October 20, 2014

Why the Maine Greens should endorse a Democrat for governor

Sam Smith – With 37,000 registered voters – or close to 4% of the total – The Maine Green Independent Party could determine the outcome of this year’s gubernatorial race if it had the heart to do it. Unfortunately, the Green Party too often sees itself more as a conventional religion than a pragmatic political organization and thus has put faith ahead of works. To actually support a Democratic candidate has been seen as a betrayal of the party’s virtue and not to be considered.

This is, however, is in sharp contrast with a more successful period of third party politics in the 1880s and 1890s when parties like the People’s and the Populists saw putting the names of selected Democratic candidates on their ballots as part of a movement known as fusion politics. Back in 2008, David Morris explained how it worked in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
A little more than a hundred years ago, Minnesota and the rest of the nation allowed third parties to grow without simply being spoilers. The process is called fusion politics. Third parties can ally (fuse) themselves with major parties (or vice versa). In the 1880s and 1890s third parties like the People's Party and the Populist Party allied with the Democratic Party and won a number of elections. Which led the minority Republican Party, when it controlled state legislatures, to pass laws that banned fusion. One Republican Minnesota legislator was clear about his party's goal: "We don't propose to allow the Democrats to make allies of the Populists, Prohibitionists, or any other party, and get up combination tickets against us. We can whip them single-handed, but don't intend to fight all creation."

By 1907, fusion had been banned in 18 states. Today, it is legal in only seven states: Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, New York, South Carolina and Vermont.
Even today there are some precedents, one of which is benefiting the Green Party, as reported in the New York State of Politics:
[Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie] Hawkins yesterday picked up the support of a third New York City-based liberal Democratic Club – the Prospect Heights Democrats for Reform (based in Brooklyn).
“Prospect Heights Democrats for Reform is dedicated to endorsing candidates who support the average Brooklynite,” the club’s president, Raul Rothblatt, said in a statement released by the Hawkins campaign.

“We have straight-forward values: People should get paid fairly for their work. Right now, our state government seems more interested in enriching people who get overcompensated for their work.”

“The current governor’s policies are closer in line with the GOP than with our Democratic Party values.”

“We also feel the governor failed to live up to his campaign promises of fighting corruption. The failure of the Moreland Commission is just the most egregious example of why voters in Brooklyn are angry with Governor Cuomo.”
The PHDR endorsement comes on the heels of decisions earlier this week by the Village Independent Democrats and Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club – both Manhattan-based organizations – to support Hawkins.
Fusion politics is not permitted in Maine today, but nothing would prevent the Green Party’s steering committee or a coalition of Greens from endorsing Democrat Mike Michaud in return for his support on some key Green issues. And even without such formal endorsement, Maine Greens should realize that they could hold the key to this election if they care to use it. I, for one, intend to vote for Michaud and won’t feel any less Green for having done so. I just hope there are lots of others who feel the same way.

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