Green Party Makes Small Inroads for Progressives in Rochester Elections

A look at the Green Party Participation in Rochester City Elections 2003

Green Party Makes Small Inroads for Progressives in Rochester Elections

While Bill Johnson and the Democrats were getting shellacked by Republican candidate Maggie Brooks for county executive, the Green Party was making itself heard in Rochester. Jason Crane, manager of WGMC radio, running in the first contested city council election in the east district in sixteen years, managed to pull in 17% of the vote (1,588). Previously the best showing for a Green Party candidate for city council was 0.6%. Additionally, David Atias, a school teacher, running for a place on the Rochester City School Board on both the Green party and Working Families Party’s ballot lines, pulled in nearly 3% (3,050 votes) in this citywide election.
The Greens, on extremely limited resources, dropped 21,000 pieces of literature, visited 7500 voters, twice, and made thousands of phone calls. Over 100 volunteers put in several hundred hours on the two campaigns. “I am not running against the incumbent,” Jason explained, “I am running for the issues that I stand for, I’m running for the people who are supporting me, and the more than 100 volunteers who put their time in. That’s the fuel.” Jason also, un-precedently, had the support of the Rochester Labor Council and local chapters of BENTE-AFSCME local 2419 and SEIU local 200United. This is in addition to David Atias’ support by the Working Families Party. “We proved that a citizen candidate, not a rich person, not a party person, not somebody installed by a machine, but a citizen candidate [can run a campaign], that’s serious stuff” said Crane. David Atias observed that “people who aren’t normally involved in progressive [thinking] were willing to listen to a progressive.”
But overall both candidates had some disappointments, besides the final numbers. Atias was very disappointed with the progressive community as a whole. “There are candidates that were here saying all the things that they believe in, and in my opinion, in my campaign, progressives did not step up. And I am not talking about Greens, I am talking about progressives in general.” Rome Celli, one of Crane’s campaign managers, concurs, “[It] has been a huge disappointment to me that the Party registrants, those who self identify as Green, haven’t been able to find a place that they can actually participate as volunteers, despite being called upon, incessantly. And that includes a Green e-mail announcement list of almost 300 people, and that contingent never really showed up to the Party (pardon the pun).”
Another disappointment that both candidates mentioned was the press coverage. As Crane, explains, “You would think this wouldn’t be a surprise to me but, I am a little surprised by just how little coverage and by just how little courage was shown by our local media... I was particularly surprised by City newspaper who conducted a very extensive interview. They are in my district, I am running on many of the platform issues that they have been calling for for years, and they made no endorsements in the city council or city school board races... I was a little taken aback by that.... And I had kind of thought, even as jaded as I am about the media, that the first race in sixteen years in my district would engender a little more interest then it did and I was surprised at how hard it was. It just forced us to do that much more on the ground, I mean to walk the neighborhoods that many more times because we knew people were not gonna get it in the mass media, so we had to do it ourselves.”
Atias stated flatly, “I no longer read the City newspaper. I am extremely disappointed. I don’t know what they’re thinking. Again, I don’t know what they’re waiting for.” Crane said that Mary Anna Towler (publisher and editor) told him that they (the City) did not feel they had done enough in-depth reporting on the local campaigns, and thus did not feel comfortable making an endorsement. “[I]t is called ‘City’ after all” Crane added, “and it seems like excusing not making your endorsements with the excuse that we didn’t do enough reporting ... Your supposed to do the work, that’s part of the job. So, I was a little taken aback by that justification.” The brightest light on media coverage was our local National Public Radio affiliate, WXXI, who gave air time to every candidate, and hosted Crane on the weekday talk show “1370 Connection with Bob Smith.” The lack of coverage by the local TV stations and the Democrat and Chronicle were, apparently, not even worth mentioning.
What does all this mean for local progressive politics and for the two candidates? Crane hopes that this exposure will give progressives a voice in deciding who will run in upcoming elections: “I’m thinking particularly legislative districts in the city. Whether that’s through the Green Party [or] whether that’s through a coalition of progressive people from across party lines, I think we are going to become players in that dialogue in a way that we haven’t been before. That’s my hope.”
Atias noted that the Green Party introduced itself to neighborhoods that did not even know it existed, “We hit over 10,000 houses... people who never knew we existed locally. We made an effort to make sure people on the west side got literature.... I was at candidate nights... I stood up and said ‘Green Party,’ and made a very good impression, and while it may not have translated into votes, that might have been the first time that people on Parcells Avenue or on Gennessee Street even knew that the Green Party existed. And it’s just going to take time... we’re here to stay.” Crane was pleased with “The amount of excitement generated by this campaign, and the number of responses from people that I have never met... you know a $20 check arriving in the mail from a person I had never heard of.... That leaves me to believe that people are ready to stand up and retake their democracy, if they can get some people worth pulling the level for....”
On fighting for issues in the city, Crane, in his election night speech to his supporters, said:

We have to actually hold accountable the woman who did just win... to the things that we talked about... Because the fact that I am not tomorrow going to be the city councilperson elect It does not mean that there is not still more than 10% unemployment, it does not mean that there are not still 80% of the children in some of our schools who do qualify for emergency food aide. And now it means that it will be 18 or 20 years without anyone talking about this unless we stay on the message. So we have got to keep fighting, we have got to start holding city council accountable. We’ve got to start showing up at the meetings, en mass. I would go so far as to suggest that we form our own little shadow city council in the east district ... and that we really work for all the change that we fought for in this campaign. What is happening now is going to go far into the future unless people like us act to stop it... It is not about putting me in office, that is just the means to the ends, it is about making Rochester a city that really is made for the living for everyone and not just the few... And a city where my son can grow up in a good neighborhood with a good school, without lead poisoning, all the things any parent would want for their kid.... And we will continue to march on into the future...

On another positive note Atias observed that, “People were very receptive to what we had to say... It just didn’t translate into the booth, and that’s where I think we have to work, cause that’s our thing, when we get in front of people... groups, door to door, one on one, on the street, everything works really well. And somehow we have to learn how to translate that into action on the public’s part, and that’s where we had a problem, apparently.”
The future of progressive politics is, not surprisingly, not in the hands of the media nor in the inner sanctums of the major political parties. It is in the living rooms, meetings rooms, and hands of those in our community who call themselves progressives. The Greens have given them a huge push. It is up to them to keep the momentum going.