>> SF Green Party Candidate Questionnaire, June 2006 elections
>>
>> 
>>
>> Candidate name
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Tian Harter

>> Office sought
>>
United States Senator

>> Election date
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June 6th. If I win that day, November 7th.

>> 
>>
>> Campaign manager
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Tian Harter

>> other paid staff
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I Wish.

>> # of volunteers
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At least half a dozen people gathered signatures for me. It is still early in the campaign and we are just beginning to organize our volunteer effort. There are lots of people with copies of my flier showing it to their friends.

>> $ raised to date
>>
about $280 as of March 5th.

>> 
>>
>> 
>>
>> Have you ever sought office before?
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>>     if yes, when, what office and what party were you registered with?
>>
1992 - 5th Congressional District (Sacramento), Green Party Candidate (the incumbent was Robert Matsui). I did it as a way of expressing my opposition to the Persian Gulf War. Mainly it was all about telling everybody I could we need to MEND OUR FUELISH WAYS. I received about 4200 votes. At the time I was the only Green Party Congressional Candidate north of Santa Barbara in CA. We had no statewide Candidates at that time.

1994 - 1st City Council District, Sacramento. I ran on a platform of WE NEED BETTER BUS SERVICE, coming in 2nd with 22% of the vote.

>> 
>>
>> How long have you been registered with the Green Party?
>>
Since a peace march during the first gulf war (1991) when a woman who was helping get the Green Party on the ballot walked up to me and asked "Want to join a political party based on peace, justice, and ecological wisdom?"

>> 
>>
>> In one paragraph, describe the recruitment efforts for your candidacy
>> (max 150 words)
>>
What recruitment effort? I looked at the list of guys running for Senator and thought "I'd rather vote for myself than either of those guys." Then I sat down and made up a flier. When I started handing them out to people the "I like it" responses kept me going. Now my name is on the ballot and I'm going to see it through.

As for my recruiting volunteers, I'm trying to run a clean campaign that focuses on spreading the word on Climate Change in word and deed. When people volunteer to do something for my campaign, I take them up on it if at all possible. So far I've had at least half a dozen people do something for my campaign.

>> 
>>
>> What have you accomplished as a Green that brings you the stature to
>> run for the Green nomination for the office you seek?
>>
A lot of people know what my issue is and how I work on it, but that hasn't translated into titles I can put down here. Remember the guy in the green party hat explaining the climate change issue with the MEND YOUR FUELISH WAYS stickers? That's me. Do you know anybody else that knows the Green Party as well?

>> 
>>
>> What is your favorite of the 10 key values (list below)
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>> ·  Grassroots Democracy
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>> ·  Ecological Wisdom
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>> ·  Social Justice
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>> ·  Nonviolence
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>> ·  Decentralization
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>> ·  Community-Based Economics
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>> ·  Feminism
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>> ·  Respect for Diversity
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>> ·  Global Responsibility
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>> ·  Sustainability
>>
I prefer the version of the list with "future focus" instead of "sustainability" and "post patriarchal values" instead of "feminism". I'm not sure if ecological wisdom or grassroots democracy are my favorite, but the way my activism works I honor both of them every day.

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>> What are the major issues you will raise through your campaign- list
>>
Dont be fuelish - we need to stop voting for oil companies at the gas pump. Impeach Bush - because of Illegal wiretapping, and exploiting 9/11 to promote needless (and counterproductive) war and a dysfunctional Department of Homeland Security.

Good ethics is the way to the solution - we need to make the world perceive that being a good citizen carries more water than being a Republican Incumbent.

>> 
>>
>> What are your campaign's goals (win, increase Green voter
>> registration, raise key issues, spoil, etc.)
>>
My primary goal is to get as many votes as possible using sustainable technology, volunteer effort, and small contributions. I would love to win the Green Party primary. That would mean a great summer and fall working crowds and speaking out on the need to stop wasting energy. The most important thing is to have fun.

Do I expect to get elected in November? No.

>> 
>>
>> Diversity- please check all that apply:
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>>     Non white
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>>     LGBT
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>>     Female
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>>     Youth (under 35)
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>>     Other- please explain
>>
(checks other) I'm not in any of the easy to define categories, but I haven't met a lot of other people in the same category as myself.

>> 
>>
>> What strategies will your campaign use to get your message out?
>>
Mostly me doing what I can handing out fliers, answering questionnaires, responding to opportunities I can find. Spreading the word through viral mediums like my website, bumper stickers, and buttons. I take advantage of voluntary contributions from people who want to help. I'm aware that I am my campaign's #1 volunteer, and I am doing everything I can to make this effort succeed.

>> 
>>
>> FEDERAL (US SENATE AND CONGRESS)
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>> 
>>
>> *How many articles of impeachment should be drawn up against Bush and
>> what should they be?*
>>
The four major failings that I can think of right now are:

Failing to investigate 9/11 promptly.
Illegal wiretapping of Americans.
Lying about Iraq's WMD capabilities.
Stealing elections in 2000 and 2004.

Each of these probably boils down to multiple crimes the administration needs to answer for, but all of them are worth introducing legislation on.

>> 
>>
>> Please pick a few of the following issues and explain your
>> position/solutions:
>>
>> 
>>
>> Campaign finance reform
>>
I'm told that Bush's biggest backers are in the oil industry. Essentially they bought the Republican Party. Getting incumbents to write and pass legislation that will actually change things for the better is asking them to "commit job suicide" or "bite the hand that feeds them". I urge people to stop voting for oil companies at the gas pump. We need to make "green politics" the politics of the marketplace, and we need to develop consensus in the voting public that a sustainable future is worth working for in our daily lives.

>> Choice/abortion
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I am pro choice.

>> Corporations
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I am deeply aware that Corporations trace their personhood to "Pacific Railroad vs. Santa Clara County", that being Santa Clara County, California. I'm also deeply aware that the biggest Helium balloons in known history were the airships that docked at Moffett Field in Santa Clara County California back in the days before they invented naval aircraft carriers. Nowadays this place is home to Silicon Valley, where many Corporations start out as ideas and some of them (a small percentage) make their founders rich. I would like to see "obeying the law" for entrepreneurs developing their own companies be an inert good idea, meaning it doesn't hurt in the sense that talking through a lung full of helium doesn't hurt but is noticeably different from "exhaling normal air". Some of the things I have seen done in the name of "making a buck" should never have been tolerated. I think that if good ethics was a key part of corporate oversight at every level from janitor to the top of the management team we would be headed in the right direction more predictably.

I have fantasies about causing some sort of free speech case that causes the Supreme Court to vote green and rule "California isn't like anywhere else" which gives us some kind of standing that makes those corporate leaders that don't think what I'm doing is important wish they had been more open minded....

>> Education

I worked for Measure J in Mountain View, a ballot initiative that raised property taxes to pay for education. I think local government should have way more to do with education than Washington. The big change needed is less spending on the Pentagon so there is more money left over for education.
>>
>> Energy
>>
Don't be fuelish! I am painfully aware of the many ways the energy issue underlies everything about the way our world works. The biggest use of energy in California is pumping water around. Another big use is agriculture. Don't get me started on the many ways we use energy in our everyday lives. My preferred solution is to ask people to edit their habits on an ongoing basis with an eye towards making them more energy efficient. This is one area where they proved in the 1970s that mandating the solution from Washington is likely to backfire. We need marketplace solution where there is win-win that starts with doing the right thing (meaning not wasting energy).

>> Environment
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We need broad consciousness of the role of stewardship in our daily lives.

>> Healthcare
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Single payer healthcare!

>> Housing
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We need density along transit. Sprawl has got to stop! One of the big tragedies in our world is that it is so hard to live a little life. Everybody "needs" to buy a big home, so they need to pay a big mortgage. Before you know it nobody can afford to make a living making stuff. Everybody needs to make a killing, and we end up with a dog eat dog rat race. Affordable housing and doable jobs on transit would go a long way towards turning it around. I support the initiative to raise the minimum wage that Barry Hermanson is pushing as another way of working on the problem.

>> Presidio/Privatization of public resources
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>> Taxation

Definitely the rich should be paying more taxes then they seem to under Bush. How to do that, I'm not sure...
>>
>> Terrorism
>>
Everybody is somebody's terrorist. Far too much of "the war on terrorism" is a smokescreen for the Bush Administration to get what it wants. The many terror alerts seem to me to be more crying wolf than valuable public service. Any form of violence is criminal and should be punished as a crime. This includes the acts of war criminals who use military (or police) means to accomplish political ends. Politics should be a game where influence is much more powerful than force, and it only comes when voluntary listeners "get where you are coming from."

>> Transportation
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We need more bike lanes, transit, and urban areas with the feel of San Francisco. Leave farm country to the farmers!

>> War
>>
War is bad. Oil wars are really bad. My Great-Great-Grandfather died on a Civil War battlefield after many years of reliable service to the Indiana Militia. My Grandfather was a Doughboy in WW I. His attitude was "If we declare war, the Harters should be first in line at the recruiting station." My father and both of my uncles served in WW II. I remember the arguments between my father and grandfather about Vietnam. My father had been there and saw the reasons for the war were a pack of lies to push a greedy hidden agenda. He was happy that I was too young to go. I'm fighting this oil war in every ethical way I can think of. Please join me in this struggle!

Tian Harter