A Kucinich-Green alliance?

I was wrong about Dennis Kucinich, he’s absolutely worth supporting. And a loose Green-Kucinich coalition would be an exemplary idea.

First, consider this -

Kucinich gets Green support

“Thursday in San Francisco, three of California’s most prominent Green Party members voiced support for Kucinich, though stopping short of formal endorsements because of the party divide.

“If Kucinich is the Democratic nominee, I am sure the Democrats and the Greens will work collaboratively to oust George Bush in next year’s election,” said Matt Gonzalez, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and Code Pink Women for Peace and U.S. Senate candidate for the Greens in 2000, told The Examiner that Kucinich is “as green as you can get.”

Peter Camejo, California’s Green Party candidate for governor, said if Kucinich were to win the Democratic nod, he “would favor calling an emergency national convention of the Green Party” to discuss how to support the progressive candidate.”

Indeed, with Camejo saying he wants to form a working bloc with Arianna Huffington in the California recall race, then certainly Greens could form a loose coalition with Kucinich. Some might go so far as to work on his campaign, others might simply donate money to help him get his message out.

A strong Kucinich in the Democratic race means the debate will shift to the Left, which is where it should be. To echo Medea Benjamin, Kucinich’s platform and the Green Party platform are virtually identical.

To say he shouldn’t be supported because he can’t win is like saying Nader shouldn’t be supported because he can’t win. Nader had a huge impact on the 2000 election, way out of proportion to his numbers. Kucinich can do the same in 2004.

He’s definitely angling for Green support too, sometimes in ways only Greens would notice. The “Ten Key Issues” on his homepage was named deliberately, I’m sure, to echo the Green Party “Ten Key Values”. Clever.

Kucinich is reaching out to Greens, Greens should reach out back.

Kucinich campaign home page

Kucinich weblog

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The Howard Dean Defense Forces

Howard Dean, the presumptive front runner in the Democratic race, gets it. His campaign has used the Internet, weblogs, MeetUp, and text messaging to absolutely blindside his lumbering mainstream competition. They never even saw him coming. Heck, I can’t imagine a fossil like Joe Lieberman even knows what text messaging is.

Now Dean has the Dean Defense Forces (DDF), who via a blog and a listserv, mobilize swiftly and massively when anti-Dean hit pieces appear in the media.  According to DailyKos (sorry, can’t find the specific link now), DDF strikes back fast and hard, sometimes getting out hundreds of protesting emails and phone calls within hours. News organizations appear rather stunned by them.

Good. If Dean gets the nomination, he will be up against major league thugs and his by-then-seasoned DDF may play an important role.

Here’s how the Dean campaign uses the Net to organize, get the message out, and counter-attack. Books will be written about this campaign’s use of the Net, trust me…

Dean campaign home page

Dean Defense Forces 
AKA Rapid Response

Dean Weblog
Dean was the first candidate to have a blog. Plus, it supports RSS, which means weblogs like this one can easily subscribe to the content. Blogs from other Democratic candidates, like Kucinich, don’t support RSS - a seemingly small, but actually quite major difference in the “Do they get it?” question about online campaigning.

Dean Wireless 
They send short text messages about the Dean campaign once or twice a week to mobile devices, mainly cell phones. This, the main group, currently has 2536 members with many smaller, regional groups also in existence. The messages are very brief and few in number, something which also shows They Get It.

Dean Meet-Up 
This is an amazing way to organize, and is free. Meetup allows groups of people to organize physical meeting places and times. The Dean meetup group has 69,000 people, and will be holding meetings in a potential 500+ locations this Wed night, 6 pm.

So how come they don’t have a camblog yet!

PS When it comes to the Democratic candidates, my heart is with Kucinich and my head is with Dean. If either one wins the nomination it will be a political earthquake.

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