Purple Finger

I like following presidential politics. Each major candidate gets to tell the people that they can continue their excessive, consumptive, non-sustainable American lifestyle ad infinitium. Not in so many words, but that’s what they are saying. Americans will not make the connection between our behavior at home and our foreign policy, energy policy, or even domestic policy.

I have been voting third party for a few years now. Kent Mesplay from San Diego was my choice in the last primary, and I think the Green party best represents my ideals. There are, to be sure, fringe-ish and fanatical viewpoints expressed by this party, but I'm concerned not. Overall, they strike the best balance in major areas – ecological sustainability, social justice, peace and non-violence, and grassroots democracy.

Thinking of that last tenant – grassroots democracy -- consider what it takes here, in Elk Grove, to run for a city council seat. In 2004, the three incumbents each raised 100k, 60k, and 80k, all to garner (on average) 40% of the vote. What’s more striking than the raw dollar numbers is that 92% comes from sources outside the city. Yep, and you can easily guess from who: large corporate developers, the Building Industry Association of Superior California, and other sprawl related industries from the Bay Area to Fresno to Los Angeles. Organizations that don’t have to live in the fucking mess they help to create here – single use zoning, big box retail, a city of 115,000 with 34,000 jobs – a 3.5:1 ratio! But they fund their pro-growth henchmen, and while on one hand residents decry more unmitigated, poorly planned sprawl, they’ve got their other hand dipped in purple ink voting for them.

We are galactically stupid.

But we got what we voted for. A city with no active core, no source of business tax revenue, no downtown, distances between things that require six-lane arterial roads to get to, parks that kids can’t get to on their own without parental shuttles, and retail set back from the street three hundred feet to accommodate the sea of required parking that’s lit up under mercury arc-lamps 24 hours a day.

The limited, smart growth candidate has no voice. How I vote: look to the candidate who received the least contributions and that’s who I vote for without even reviewing their campaign statement…(OK, maybe a little hyperbole – I do read them).

Voting third party has another advantage. When asked who I voted for, I can say “I didn’t vote for either of those cocksuckers.”