The big issue on the floor was that running the Campaigns and Candidates Working Group is simply a much too big job for just one or two people to do. The proposed solution was to go from having two Co-Coordinators to having four Quad-Coordinators and an alternate.
Campaign season isn't for months, but this was the time to talk about restructuring to incorporate what we learned from the 2002 campaigns into a better way to do things for next time. There was a different person talking when I took each of these pictures, but everybody had very pertinant things to say. The conversation was very riveting. No other group has had four co-cordinators, and to take such a radical step the ideas had to make sense from a lot of points of view.
Peter pointed out that with four CoCos, the group could incorporate some geographical, gender and ethnic diversity into the leadership. This would make it possible for the Green Party to have an official presance at more meetings within our means. To make a long story short, they consensed that it would be a good idea to do that.
This is a set of notes about the meeting that was forwarded to me by Orval Osborne:
In a message dated 01/15/03 11:30:07 PM, oosborne@fix.net writes:
>
>Campaign 2002 review by Peter Camejo:
>Accomplisments: We established the fact that state campaigns
>can help build local Parties, and not be in competition with
>locals. (This was disputed before the campaign.) We broadened
>our base as a Party, especially in a breakthrough to youth and to
>the Latino community, capturing 8% of the Latino vote, and
>12% of first-time Latino voters. Leaders in the Latino
>community were advocating all Latinos register Green. La
>Opinion staff told Peter they all voted for him. Camejo for
>Governor ended with a small surplus, donated to the State.
>Weaknesses: no one working on media; they needed someone
>full-time. No fundraiser until Kenny Mostern. No endorsements
>volunteer coordinator, missing the chance to put out an
>impressive endorsements list like Medea Benjamin's campaign
>did. Smaller Counties did more than larger Counties (names not
>named). Many Counties did not understand how useful it is to
>turn people into active members.
>
>Laura Wells: She got more votes than Ralph Nader did in CA.
>That shows people want to vote for the Green Party, even if
>they don't know the candidates. She said people like to vote for
>women. We need women to take leadership positions, run for
>office, and write letters to the editor. Men need to support them
>in the background roles.
>
>Larry Shoup: The Green Party is on the verge of something big.
>The ecological crisis is caused by a system that must grow or die
>which faces contradictions in a finite world. War is a crisis. The
>Green Party has answers to these crises. Many people said "I'm not
>Green, but I'm going to vote for you," or "I'm not Green, but if I
>weren't afraid of electing a Republican, I would vote for you."
>