OntheWilderSide

KW writes: The Green Party of the United States (GP-US) held is Annual National Meeting in Durham, North Carolina. It was an off election year and non-presidential prep year, so the focus was on workshops, issues, local candidate elections, and internal elections.

Attendance: There has not been an official attendance report. Several media and blog accounts have noted about 100 people in attendance. An unidentified Green Party member who was there said that it seemed that the dissenters and other people that the leadership beats up on decided to just stay home this year, which made for a smaller and more harmonious meeting. But, not necessarily as productive.

Information based on a report back from GP-US delegate from New York, Roger Snyder and various blog and media reports:

Overall, the Annual National Meetings Committee did a good job. Durham was a good place to hold a meeting, and people at the venue and in the neighborhood were helpful and friendly. The meeting was held at North Carolina Central University Campus. Being on a campus, with classrooms for meetings and dorm rooms for lodgings was very effective, and kept things inexpensive. Still, Delegate Snyder is not sure that it was necessary to have a national meeting in this off election year. There had been and probably will be debate about the overall usefulness.

There did not seem to be any official vote taken during the whole meeting. There was not even a time where it seemed like people noted a decision was made by consensus. The only item where moderators or Steering Committee seemed to be saying action was taken was on setting up a proposal for messaging. It went in phases, so it is unclear if it will be consider a proposal that passed, or just work that got done. Related to the messaging project, three working groups were set up on the following subjects: 1. Single Payer Health Care 2. Food & Water 3. Human Rights. There was controversy over whether and how other greens would be allowed to join the groups or conference calls. It appears the groups might be closed, including only people who attended the meeting.

Cynthia McKinney was scheduled to appear in person. Though, due to illness, she appeared only via video-feed. (And, it was apparent that she had some bit of a cough and laryngitis.) Delegate Snyder does not believe Ms. McKinney specifically mentioned running for President again. The main focus of Ms. McKinney’s talk was her trip to Gaza to deliver humanitarian supplies, and her work with the group Dignity. It appears that while Ms. McKinney’s speech was live-broadcast, there may not be a recording of it.

It is unclear if some or all of the meeting was recorded. It may be that the live broadcasting was not saved as recordings for future use. [Update on Tuesday afternoon: There is a lot of video up at the national web-site now. And, the Cynthia McKinney speech is definitely available. It is linked on the gp.org front page: here.]

Overall, the Presidential race for 2012 was mentioned only in passing, largely by people asking questions at workshops, etc. There was not much buzz about the 2012 race, and it was not an important part of the National Committee agenda.

There are 4 Co-Chair seats open on the Steering Committee [SC]. The SC has 7 members in total, so a majority of the SC seats are up for election. The Secretary position is also open. The vote will be done on-line. Though, nominations were taken at the meeting, and nominations are said to be closed.

The 8 candidates for the 4 Co-Chair seats open at GP-US are:

(incumbent) Jason Nabewaniec, NY
Les Evenchick, LA
Mike Feinstein, CA
Jennifer Sullivan ,FL
Farheen Hakeem, MN
David Strand, MN (who is a delegate of the Lavender Caucus)
Nick Mellis, NJ
Kat Swift, TX

The 2 candidates for the Secretary of GP-US seat are:

(incumbent) Holly Hart, IA
Audrey Clement, VA

The election will be held on-line. The proposals are not up and running yet, but should eventually appear: here.

There are several good stories covering the meeting over at Indy Week blogs: here. You can look for insider updates at Green Party Watch and Greens for Greens in the next few days, as volunteer bloggers return home and sort out their notes and impressions.

Filed under: 3rd party, green, Green Party, News, politics, progressive politics, third party, US Politics Tagged: | cynthia mckinney, David Strand, Dignity, Durham, Farheen Hakeem, Gaza, GP-US, Green Party, Jason Nabewaniec. Les Evenchick, Jason Nabs, Jennifer Sullivan, Mike Feinstein, Nick Mellis, Roger Snyder