re: the “golden 5%”

[a memo to my state party]

The first poll that included Cornel West showed him garnering 6% support. If things continue to play out where he gets the kind of publicity he’s gotten over the last two weeks, his polling numbers likely will remain “high.”

“High” for a third party candidate in our miserable “only-two-significant-choices” system is a relative concept, of course. In most countries enjoying proportional representation systems the Greens regularly get between 5% and 15% of the vote. That has been growing over time. Humanity must, must go in the direction I call “the greening of society” and so I’m sure Green politics will become a major force worldwide. (It’s a whole other question about how electoral success “tames” aspirations that are initially very alternative, even radical — invariably leading to a degree of disappointment in regard to the in-office policies of socialists, communists, Greens, etc. — an interesting topic of discussion in itself, for another time.)

Cornel West at 6% right out of the gate. It would be mind-blowing if we see numbers go up from there. And there will be much talk about “the 5%.”

What is it? If a party’s presidential candidate gets 5% in 2024 then the party gets several million dollars from a federal elections fund during the following cycle (2028). That money is technically for the party’s convention, but the truth is that it can be used in a more general way.

https://transition.fec.gov/info/chthree.htm

“Each major party is entitled to a public grant of $4 million (plus cost-of-living adjustment) to finance its Presidential nominating convention. In 1992, each major party received $11.048 million. A qualified minor party (a party whose Presidential candidate received between 5 and 25 percent of the vote in the preceding election) may become eligible for partial convention funding based on its Presidential candidate’s share of the popular vote.”

Someone (like, maybe, Richard Winger) will look at the current FEC stipulations and do the math and you’ll hear: “The Greens will receive $2 million if they get 5%, $3 million if they get 7%, $4 million if they get 9%.”

But, two things:

a) It’s not really so much about the money. The money is nice, but the expenditures it can cover are limited. It’s really about the gravitas 5% conveys. No alternative party has achieved that threshold over the last 40 years except Ross Perot’s short-lived Reform Party during the 1990s. (The Libertarians usually get more votes than the Greens, but their highest percentage has been 3.3% (in 2016). They make a big deal of advertising that they’re the third largest party in the US, so I’m sure they’ll be trying to find a high-profile candidate to compete with the media attention going to Cornel West.)

b) Don’t put too much faith in the polling numbers. We have seen over the years that in August or September people are willing to tell a pollster they’re considering voting third party, but by October the numbers start falling and “in the booth” voters get cold feet. Being new to the game, Greens didn’t realize that in 2000, the year of our first full national campaign. Nader was polling as high as 8% in September. We thought he’d get 5% easy. In November he got less than 3%.

If the Republican establishment can’t keep Trump from securing the nomination I doubt we’ll get 5%. So pray that Trump winds up in jail. If the Democratic establishment realizes that Biden must be jettisoned because he’ll be such a weak candidate, if they manage to anoint Gavin Newsom, for example, instead … I doubt we’ll get 5%. But if it’s Sorry-Biden vs. Tepid-DeSantis, millions and millions will be clamoring to cast an alternative vote. That’s us.

We’re noticing an uptick in response to #GreenEnter. People will come on board wanting to help get Cornel on the ballot. The state-generated petition booklets won’t be available for downloading until January or February. But it doesn’t matter. We can make up our own petition sheets and let volunteers start getting signatures if they say they’re motivated to do so. Petitioning in the warmer weather is easier than petitioning during the winter.

Our state Elections Chair should check to be sure the rules are the same as they used to be (that the state will accept self-generated petition sheets; they always did in the past). The sheets should look like those in the Division of Elections petition booklets. The petitioning is not “for Cornel West” specifically, but rather “to get the Green Party nominee on the general election ballot in November 2024.” Yet it would not be a contradiction for a petitioner to wear a “Cornel West for President” t-shirt if they are so inclined. There will be resonance for that, but it should be explained that there is a primary process and the candidate will be determined at the GP nominating convention next summer.

The election authorities give an alternative party their own column on the ballot if the party runs candidates for president and other offices. Having our own column on the ballot makes us look much more serious/official than having our candidate stuck in a small box labeled “Nomination By Petition.” So we should try to run a candidate for US Senate and some candidates for district offices like US House or State Assembly.