October 2, 2002

In this issue

FOR CALIFORNIA VOTERS who are frustrated with the two major-party candidates for governor (and that's a whole lot of us), there's a political message about 9,000 miles away. In Germany, 8.6 percent of the voters in the Sept. 22 election chose the Green Party – and that's a major reason why Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was reelected and his governing coalition survived. A German citizen living in California named Sven Eberlein wrote an op-ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle Oct. 1 that makes the point nicely: The German system of representative democracy is different from ours, but there's something similar in both places – something the Germans overcame 20 years ago. That's "the persisting image of third-party candidates as half-baked wing-nuts and tree-spikers that instills an irrational fear of the nonestablishment candidate in the American voter."

Eberlein writes: "When the [German] Greens first jumped the 5 percent hurdle [to win representation] in 1983, they were certainly a motley bunch of idealists, but given their chance, they stepped up to the plate and earned the people's trust."

Frankly, it's hard to see how either Gray Davis or Bill Simon has earned the people's trust. But there's another choice – and, as we point out in our endorsement package, a good choice – for governor: Peter Camejo, the Green Party candidate. If the polls are right that both Simon and Davis have alienated a large percentage of the voters, Camejo could get more than 5 percent easily, and maybe even as much as 10 percent. That won't get him any role in the new government, but it would make a powerful political statement – and help demonstrate that voting Green is an entirely appropriate response when the best the Democrats have is someone like Gray Davis.

Voting for Camejo is also a good reason to go to the polls – and that's critical. A lot is at stake in the local elections – including public power in San Francisco, which would have won last fall if just a few hundred more progressives had bothered to vote; the city's housing policy, which will shift profoundly against tenants if Proposition R passes; and the city's reputation as a humane and caring place, which will be shattered if the antihomeless Proposition N passes. Also potentially at stake: control of the Board of Supervisors. If just one or two independent candidates lost to candidates friendly to Mayor Willie Brown and the machine, Brown would again have a veto-proof majority.