As many New York voters know, the New York Green Party's candidate for governor is Al Lewis, best known for his television roles as Grandpa Munster in "The Munsters" and Leo Schnauzer in "Car 54, Where Are You?". Greens are hoping that Lewis' popularity will bring them at least 50,000 votes, enough to get an automatic place on the ballot in all New York State elections for the next four years.

Lewis's running mate for Lieutenant Governor is Dr. Alice Green, a criminal-justice activist and former appointee of the Cuomo Administration. She is especially concerned about issues such as abolishing the death penalty, correcting unfair enforcement of drug and other criminal laws, and generally reforming the prison system. Also on the Green ticket is Dr. Joel Kovel, running for U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent Al D'Amato and Democrat Charles Schumer (who he refers to collectively as "Schumato", feeling that the two do not differ significantly). His main concerns are cutting the military budget and dealing with global warming.
 

What are those Green people all about?

The platform of the New York State Green Party revolves around four basic issues: environmentalism, political reform, corporate welfare, and expansion of government services.

Environmentalism:

- forcing General Electric to clean up the pollution of the Hudson River, which it largely caused

- eliminating nuclear power in New York State (including, of course, the reactor at our own Brookhaven National Laboratory)

Political reform:

- enacting proportional representation in the Legislature, in which parties which receive, say, 10% of the vote can have 10% of the seats in the Assembly or Senate (a system used in virtually all other democratic countries in the world)

- restricting the now-common practices of tax breaks and corporate welfare for corporate donors and high-paying political appointments for individual donors

- making it easier for independent parties to get on ballots, get involved in debates, and generally compete with Republicans and Democrats

Corporate welfare:

- lowering individual tax rates and raising corporate tax rates

- vigorously prosecuting corporate executives for criminal behavior, such as unsafe working conditions, pollution, etc.

Government services:

- reinstituting the welfare program and ending the "workfare" experiment, in which recipients work for benefits which amount to effectively less than minimum wage

- instituting a single-payer health care plan, similar to those in most other industrial nations, in which all health care is subsidized by taxes and is provided freely for all

The Green Party has opinions on many other issues, as well; you can read their platform or get more information at http://www.greens.org/ny/platform.
 

Isn't a vote for a Green candidate a wasted vote?
(Or: don't the Democrats deserve our support?)

No.

First, as regards wasting of votes, have you checked the polls for the governor's race? Pataki is ahead, way ahead - over 50% according to some polls, while Democrat Peter Vallone has trouble getting half that. Many Democrats acknowledge that Vallone doesn't have much of a chance. So isn't a Vallone vote a wasted vote?

More importantly, what does a vote for Vallone actually mean? Although he has progressive stances on some issues, Vallone boasts of having cut New York City's budget, as compared to Pataki's budget increase last year. He landed his current position as New York City's Council Speaker solely as the result of "Tammany Hall"-style political dealings (according to Newsday, Oct. 19).

So why do people still support Vallone? Simply because they don't like George Pataki. And with good reason, too: Pataki has run a notoriously unethical administration, full of appointments granted to unqualified people in exchange for political favors during the campaign (look at the SUNY Board of Trustees...). Pataki was also behind the tuition and fee hikes at SUNY in the past several years, which we are still feeling to this day.

But if all you really want is to vote against George Pataki, it makes sense to give your vote to the people who really need it, and the Green Party needs it more than any other party. The reason is that if the Greens get at least 50,000 votes for Al Lewis, they will automatically get on the ballot in every New York State election for the next four years. So your vote not only serves to protest against George Pataki, but it also helps the Green Party to elect candidates to local positions without having to collect signatures every year to get each individual candidate on each individual ballot. Electing local candidates, of course, is a much more realistic way for the Greens to affect state law than trying to get a candidate elected for governor (as the Greens will readily admit).
 

Isn't "Grandpa Munster" just a joke candidate? Why shouldn't I just vote for Howard Stern?

"Grandpa" Al Lewis' candidacy is not just a Halloween gag. Lewis has been a political activist virtually all his life - before, during, and after his television career. In the 1930s he was a union organizer; later he fought for welfare rights and squatters' rights. He participated in anti-war demonstrations all throughout the 1960s, even before it was fashionable. He donated royalties from "Munsters" to groups like the Black Panthers, for their legal defenses. Since then he has worked to publicize the causes of the poor.

Though Green Party officials admit that Al Lewis was nominated largely because of his fame, in the hope that Greens could get the required number of votes to legitimize their party, Al Lewis' campaign is a serious one, and he is helping to draw attention to serious issues ignored by both Democrats and Republicans.
 

So why should I vote for Al Lewis again?

1) Because he played Grandpa Munster

2) Because he's been a longtime activist for the poor

3) Because Pataki sucks

4) Because there's nothing you can do (or should do) to save Vallone

5) Because the Green Party needs him to get 50,000 votes to have a chance of getting any other candidates elected in the future