(Interesting look outside of Massachusetts.   – promoted by eli_beckerman)

Republicans and Democrats have a some competition this year in gubernatorial races.  Not always in terms of policy ideas as I will make clear, but certainly in terms of alternative candidates.

From a quick count: 21 Libertarians, 13 Greens, 1 Peace and Freedom, 1 Moderate Party, 1 American Constitution, and 5 or so Independents (those are Independents included in polling).

I’ve looked through a few of these candidates’ websites in order to analyze some of the messaging and policy ideas these campaigns are producing.  I will leave Massachusetts be for now, as this is mainly about uncovering new information.  And to keep things digestible, I am specifically looking at Rhode Island, Maine, Illinois, and Florida.

I didn’t look through the Libertarians’ websites, I have some crude guesses and bad jokes to share, I’ll let someone else search for the good idea needle in the haystack (j/k, there are plenty of points of agreement between Libertarians and Greens).

First Rhode Island, because its so damn close.

Lincoln Chafee (http://www.chafeeforgovernor.com/), former Republican senator, is running as an Independent and currently has a lead in the polls.  Besides him, the Democrat, and Republican, there is a candidate for the Moderate Party, a centrist political party only in Rhode Island, who is beating the Republican.  So at least according to polls, of which Greens have innate distrust, this is a three way race with the Republicans only in the single digits.

Chafee has name recognition, big time, and a general air of “I was a sane moderate in a crazy political party, and now I am following my independent roots”.  He entertains sales tax increases, public pension reform, supporting public higher education, fighting municipal mandates to save money, opposing an oil refinery, so a kind of grab bag of liberal and conservative policy recommendations. The Democrat in the race, Frank Caprio, doesn’t seem like a fire breathing liberal, he talks about helping small business, controlling government spending, and making government more transparent.  The Moderate Party (http://www.moderate-ri.org/) promotes teacher accountability and charter schools, protecting open space, “enterprise zones” and encouraging banks to lend to jump start economic growth… moderate to center-right stuff.  

Overall the Rhode Island race, at least at first look, seems kind of bland.  The unemployment rate is 3 or 4 percent higher there than Massachusetts and the ideas for economic development coming from these candidacies are standard fare, stuff that has certainly been used and tried before.

So onto to Maine!  It use to be part of Massachusetts (next GRP platform:  Re-annex Maine), and its had a recent history of Independent governors and strong Green Party performances.  Unfortunately this year the Green Independent Party was unable to get their candidate on the ballot.

Enter Eliot Cutler (http://www.cutler2010.com/), an environmental lawyer turned independent candidate for Governor promoting:  Lower-Cost Electricity, Lower-Cost Healthcare, Lower-Cost Government, and Rebuilding Maine (not Lower-Cost Maine, unfortunately…).

I’ll rename each to get an idea what he is actually talking about:  State-owned corporation that invests in cheaper forms of energy production, a grab bag of reforms that are not single payer (but a heavy emphasis on prevention and a healthier lifestyle), consolidation of government agencies, some privatization, regionalization of local government, and to rebuild Maine he wants to promote charter schools and integrating higher ed with K-12, followed by reinvestment in order to retain young people and make their population more educated, some-stuff about wood and fish, and making Maine a good spot for Canadian and European trade by investing in transportation and ports.

Certainly pragmatic, and while many of these recommendations have been in the grist of the policy mill he at least presents it nicely.

I like the public owned energy investment corporation, but then I like democratic forms of ownership.  The Democrat and Republican in the race have some similar themes, kind of bland.  Overall all the candidates seem to have drunk the privatization kool-aid.  

Bang, Swoosh!  Illinois.  Rich Whitney (http://www.whitneyforgov.org/) is running for Governor there as a Green for the second time, and is polling at 11%.  I should say that I like his ideas a lot, his economic plans mention “living wages”, “full employment”, and “community or worker ownership”, music to my leftist ears.  Not as sure about his overall presentation, he lists out his positions in excruciating detail.

Another idea he has, and that I have seen other Green candidates propose, is a State Bank.  Right now states cannot deficit spend efficiently, when they create debt its owned by the private sector in the form of relatively high interest bonds and other instruments.  This situation forces state governments to find ways to maintain balanced budgets, so they either create high interest debt, increase taxes, cut spending, or hope the federal government will write them a check.  This recession has caused state governments to rely on all those means.

With a State Bank its cheaper for a state to use deficit spending to stimulate their economy and easier for a state to create credit to promote industries that do not always have an easy time with getting it (cooperatives, solar and wind, etc).  

Finally Florida!  Disney World!  And Bud Chiles (http://walkwithbud.com/) independent for Governor of Florida.  Bud appears to be a communitarian, center to center left on economic issues, and center to center right on social issues. He also appears to be embroiled in some lawsuits… hehe.  

What’s interesting about him is his support for campaign finance reform, his plan to grow the renewable energy sector, his resolute opposition to oil drilling, and a strong focus on community solutions and policies supporting communities.  

This last piece about communities is interesting, if not for the policy ideas but for the issue framing.  When Greens talk about decentralization, community economics, and re-localization they are endorsing an approach to government that does not rely on bureaucratic and top down solutions.  You could even say democratic government instead of big government.  Strengthen communities with locally based jobs and economic development, help strengthen and create democratic institutions on the local level to empower people.  It has a nice ring to it.  

What I get out of this light look at other campaigns is the need for thinking outside the box, especially in economics.  The idea that you could cut your way of this is absurd.  Public spending is preventing this recession from nosediving further, and corporations are in a savings glut, so giving them more money is not going to force them to invest or spend.

Most of our urgent needs, the creation of living wage jobs that are sustainable and locally based, greater access to education, the renewal of urban centers and underprivileged populations, increased generation of energy from clean and renewable sources, an intense reinvestment in public transportation and low carbon transit infrastructure, well its stuff that requires government involvement.  

Its stuff that will not generate a profit high enough for the private sector to take on alone.  It just makes more sense to throw money into China, India, Indonesia, increasingly scarce commodities, government debt (which governments increasing refuse to create to save their own populations) or a bunch of hollow financial instruments than into community renewing economic initiatives.  

We are more or less dealing with the Obama administration’s unwillingness to reinvent the banking and manufacturing sectors when it was given the leverage by the bailouts.  We already suffered catastrophic market failure.  Instead of socializing these failures and reworking them in a more decentralized, transparent, and democratic fashion our government gave the money with no purse strings and essentially privatized itself, our regulatory structures and spending priorities are not operated for the benefit of the people but for the benefit of a few.  And the obvious failure of this reverse privatization has spawned astroturf movements who think government is the problem rather than corporations and their incompetent owners and managers.

It makes our economic responses incredibly difficult and gives us Pyrrhic victories (like 26 billion dollars to save teachers jobs and fund Medicaid, with a huge chunk of that being paid for by cutting Food Stamp aid).  

Thus you have plans for further privatization, thus greater inequities and economic insecurity, which further means greater economic centralization.  So yes its very, very bad.  But that’s part of the reason Greens are running, to counteract very dumb ideas.