a greenhorn (but no longer Green)

He had never run for office before.

He didn’t know what he was getting himself into.

Nick Brana originally wanted Jimmy Dore to run under the “Peoples Party” banner. When Dore wasn’t interested Brana turned to Cornel West. Cornel said he was interested.

Jill Stein and Chris Hedges informed Cornel that the Peoples Party is not ready for prime time. They got him to switch to seeking the nomination of the Green Party.

But jumping into a presidential campaign representing an existing organization has issues. Cornel floundered among those issues. So he just cut himself loose.

He’s about to discover how, like, unbelievably hard a national campaign is. Especially with no experience and no organizational backing. Good luck, Cornel.

* * * *

Now, in regard to the Green Party:

If a third party decides to field a candidate for president it ought to try to recruit a high-profile candidate. That’s the appropriate thing to do at that level of office in order to be taken seriously.

The Libertarians were smart in 2016 to reach out to a former state governor who was somewhat (even though not fully) in synch with their national program. Gary Johnson had some gravitas and was taken seriously by the media and electorate. He got 4.5 million votes.

If a third party is not able to recruit an appropriately high-profile candidate, OK, run a “native son” or “native daughter” kind of campaign and try to build up name recognition for that person over several electoral cycles. It’s on that basis that I’d hope the Greens would run Jill Stein again.

There are small socialist parties that run no-name candidates election after election and remain consigned to the margins. The “green” idea is resonant all over the world (even in the United States!) and, on that basis, the Greens should dare to try to be significant rather than marginal.