Green Party Analysis, California.

Peter Camejo on the Recall

Peter Camejo on the Recall

THE RECALL

BY PETER MIGUEL CAMEJO

October 14, 2003

SYMPATHY & RESPECT Because of the Green Party's
participation in the
recall election we have gained new respect and sympathy
from millions
of people in California and throughout the United
States.

The Green Party made history in the recall election on
several
levels. In part because of the 5.3% of the vote we
received in
November 2002, and in part because of the nature of the
recall, we
were immediately considered a major candidate by the
media.

This status resulted in a historic breakthrough. A third
party
gubernatorial candidate was included in televised
debates. The Green
Party has reached this status not because of any one
specific event
or candidate but because of our overall following and
successes in
California.

DEBATE STRATEGY The televised debates allowed millions
to hear and
see a Green candidate for the first time. In the first
debate on
September 3rd, I decided against trying too hard to make
an
impression. For instance, I avoided humor. This was
because many
listeners expect a third party candidate to be peculiar,
unusual,
shrill or single issue focused and desperately seeking
attention. We
needed to appear exactly the opposite; sensible,
serious, calm, and
with a clear message.

Many of you heard my closing remarks in that debate but
you would not
know that I practiced them probably over 300 times. I
worked it over
word by word so that it would be 60 seconds long and
still touch on a
large number of key issues. As it turned out, we were
given 2 minutes
and so I added to the message a bit as I presented it,
including
slowing my delivery down. But I did not dare try too
hard lest I lose
the flow and impact. As it turned out, I took 2.1
minutes.

In the September 24th debate that included Arnold, I was
prepared to
take a more aggressive stance. My wife, Morella, advised
me strongly
against it. We had a liaison committee with the Green
Party of
California leadership which held conference calls to
advise me before
many of these key moments in the campaign. In those
discussions we
made the crucial and correct decision not to attack
anyone.

We decided not to focus on Arnold, especially not to
attack him in a
manner that could be perceived as a personal attack.
Focusing on
Arnold would make him the center of attention and win
him sympathy.
Even though this cautious strategy may have seemed too
mild, it was
better to differentiate only on platform issues and keep
the message
focused. I thought before the debate that the other four
candidates
would go into an attack mode. To my surprise, Tom
McClintock had
apparently made a similar decision to avoid attacking
Arnold.
Obviously Arianna made the opposite decision and tried
to provoke
Arnold and expose him. In my view, this did not work
well. If all the
candidates had stayed on message, the lack of substance
in Arnold's
responses would have been clearer. Instead he was judged
on his
ability to handle the attacks.

As I walked off the stage after having been heard by
possibly 20
million people, I wasn't sure how well I had come off.
Then I saw the
faces of the young people who came rushing towards the
front to shake
my hand.

This decision on our part to stay focused and not make
attacks turned
out to be one of the most important ones we made. I
stayed focused on
our basic message and kept the image of the Green Party
as serious
and polite. There was another policy I followed that had
a very
positive result for us. I made an effort to give
positive comments
when another candidate made proposals or points that we
Greens feel
were valid. Also, I tried to be generous in any comments
regarding
the character or intentions of other candidates.

The media was at first quite confused by this. They are
used to
candidates only being vicious to each other and trying
to assign the
worst possible motive to whatever another candidate does
or says. In
the early weeks of the campaign the media thought I must
be planning
to withdraw because I was saying kind things about
Arianna Huffington
(more on Arianna later). When I congratulated Cruz
Bustamante for
calling for public funding of campaigns, for example,
the media at
first concluded that I must be considering endorsing
Bustamante.

By the last two debates I felt I had sufficient
credibility to use
more humor. The media was starting to understand what I
was doing and
like the public, reacted positively. The result is that
in almost all
polls rating my performance in the debates, we came out
quite well.

A San Francisco Chronicle web poll which rated debate
performance
showed us in first place at 32%. This was well above all
others,
especially Arianna who came in last at 8%. A more
scientific poll of
Democrats put us in first place at 25% and declared us
the winner
over all others.

The campaign as a whole and the debates in particular
won the Green
Party acceptance, respect and sympathy. We won some
support and
recruits, but on a mass scale the sympathy was not yet
strong enough
to overcome the spoiler factor and result in votes for
us.

OUR VOTE DECLINES It is surprising that after such
massive and
positive exposure our vote declined from 5.3% to 2.8%.
In the 2002
campaign people were convinced that Gray Davis would win
in spite of
a projected vote of 3 to 4% for me. Many polls showed
that. Therefore
people felt somewhat free to vote Green. Still, we
probably lost half
of our vote due to the spoiler factor in 2002. This time
it was
different. A kind of panic set in among many of the
people most
likely to vote for us because of the fear of Arnold.

The Democrats have gained a reputation for dishonest
campaigning.
Davis is a master of demonizing his opponent as a way to
get people
who dislike him to vote for him. While he still
succeeded in getting
about half his vote from people who think he is doing
poorly, this
time the demonization partially backfired.

DEMOCRATS LIE ABOUT THE POLLS The Democrats tried an
outright lie at
the end of the campaign. It was primarily intended to
mobilize their
ranks but it was also a maneuver that hurt our vote
totals. In the
last two days of the campaign, they began announcing
that they had
polls showing that they were neck and neck with the
Republicans, both
on the recall question and in the Bustamante vs
Schwarzenegger race.

Monday evening, the day before the election, I went on
KPFK in Los
Angeles and as they hooked me in I heard Antonio
Villaraigosa
announcing that the polls were exactly tied. I do not
think Antonio
was himself lying; he was just repeating the lie fed to
him by
others. It is amazing how poll results can be
manipulated. I hope
there is no one so naïve as to believe that the voters
were split
50/50 on Monday and then the next day Arnold wins by
16%, 48% to 32%,
and Davis loses in the recall by 10%, 55% to 45%!

These lies that were spread far and wide by the media
helped reduce
our vote further. There probably has never been an
election with such
a high number of those who wanted to vote for us, but
didn't. There
is also another phenomena that may be involved. I call
it the third
party curse in a winner-take-all system. Once the
"novelty" of a new
party or candidate wears off and supporters see that a
third party
candidate does not win, they stop voting for you in
spite of their
support for your platform. Such people can be won back
in local
races. And of course they would come back to us if we
had Instant
Runoff Voting.

The political mistake made by those Green supporters who
voted
Democrat is sad, because a large vote for the Greens
would have given
us power in discussions with Democrats and Republicans.
It would have
strengthened the chances for Green candidates to win
local races.
Green supporters who voted Democrat wasted their vote
even from the
point of view of so-called "strategic voting". Strategic
Voting is a
new and polite term for lesser-evil voting.

WHAT OUR VOTE REVEALS ABOUT OUR BASE Some of the exit
polls showed us
with a larger vote than we actually received, so some
might be
suspicious that perhaps our vote wasn't fully reported.
It's more
likely that voters told pollsters how they wish they had
voted, not
how they actually voted.

The exit polls show our support quite strong among young
people. We
were at 9% for 18 to 29 year old voters. African
Americans were the
strongest racial group to vote for us at 6%, followed by
Latinos at
5%. European-Americans came in at 3%. People not
registered Democrat
or Republican gave us 8%. The poorest people in
California (below
$15,000 a year income) gave us the highest vote of all
income
categories with 9%.

In gender we were split evenly. One poll showed that the
more
education people have, the more they tend to vote for
us. So who is a
typical Green Party voter? An underpaid but educated, 24
year old
African American or Latina who is registered Decline to
State! The
demographics of our support continue to shift beyond our
original
base, which is primarily European-American
environmentalists and 60s
progressives. Our initial base is still critical to the
Green Party's
efforts and activist core. We should see our expansion
as the early
steps in becoming a truly mass party.

2004 ATTACK CAMPAIGN We need to be aware that we will
face a very
difficult time over the next 13 months. The Democrats
will launch an
unfair campaign which is really against democracy. They
will attack
the Green Party simply for running candidates. The
"Nader effect"
from the 2000 Presidential election has become a
standard term now
for Democrats. They use it as a way to oppose free
elections and
blame the victim for their opposition to democracy. The
level of
dishonesty and hypocrisy this shows is rarely
appreciated. These
Democrats have no complaints when their leadership votes
for a
resolution calling for "Unequivocal support for George
Bush" or votes
for the Patriot Act, or gives repeated standing ovations
to Bush's
State of the Union address with it's attacks on the rule
of law.
Instead they attack the Greens for supposedly "helping"
to elect Bush
while they openly, politically support him.

In the recall election many Democrats could not see the
hypocrisy in
urging Greens to drop out to prevent "spoilership", but
not calling
for Tom McClintock to drop out so that he wouldn't
"spoil" the race
for Schwarzenegger. In other words, they have no shame
in trying to
win against the will of the people.

The worst mistake we could make is to bend to this
pressure. Many
Greens will, many already have. In the recall election
this phenomena
was already at work. Differences will be heightened
among Greens
regarding our approach to this problem. All of this is
normal. If it
were not the case it would mean we are not part of
reality. Our task
is to handle internal differences in an extremely
democratic manner,
showing respect for all points of view, especially
minority views.
Unlike the Democrats, we do not suppress criticism but
regard it as
positive, part of a normal process.

One of the smartest moves the Green Party made was to
compromise and
allow its members to disagree on the recall and not take
a formal
Party position, which would have been very divisive.
Events can some
times lead to sharp differences which then shift over
time as people
get a chance to think the issues through or further
events clarify
the roots of the differences. We will probably be
arguing the recall
issue for some time, but it is no longer such a divisive
danger now
that it is in the past.

DEMOCRATIC PARTY FRONT ORGANIZATIONS There is a web site
called
MoveOn.org that presents itself as progressive. I
believe it is
nothing more than a Democratic Party organizing center,
allowing
Democrats to keep progressive minded people co-opted to
the
Democrats. They launched a campaign, as did Code Pink,
against Arnold
Schwarzenegger's attacks on women. But this campaign was
directly
linked to a "Vote Democratic" campaign and therefore
would not
mention anything negative about Democrats, specifically
allegations
that Gray Davis intimidated and attacked women he worked
with. The
truth is that the real purpose of both of these
campaigns was to help
the Democrats, no matter how sincere many of the people
were in their
disgust with Schwarzenegger. I attended one of these
events and spoke
at it. The content of the event, sponsored by Code Pink,
was
overwhelmingly focused on defense of women's rights,
inter mixed with
some pro-Davis signs. Unlike MoveOn.org, Code Pink tried
to some
extent to keep the two issues separated.

I understand MoveOn.org came out with a "Suddenly, I
Love Gray Davis"
slogan. They are openly a front for the Democrats. They
raised
hundreds of thousands of dollars and had a place for
voters to sign
pledging that they would never vote for Schwarzenegger.
Of course
MoveOn will play a role in mobilizing progressive voters
to vote
Democrat in 2004 as part of a "stop Bush" movement, but
you can bet
your life they will not have a pledge calling on voters
to refuse to
vote for anyone who voted "Unequivocal support for
George Bush",
because that would be most of the Democratic Party's
leadership.

We can expect that Democratic Party controlled
organizations like the
Sierra Club, NOW; MoveOn and many union leaders will all
join in the
attack on the Green Party. In so doing they will show
their failure
to understand or support democracy. Instead, they show
their
subservience to a corporate controlled party. Their
politics opens
the door and helps facilitate Republican victories. This
is because
Democrats always accept the premises of the Republican
platform,
whether it is the so-called "war on terrorism" or
"energy
deregulation". The only thing they argue over is the
nuts and bolts
of implementing this platform. It is these organizations
and their
opposition to democracy that has historically blocked
the development
of any effective opposition to corporate domination or
the Republican
agenda.

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON When Arianna Huffington first
announced her
candidacy I saw it as a golden opportunity for the Green
Party. I
immediately welcomed her into the race and tried to form
a working
relationship so we would both campaign together to
promote the
progressive agenda. But it quickly became clear to us
that she was
not that interested in any serious relationship with the
Green Party
or in holding joint campaign events.

In three of the first four debates I made positive
comments about
Arianna. I thought it made our position stronger when
asked about the
death penalty, for instance, if two candidates opposed
it instead of
just one. Arianna, however, never said one word that was
positive
about our campaign or the Green Party during the
debates. In fact, in
the first debate she twice referred to Bustamante being
"the Nader",
meaning a spoiler. Nevertheless, most of her comments
were excellent
articulations of issues where we completely agree with
her.

The pressure began building on Arianna from the
Democrats to pull out
and declare for the Democrats. Arianna capitulated in a
manner that I
thought hurt the progressive movement. She literally
became an
operative of the Gray Davis campaign. She had pictures
of herself
with Davis repeatedly shown on TV. She flew with him on
his private
campaign jet and attended get-out-the-vote Democratic
Party union
rallies. (By the way, as was explained to me by one
union leader,
these rallies were failures in terms of their turn out.
Exit polls
show 49% of Union members voted yes on the recall).

Arianna formally represented the Democratic Party at the
October 2nd
debate in Los Angeles. So, of course she could not say
one word in
criticism of Democrats in that debate.

Arianna also joined with Senator Diane Feinstein and
Dolores Huerta
in supporting Davis, but refusing to support Bustamante.
That
reflected the conservative wing of the Democrats.

Arianna Huffington remains in agreement with the Green
Party on many
crucial issues. And we should try to work with her and
others who
supported her, where we have agreement. One of those
issues is public
financing of campaigns. However, we have a problem with
the wording
of her proposed ballot initiative on public funding. As
written, it
treats third parties as second-class citizens. The
proposal is
written so that it will only really fund Democrats and
Republicans.
We will have to oppose her campaign unless the proposal
is changed to
be more like the laws in Maine or Arizona which treat
all candidates
equally.

Did we make a mistake in giving her the benefit of the
doubt when the
campaign began? Some Greens think so, but I think it was
correct to
welcome her and try to win her over to fight the
Republicans and
Democrats. I don't think she understands the effects of
her reversal,
where she first opposed Republicans and Democrats and
then began
supporting Gray Davis. In the end this only helped
Arnold
Schwarzenegger win. When progressives who stand
independent of the
Democrats capitulate and then support those Democrats,
it undermines
the credibility of our current. In this case it weakened
our
credibility and made voters more likely to express their
anger by
voting for Arnold rather than voting Green or
independent.

One of her books is titled, "Pigs at the Trough". What
Governor has
put more feed in the trough than Davis, who in the end
she
championed? The excuse, of course, is that there is a
Republican who
is "worse". Of course, there is always a Republican who
is worse.

Well what if it's a "really bad" Republican? Do you get
it? We are
told that our job is to vote for evil if the Republicans
can come up
with a really bad candidate. That's the whole point of
the
winner-take-all system. The mass of the people gives up
on building a
political force which will defend their interests
because they have
to stop evil by voting for more "reasonable" evil. Even
the most
Machiavellian schemer couldn't have come up with a more
devious
system to keep people under control, while allowing them
to think
that they chose the government. People not only vote
against their
own interests, but some will argue against and even hate
those who
try to warn them of their error. And they think they
live in a
democracy where elections are fair and square. How many
times did you
hear the argument " but Davis won fair and square only a
few months
ago"?

And of course Arianna will argue that she didn't support
a candidate,
she opposed the recall. While many progressives,
including a few
Greens make such an argument, I do not agree. The recall
was a yes or
no vote on Gray Davis and that is how the mass of
working people,
minorities, and the poor saw it. To vote no on the
recall in their
eyes was to condone the cut backs in education and the
pay to play
policies of Gray Davis. The Democrats were able to
convince many
people that it was all a Republican conspiracy, bought
and paid for
by one millionaire. To believe that is to delude
oneself. The
Republicans correctly noted the general rejection of
Gray Davis and
sought to take advantage of it. They were hoping for a
special
election where few voters, except Republicans, would
show up.
Instead, more voted in the recall than in the previous
regular
election.

There are all kinds of progressive consequences from the
recall. In
trying to get his base to save him, Davis had to sign
many bills he
had previously opposed. These included the financial
privacy act,
driver's licenses for the undocumented, more rights for
gays and
lesbians and some environmental issues. The debates
opened up and
millions heard a pro democracy message. Young people
suddenly became
interested in politics and in general there was an
increased interest
in political participation.

Arnold Schwarzenegger won, and most of his votes did not
come from
Republicans! The Republicans ran two candidates. Daryl
Issa at one
point even suggested he might vote against the recall
(to stop
Bustamante and keep Davis). Their pro-recall campaign
received about
1/3 the funding that the anti-recall forces got. Most of
the major
Republican donors refused to give to the recall. Some
Republican
conspiracy.

Paid signature gatherers have also been used for every
progressive
ballot initiative in recent years. Right now, an effort
is under way
to reform the Three Strikes law with an initiative that
needs funding
to gather signatures, and they are looking for wealthy
backers. The
recall election was far more complex than the Democratic
"Republican
Conspiracy" propaganda line.

Since the recall passed, Governor Davis has vetoed a
living wage bill
and a bill giving the children of undocumented workers
the right to
attend college at the same rate as other residents of
California. Of
course, once again, not a word of protest is heard from
any
Democratic Party leaders or their so-called "labor
leaders". Imagine
if it was Arnold who had vetoed a living wage bill. The
Democrats
would all be howling in loud protest.

UNDERSTANDING THE DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS Our party
will not
survive if we do not stand up to the Democrats. Once we
start urging
votes for Democrats because Republicans appear to be
worse, we will
go the way of the New Party, into oblivion. How fast
people forget
that it was the Democratic Party that led us to war
against Vietnam,
killing two million people, and it was the Republicans
who ended that
war. The people who run the United States remain in
power regardless
of which of their parties they put in charge at any one
time. Their
goal is to control and appease popular pressure. When
they see they
can get a Republican elected, they go for it. But if the
people begin
to protest, they bring the Democrats in to co-opt,
disorient and
prepare the way for a return of the Republicans..

This dynamic is not a "conspiracy", but is simply the
nature of our
money-driven system. It is a feedback loop that is on
automatic.
Without "liberal" and "progressive" Democrats, the
usefulness of the
Democrat Party to their corporate rulers would be
sharply diminished.
They need the Democrats to co-opt and thus de-mobilize
mass social
movements like the civil rights, peace, women's rights
and labor
movement.

Of course, individual Democrats can be affected by the
pressure from
below to oppose some of the pro-corporate platform, and
even feel
sympathy towards the Greens. In this election many of
the people who
voted for the Democrats are quietly sympathizing with
us. We must not
betray that sympathy. They are looking to us to be
principled and in
the end they will respect those who do not waiver.

But most Democratic Party leaders who consider them
selves
progressive have bought in to the idea that the best
that can ever be
done is to keep the Democrats in power, and that is all
the people
should hope for. They believe that any attempt to go
against the
Democrats is hopeless. Deep down, they are defeatists
who promote a
"slave" mentality. Accept and please the master or you
will only
anger them. Resistance is hopeless.

What they fail to see is the great power of the people.
The power of
money is limited by the awareness, the consciousness of
the people.
The media works day and night to confuse and disorient
people so that
they act against their own self-interest. But the
day-to-day reality
of most people counters the propaganda message of
wealth.

The Green Party, on the other hand, is the electoral
expression of
living mass movements, like the peace, women's rights,
gay and
lesbian, social justice, civil rights and civil
liberties movements.
Note that all of these movements were built outside the
Democratic
Party and usually against them. Democrats do all they
can to weaken
these movements and then to co-opt them, get them off
the streets and
into the two party game. Once that is achieved, the
power of popular
movements sharply declines. Greens work to keep these
movements
independent and to increase the power of people. Our
elected
officials work to defend the majority and increase the
power of the
environmental, labor and other movements.

Above all, we Greens are fighting to save the earth. The
Green Party
stands as a genuine force for democracy, free of the
influence of
money. The Green Party truly defends our Bill of Rights
and the rule
of law. We do not waiver or lower our banners because
others panic.
If we cannot show confidence in ourselves, we can never
win masses of
people to rally behind us. Time and history are with us.
The next
generation must see people who stand firm by their
principles. The
youth who vote for us today will be tomorrow's leaders
in all the
major social movements. We are planting the seeds; they
must be
watered, not trampled. We made one more step forward in
this
campaign. Keep our beautiful Green flag waving high and
proud!