Dr. Jill Stein throws her hat into 2010 gubernatorial race

Stein's wrong-headed aspirations are not growing effective Green Rainbow office-holders (4.00 / 1)

It's fun to run for a statewide office.
But what political and legislative consequence has there been to her most recent effort? What the Green Rainbow coalition needs is actual office holders in the Massachusetts General Court. How would she be effective as Governor without the backing of supporters in the legislature, if she won? The previous Republican governor can certainly testify about how much fun it was to have numerous legislative overrides of his vetoes.  

Far more powerful and long-lasting politically would be making the Republican party in the Legislature Massachusetts the flailing 3rd Party. Accomplishing that instead of the Green-Rainbow grand-standing that would result in a split center-left vote for Governor, that likely would bring yet another Republican governor into office, a result inimical to the Green Rainbow coalition's aims.  

Fielding effective campaigns in 30+ of the 200 legislative districts is far more important, and much harder, and much more important. The Green Rainbow coalition is capable of having more people representing districts in the legislature than the Republican Party. If I have it correctly, the House has a mere 19 Republicans of 160 seats (11.9%), and of the 40 Senate districts, there are a mere 5 Republicans (12.5%).  The Democrats could use a little complacency reduction, and competition; it's ripe for a little splitting up in the Legislature.

For example, there's an opportunity to fill a wide-open State Senate office in Cambridge, either soon this year, or later this November 2010, with the resignation of Galluccio in Cambridge, and there are no residency requirements to live in the district prior to the election.

(Residency: see the Secretary of the Commonwealth's guidance to candidates: only State Representatives must have resided within the district prior to the election. http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele... )

Massachusetts certainly has a number of unsolved problems in the state, starting with funding for Education, affordable Housing, deeply in debt MBTA Mass Transit, cut-back Social Services, inadequately maintained Roads and a court system that is groaning under cutbacks. It takes a legislature to support, fund, and resolve the operations and funding of these activities.  

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by: Comment Planet @ Sat Jan 09, 2010 at 08:15:04 AM CST

Actually.... (0.00 / 0)

There is only 16 Republicans in the House

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by: GreenDem @ Sun Jan 10, 2010 at 18:06:18 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Hooray for Jill Stein's Campaign (4.00 / 1)

In response to the previous commentator:

1. We agree that the GRP should focus most of its electoral attention on state legislative races. I say "we" because earlier last year, the GRP's State Committee voted on a proposal from its Candidate and Legal Development Committee to make state legislative races our number one electoral focus for 2010. As of this date, we have a small number of our members who are actively considering running for either statewide office, Congress or the state legislature.  If you are a GRP member or an Unenrolled voter who shares our values, we are very interested in encouraging you to run and will actively consider supporting your campaign. Please contact us.

2. My assumption about your comment about Jill's campaign splitting the "center-left" vote leads me to think that you are concerned that our current Governor will not be re-elected. The political spectrum is an interesting concept. Your short list of very important issues in the last paragraph leads me to believe that not one of the other candidates on the "center-right" will support policies that you think are important. However, Jill Stein's campaign for Governor will be the mechanism to broaden the public debate and to bring to the public a critique of the current system and the direction our Commonwealth and Planet is heading and an alternative vision of a Green-Rainbow future.

Please support our Green-Rainbow Team of Candidates!

Thanks,

Mike Heichman  

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by: mikeheichman @ Sat Jan 09, 2010 at 09:51:46 AM CST

Put Stein into the Massachusetts Senate (4.00 / 1)

Put Stein into the Massachusetts Senate where she can participate in the day-to-day affairs of debate and influence, and have reason to issue a daily press release about the right things to do. What better place to do so than representing Cambridge and Galluccio's district?

A gubernatorial campaign is just a few months. Incumbancy in office, is at least two years, perhaps many more.

Responding: I am more concerned that a Republican governor is elected than re-electing the present governor.

Let's split-off the Democratic seats in the State House, and really participate in governing, not just looking in from the outside, as Stein has repeatedly for her (now) three state-wide campaigns.  

We need winners, and not perennial candidates. Any one remember Howard Stassen?

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by: Comment Planet @ Sun Jan 10, 2010 at 02:25:16 AM CST

Don't we deserve a progressive alternative? (0.00 / 0)

I just watched the US Senate debate. It was nice seeing a 3rd party candidate, who was very clear about why we need to hear more voices in our political campaigns. I also applaud Attorney General's Coakley's principled position that Mr. Kennedy belonged in the public debates simply because he went out and got the signatures to get on the ballot. My only regret with the debate was that the 3rd party candidate was not a member of the GRP.

How are we going to bring about progressive change? There is no one answer. Certainly running and electing progressives to office is an important way. Another way is to influence public opinion.  Both Jill Stein (2002) and Grace Ross (2006) have done a great job in their campaigns getting a lot of favorable attention from the public. Every time they have participated in a televised debate, they have done very well.

There are now 4 candidates running for Governor.  "Comment Planet" (above) stated that s/he is "more concerned that a Republican governor is elected than re-electing the present governor", I do not deny that there are differences between the 3 well-funded campaigns and that it is doubtful that Jill's campaign will be financially competitive. However, as of this month, there is now a progressive voice in this race, and JILL WILL BE HEARD!

4 years ago the GRP was not fooled into supporting the lesser evil. What has Governor Patrick done since he took office in January, 2009 to change our minds? What has he done to show us that we were strong to support a progressive choice? I can't think of one thing. OK, we can do worse. We can always do worse!

I am 63 years old and there is a good chance that I may die an old man. My daughter is 19 years old and I'm not very confident that she will die an old woman. Whether we are talking about the economy, the environment, the growing misery around the world and at home in our state, we are speeding in the wrong direction.

If all that we ever do is to put our energy into preventing the worse evil from happening by supporting the lesser evil, I guarantee that life will continue to get worse. I am proud to be a member of the GRP because my friends and comrades are marching together for a better future.

Mike

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by: mikeheichman @ Mon Jan 11, 2010 at 20:22:45 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Great to see this forum! (0.00 / 0)

As a candidate who has spoken many times for the need for universal health care, I support Jill taking this issue to the ballot.  

However, I also agree that we need to get more greens to run for city and state wide office. (I think we need more people from across the spectrum to run, MA is last in the country in contested elections)

How do we do it?   I think the most difficult issue we face on an political level is how do we get more good people to want to participate in government.

Thanks to the editors for taking the time to set up this site, I hope that the forum is accepting of all forms of reasonable dialogue.

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by: Kevin McCrea @ Mon Jan 11, 2010 at 08:45:51 AM CST