(well said, “seemstome”! – promoted by eli_beckerman)

   A few thoughts on the essay by Jason at Open Media Boston on Jill Stein’s and Grace Ross’s quite different campaigns for governor:

  It’s not a question of either going for the gold – quixotically or not – in a statewide race or letting dozens of flowers bloom in local and state legislative races. An exemplary candidate like Jill Stein (I’m biased) running as standard-bearer of the Green-Rainbow Party can inspire people to run for lesser offices throughout the Commonwealth as GRP candidates. For one thing, she can appear at their campaign functions, helping both her own candidacy and theirs. If citizens show up out of mere curiosity or out of concern for the their future, if they catch the bug and act accordingly they expand a constricted field.  

   Secondly, politics in 2010 is not your father’s Oldsmobile – not only are Oldsmobiles no longer made, by a corporation that’s in dubious shape like the entire automotive industry and car economy and car culture. Rather, politics-as-usual is in serious question by an increasingly questioning populace more inclined to take a fresh look at a third-party candidate who has proven her worth. I don’t think Stein’s issues are just “left” ones, I think the GRP would be wrong to cast itself primarily as “progressive” (whatever may mean to people these days). Since when are transparency and fighting profligate waste the province solely of progressives? Since when is fighting the despoiling of nature (which can be viewed in a utilitarian sense as humanity’s base or as God’s creation) the sole province of progressives? One definition of progressive is “favoring reform: advocating social, economic or political reform,” according to which Charlie Baker could claim the term (even as he would oppose progressive taxation, with higher rates for higher incomes, which is advocated by both Stein and Ross).

  I sometimes think “progressive” can be a stale term that needs to be retired as a designation. It sometimes seems more limiting than helpful (although a look at the national Progressive Party  Platform of 1924 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu…  is enlightening and inspiring). People who consider themselves “conservative” in one sense or another can find something for their plate in this  smorgasbord.

  Other designations, like the donkey and the elephant, born as handy crutches for political cartoonists in 1828 and 1874, these days are used primarily by the two major parties and the corporate media to corral people’s thinking, to box it in. Ditto for Red state / Blue state nonsense, born when corporate TV needed a device to get viewers to sit down, shut up, and watch. That Red/Blue was taken up by respected pundits and successfully planted into everyone’s vernacular is a national abomination.

  Alas, I believe Jason of Open Media Boston has allowed himself to be corralled by the same tired conventions. Grace Ross seems to be tying her star, at least for the moment, to a fading, corrupt apparatus. The Green-Rainbow Party, whatever its shortcomings are, is relatively new and entrepreneurial. It is overstepping? Of course! There’s a saying among bootstrapping entrepreneurs: Fake it till you make it. Today in Massachusetts it’s the duty of the news media, which could include Open Media Boston, to call on the carpet candidates and (all) political parties when they seem to be doing more faking than making sense. But when a plausible candidate seems to be making sense running statewide as the nominee of a seemingly minor party in a changing political landscape, she should be encouraged.

  I look forward to Jason’s next writing on this subject. May it reflect the advances in technology and media variety that made both Open Media Boston and worthwhile candidacies possible and relevant.