Chlorophyll

I don't know about the rest of you, but 2006 was an exhausting year for me. I moved to Madison, settled in with my girlfriend, changed jobs multiple times, traveled south of the equator for the first and second times, founded a magazine, hosted a number of friends coming through town, went to a variety of conferences, ran my first electoral campaign, and through it all, kept this site limping along. (I've decided not to close it down just yet, though I'm paying attention to the clicks and turnover here versus Green Commons and other places.)

Anyway, I'm largely out of the loop at the national level. I hear things are tough, economically. I want to encourage folks to hang in there, and help the party out in whatever way you can. For example, here in Wisconsin, we voted to return the money the national party sent us.

Other than that, I only know what I've heard about elections around the country. On the one hand, we had the best returns a "third party" has seen since 1934. On the other hand, that means we averaged around 2%.

It's hard to guess how 2007 will shape up. Two big topics, however, are sure to be... how the new Democratic Congress does, and who we start to take seriously as Presidential candidates.

As the for the former, well, my hopes are not high. At all. I expect to see waffling, infighting, and outright spinelessness before Bush's careening disasters. There will be a vacuum left that Greens can occupy. Don't expect the mass media to notice us, but do point out to friends and neighbors that where the bulk of the US population stands on, say, the debacle in Iraq, is exactly where the Green Party stood three, four, even five years ago. We are similarly ahead of the curve on other topics.

As for the latter, it's still too early to say. There's talk that a certain outspoken Democrat may run on our ticket, but before I could work up much enthusiasm for that idea, I would need to see said person publicly become a former Democrat. In fact, my three criteria are the same as they were in 2005:

1. We need a woman. A woman of color would be better still.
2. She must be a member of the party, or at the very least, an independent willing to expressly and publicly support our Ten Key Values.
3. She must run as hard as resources will allow, and vigorously support other Green candidates (even if not a Green herself). This precludes any consideration for, or negotiation with, Democratic candidates at any stage.

The party really needs a consensus candidate for President. Another year like 2004 will spell the end of the Green Party. If we can show some foresight, some fortitude, and some flexibility, we can become the cohesive and inspired movement we were in 2000. That will pull our numbers up well above the 2% range, and will almost certainly do us some good financially, as well.