Zimmerman Links

I have posted a list of more than a dozen links to more than two dozen stories online about Dean Zimmerman at my blog. Some are about his bribery case, some are not. All can be found by stepping this way

  • By Gregg Jocoy at 2006-08-15 17:44
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Let the state Green Party take the lead

This is state Green Party business. In cases like this, the national Green Party should let the state party take the lead, and respect and support the state party's judgement. If the Minnesota Green Party stands behind Dean, then the national party should also.

The Zimmerman case hasn't achieved the kind of national attention that would require the national Green Party to issue any kind of statement, but if it did, I'd probably recommend that we forward the Minnesota Greens' release. (I'm co-chair of the Media Committee.)

This has been our approach with state & local news in the past.

  • By scottmclarty at 2006-08-15 19:01
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Thanks Scott

for clearing that up. I posted essentially the same message at Green Commons.

  • By Gregg Jocoy at 2006-08-16 18:58
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