Looking ahead to '06

Peter Camejo, the Green candidate for governor of California in 2002 and the recall election, has been mostly noncommittal so far about his plans for 2006. Last week, however, he released a long statement that touched on his plans. "We are now starting to get organized for the 2006 statewide campaign." He gives an e-mail address to sign up: rachelodes(at)gmail.com. "If you email us we will start sending you reports as we begin to prepare the strategy and organizational framework for what I believe can be the most exciting campaign we have ever organized. This will happen by linking our efforts to the living movements and struggles that are now underway. There will be a series of meetings and reports that many of you may want to know about and receive so please email us."

It isn't clear to me who exactly the we mentioned above is.

The rest of the letter, which you can read here, delves into the kind of low level internal party stuff that gubernatorial candidates usually don't get involved in. But Camejo has already been very involved in proposals to change the national party structure. (Having Camejo as the front man for these proposals is somewhat confusing, however, since it brings in a lot of stuff from the 2004 presidential convention battle between eventual nominee David Cobb and Camejo/Nader that these proposals don't actually address.)

Anyway, another interesting aspect came into focus this weekend: Camejo is involved in a nascent independent PAC called IDEA that lists "County Councils/LA" (according to draft notes posted online) as one of its projects. Presumably this means recruiting and supporting candidates to run for County Councils--especially in Los Angeles--in the primary elections next summer*. I support that project, even if I may question its motives and might not end up supporting all of their candidates, because we need to get more people involved in the Green Party in Los Angeles county. Competition is good, which is not to say I am necessarily on the other side.

Meanwhile, the GPCA's state campaigns and candidates working group is planning two public strategy sessions for August to discuss a strategy for the 2006 election that will probably include a number of state assembly and state senate campaigns, as well as candidates for the statewide races (Governor, Secretary of State, etc. Perhaps Senate as well). Hopefully we'll know by then whether the most well known Green in California plans to run for governor again.


*Aug. 7, at the meeting of the County Council of the Green Party of Los Angeles, there will be a vote on bylaws changes that would dramatically increase the number of seats on the council, and improve geographic diversity by moving from 5 supervisorial districts to a system based on state senate districts.