[Sosfbay-discuss] [GPCA-CCWG] Alex Walker Mea Culpa

[civillib at comcast.net]

Alex,

I am not on the discussion lists above, so if you feel I need to do so, please 
forward this.

Let me say this about your concerns about "media blackouts." Despite the belief 
by most progressives that they cannot get "corporate" media to cover them, in 
fact, there really is not any kind of "blackout." This is a myth that becomes a 
self-fulfilling prophecy.

Virtually every day,I manage to garner television, radio and print coverage for 
progressives causes, including the Green Party. While I am a veteran news 
reporter, and now a media strategist, and have some advantage, the basics of 
doing this are not difficult.

It's not so much of a "blackout" but a knowledge of how to "use" the corporate 
media. I know this will shock some, but they all are not out to get us. And, 
while we give up, and move to "alternative" media outlets (to reach mostly those 
who already support our views), we lose our ability to reach the voters we need 
to reach most via the "corporate" media.

I am very confident we could have garnered the media you believe you would not 
have gotten. I offered my assistance, and even though you are not running now, 
the offer is still out there.

RE: "Fundraising" Committee. Forming a PAC (Political Action Committee) with the 
FPPC/Sec of State would have taken minutes to do...again, these are the kind of 
things that are easy if you have done it before. And, some of us have run 
campaigns before and could have arranged this for you.

But Alex, this is not your fault. You should NOT have been left alone. Some of 
us did offer to help in these basic tasks, but it sounds like you did not have 
the support necessary locally to start, let alone run this campaign. It does not 
take much, but it does take some effort by others.

So, again, I will renew my offer to help, re: media and requisite "legal" to 
help in your campaign. If you are thinking about 2010, you should have your 
exploratory committee in place by mid-year. Or earlier. If you need to set up 
that PAC, let me know.

Good luck,

Cres Vellucci
GPCA Press Secretary



alexcathy at aol.com wrote:
> Dear Friends, 
> 
> 
> 
> I didn't want to waste space talking about my doomed campaign, but I do want to publicly offer a mea culpa. The failings of my aborted campaign were strictly my own.  
> 
> 
> 
> Warner Bloomberg has literally been a "voice crying in the wilderness" for years about the need for candidates to get organized early.  For years Warner has been saying this while working tirelessly to keep the Campaign and Candidates Working Group alive in spite of the silly factionalism and petty nitpicking that goes on in the California Green Party. At one point, I volunteered to help Warner at the plenary up in Berkeley.  And then, because of some personal issues in my life,  I ended up disappointing Warner, too.  I do apologize to Warner and I do appreciate the professional advice he offered my campaign in spite of what I had done to him.  
> 
> 
> 
> Last Spring, my State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas and my City Councilor, Bernard Parks emerged as the two front-running candidates for L.A. County Supervisor.  Accordingly, I knew a year ago that there would likely be a special election for one of those two offices this year.  Instead of starting to organize then, I hesitated.  I wasn't sure that I would be a good candidate.  In fact, I know I'm not a good candidate because I am basically a shy person without the extroverted personality that natural leaders always have. 
> 
> 
> 
> I had witnessed Daniel Brezenoff's brave campaign for Congress in a Special Election.  I am20ashamed to say, in the beginning, I was one of those who privately criticized Greens for not running a "Person of Color" in that majority minority district. At the same time, I have also developed a reputation within the party for being critical of Black Greens who sit around all the time bitch, bitch, bitchin' about alleged "racism" in the Green Party but who somehow never ever get around to publicly taking a Green Party stand against those awful Black Democratic Party Hacks swaggering around as infallible leaders of "Our Community."  
> 
> 
> 
> Taking all that into account, when it looked like nobody would run in this current Special Election in inner-city L.A. amidst all the post-election hype about Barack Obama and "Change" in America, I foolishly jumped in at the last minute unprepared.  
> 
> The first problem was just collecting signatures to get on the ballot. On paper it says we have 3,000 registered Greens in my district, but since we have no really good list of Green voters, it was a pain-in-the-ass contacting them and running around to gather a lousy 150 signatures.  
> 
> Over and over Warner has said candidates should organize a fundraising committee before announcing their candidacy.  I was running around like a fool trying to set up a fundraising committee at the same time I was trying to collect signatures.  So, when people signed the petition and said:
> 
> 
> 
> "This is great!  I'm glad you're running.  Can I give you a check?" 
> 
> 
> 
> I had to say "No wait! I'll=2
> 0have to get back to you on that."  That was, of course, the wrong answer. Meanwhile, I was paying for campaign expenses out of my own pocket.  
> 
> 
> 
> Then there is the continuing problem of a Total MSM Blackout of Green candidates.  It's like the Green Party of the 2000s has become the Communist Party of the 1950s.  You cannot get so much as a "Letter-to-the-Editor" saying something nice about the Green Party past the corporate censors. This very day the Los Angeles Times has a "Blowback" commentary titled "Don't Give Jerry Brown a Third Term" on its web site rightly blaming Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown for encouraging the Prop 13 tax revolt in the 1970s.  I know for a fact that the L.A. Times has rejected op-ed pieces making some of the same points that also included kind words about the Green Party.  I, myself, submitted op-eds to the LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and two supposedly "progressive" California-based web sites, Salon and Truthdig with the title "Peter Camejo Was Right."  Truthdig is edited by Robert Scheer, longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times and The Nation.  In late 2007, made a big show
 of debating Ralph Nader arguing the absurd premise that the new improved Democratic Party "as imperfect as the Democratic Party is, it’s the home of progressives."  In that debate, Ralph tried to get Scheer to look past the obvious "Big Issues" where Republicans and Democrats obviously differ, and examine what Democrats actually do in terms of th
> ings like the environment, health care, worker health and safety, and finanical regulation affecting the lives of the very people are supposed to be representing.  Scheer dismissed Nader's complete, but considering that Robert Scheer is an L.A. guys and that Truthdig is based  on 1158 26th Street, Santa Monica, California, Scheer's total indifference to what is happening here is making Ralph Nader's case.   
> 
> My "Peter Camejo Was Right" op-eds were all rejected, of course.  Even in death Peter Camejo is "blacklisted" even though his nationally televised words in the 2003 recall debate have proved phophetic.  Why?  I really don't know.  He's blacklisted, I guess, for being a "spoiler" for That Great Statesman, Cruz Bustamante.     
> 
> 
> 
> *  *  * 
> 
> 
> 
> As I said before, I still think 2010 will be a good year for us. I really, really, think this idea of organizing a big coordinated push in 2010 is a great idea.  There are ways to work around all of my problems, but those methods require long-term planning. 
> 
> 
> 
> For example, let's say we have 5 candidates running for the state assembly from the Los Angeles area in 2010.  We develop a good clean database of all the registered Greens.  And then, when it's time to collect signatures, we just invite Greens to come to a big picnic at the beach or in a public park and collect hundreds of signatures with one stroke.  I'd like to see a little documentary film about our statewide Green issues:20Green jobs, renewable energy, water, oil-drilling, public transportation.  In his doomed campaign for Congress, Byron De Lear was giving away DVDs with a slick message.  Byron was wealthy, so unlike me and most of our candidates, he could afford to squander his fortune in this way.  It's way beyond the capacity of any individual candidate to produce such a film, but the party as a whole could do it.  
> 
> 
> 
> How to work around the media blackout?  
> 
> 
> 
> We can use the Internet, alternative media, and the "New Media."  I "surf" the Internet everyday, but when I started my campaign, I did not have a complete list of friendly blogs.  Thanks to Wes Rolley, the announcement was posted on a few of them, but not nearly enough.  Just the other day Mike Feinstein posted a link to an L.A.-based blog called "Native Intelligence."  I was shocked.  I never even heard of it before.  We can also exploit these little cable television shows that Cres is always talking about.  We need to have our stuff translated into Spanish for op-eds in the Spanish language newspapers.  We need to connect to the little community news.  The community newspapers in Santa Monica have been pretty good with Green candidates.  We have to go around the hopeless corporate mainstream press.  Here again, this is hard work for an individual guerilla campaign.
> 
> Some posters here have romanticized so-called disenfranchised voters.  I am not exactly sure who that is a reference too.C2 If it's a reference to non-voting, surly, youngsters in the "ghetto" I can tell you from my experience (even though it's not "politically correct" to say so) that, at this stage of the political game in America, reaching out to that group is almost a total waste of time.  Show me the "alienated voter" in the "ghetto" who couldn't drag himself to the polls to vote for either Barack Obama or Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente in 2008, and I'll show you a likely recruit for a neo-Nazi party. Somebody needs to reach out to those guys, but that's work for a priest or a social worker and not organizers of a serious political party.   
> 
> Our best bet is to go for registered "Decline to State" voters who do vote.  They are true independents.  Start with registered Greens, add true independents, registered Peace and Freedom voters, throw in a few thinking Republicans and Libertarians and you've got a pretty good voting bloc in California.  But here again, it takes time to do all this.  It was all I could do in a few weeks to come up a "clean" list of Green voters with phone numbers and e-mails for petition signatures in my district.  
>  
> *  *  * 
> 
> 
> So, even though I could have gotten on the ballot, I concluded that my campaign between February 9th and March 24th was hopeless and some ridiculously low vote would hurt more than help the "Green brand" in the future.  I have been humbled by this experience.  Therefore, one good result may=2
> 0be that I'll be "mouthing off" a little less.    
> 
> 
> Alex Walker
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