Johnson County Green Party Caucus Planning Meeting/Business Meeting

January 7th, 2004
7:00 p.m.
Iowa City Public Library, Room C

Attendance: Joannes Pool, Florence Boos, Holly Hart, Jim Walters; Bob Schultes, Emily Carson from Cedar Rapids; Daryl Northrop, IAGP candidate for US Senate, from Des Moines; Roger Bentley, his campaign manager, from Ames

We enjoyed having several guests: Daryl Northrop, of Des Moines, who is running as IAGP candidate for U.S. Senate; Roger Bentley, Ames, his campaign manager; and Bob Schultes and Emily Carson from Cedar Rapids.

There was discussion about Ralph Nader’s recent announcement that he will not seek the Green Party presidential nomination. David Cobb’s campaign already had evoked some interest among our members. At this meeting, all expressed interest in and support for Cobb’s campaign: he is actively campaigning and has asked for our support. He is currently campaigning actively, and he will be in Iowa for a short visit (a short detour from his travel route from the Twin Cities to Wisconsin) sometime in February.

Interest was expressed in beginning to petition with his name on our nomination papers as soon as it is feasible to do so. Due to the fact that the other Green “stand-ins” are either not actively campaigning or plan to throw their weight to another candidate and, especially, will not receive the eventual nomination, those in attendance felt it would not be worthwhile to hold a ballot as earlier planned. The recommendation is to vote on whether to start petitioning for David Cobb, and then, closer to the convention, possibly take a vote to determine national convention delegates’ votes, based on what candidates or options may have become available.

We then discussed how to select Iowa Green Party national nominating convention delegates. The Johnson County Green Party had planned to come upwith a proposal to send to the IAGP, but there is still discussion on how to proportion the delegation, and no conclusive proposal was reached; discussion will continue.

Daryl Northrop spoke about his campaign for the U. S. Senate, followed by discussion on goals and resources the IAGP, county chapters, and other potentially supporting organizations could provide. Daryl would like to get 10% of the vote and raise $15,000. He believes this is a good race for a Green Party candidate: the incumbent, Charles Grassley, is considered unbeatable, and the Democrats will not try to campaign very seriously against him. This race will allow our candidate a platform to present Green viewpoints and offer voters a real choice/protest/peace candidate without fear of the “spoiler” complaint. Although this race cannot bring the IAGP ballot status, the greater percentage of votes Daryl gets, the better support our argument for passing our ballot status legislation has…. The campaign has a website, downloadable brochure, and petition forms at http://www.northropforsenate.org.

Plans were made to hold the Johnson County Green Party caucus at The Mill Restaurant on Sunday, January 18th, starting at about 5 p.m. Daryl and Roger will attend if they are able. Joannes will look into getting musicians. We will send postcards inviting all formerly registered Johnson County Greens who have not re-resgitered with another party. Barbara Hackmann offered a contribution to help pay for postage and cards. We will meet this coming Saturday at Uptown Bill's to label and send them. [Florence Boos will send a press release to local media.]

Caucus: January 18th, 2004; The Mill.

Next Business Meeting, Wednesday, February 11th, 2004; Iowa City Public Library, Room D.