ARTS & FARCES internet

I wasn’t going to write this story. It will become apparent why I did, but it won’t reveal itself until close to the end of this piece. After long thought I had decided it would as likely as not do more harm than good and abandoned it. Then something happened that galvanized my feelings about the issue.

On 18 May 2002, the Green Party of Minnesota endorsed Ed McGaa as its first senatorial candidate as a major political party. It was a contentious endorsement process for a variety of reasons. The progressive press has been near-unanimous in its collective condemnation of the Minnesota Greens’ audacity of daring to endorse a candidate opposing Senator and Saint Paul Wellstone. I felt at the time, and still feel strongly, that the Green Party had every right—no, an obligation—to endorse a senatorial candidate. This position was clearly and articulately made by a guest piece by Jeff Taylor, chair of the Olmstead County (Minnesota) Green Party. The problem is that we endorsed the wrong candidate.

The McGaa screening report and subsequent endorsement

I attended the Green endorsing convention as a proxy-carrying delegate. The convention used a form of instant runoff voting in its candidate endorsement process, and while McGaa was not my first choice, I did rank him as my second choice on my ballots.

The Green senatorial endorsement was contentious because Wellstone supporters were in the endorsement convention gallery, actively encouraging Green delegates to not endorse any senatorial candidate. The endorsement probably should have been much more contentious, but for a very different reason.

The Green party, like other political parties, screens candidates seeking endorsement. In the case of the Greens, a seven-member screening committee was elected at the Winter Membership meeting on 8 December 2001. Ed McGaa was subsequently screened by either three or four members (reports vary) of the screening committee and screening committee member Karen Carlson, who is now McGaa’s campaign manager, wrote the screening report on behalf of the screening committee.

It’s important to understand that this screening report is the only information delegates received concerning McGaa prior to the endorsing convention. The Green party is based upon a set of ten key values. In his answers to the screening survey, McGaa makes his partial disagreement with the nonviolence key value clear: “... I support rational military protection/retaliation to secure freedom from terrorism.” Nothing much else seemed notably awry, although McGaa made it clear that he’s not—and never intends to be—vegetarian. Vegetarianism appears to be some sort of a litmus test for some Greens even though the state party’s platform recognizes it merely as an “alternative that is less harmful to the environment, to humans, and to animals.”

Concerns regarding the validity of the McGaa endorsement and David Strand’s allegations

Shortly after the endorsing convention, reports indicate that rumors regarding McGaa’s screening began to appear on the Green Party of Minnesota general email discussion list. Nothing substantial, just various snippets that something had happened during McGaa’s screening interview that was not indicated in the screening report.

Understand that I came late to this particular party, not finding the mailing list until early July 2002. The reports regarding discontent of more than a few with the McGaa endorsement are apparently supported by an 8 June 2002 announcement and statement issued by the Green Party of Minnesota Coordinating Committee, the party’s governing body. Speaking only to the issue of the endorsement’s validity, the coordinating committee stated that the endorsement process itself was valid and democratic and that the McGaa endorsement, specifically, was legitimate.

On 9 July 2002, a member of the screening committee—David Strand—leveled some very serious allegations on the mailing list regarding statements Ed McGaa made during his candidate screening interview:

“For me, Ed set off alarm bells with his comments such as ‘I’ll need to raise a lot of money because all that jewish [sic] blood is going to draw a lot of jewish money.’ and repeatedly referring to Coleman’s name change from Goldman calling him Coleman/Goldman through the remainder of his interview. His assertions about Wellstone having a greater allegiance to Israel than the U.S. and comments about speaking to ‘the mexicans’ [sic] when he goes to McDonald’s….”

Informed delegates went to the endorsing convention with full knowledge that McGaa supported some sort of rational military response to terrorism and was not a vegetarian. As a pacifist I had significant questions and concerns about the former; an ESRD-patient suffering debilitating anemia, I wasn’t bothered in the least by the latter. I had been vegetarian when I was younger, respect it as an alternative, but resent it as any sort of party loyalty litmus test.

But these allegations were something entirely different. These allegations were, if accurate, the statements of a bigot and a racist. These statements, if they were made, were in clear and direct contradiction with several of the ten key values and the platform of the party. Most importantly, Strand’s concerns as a member of the screening committee were not included in the screening report.

Strand’s allegation concerned me deeply on two levels. I was a member of the party that endorsed McGaa’s candidacy. As a journalist, I was outraged for a whole different set of reasons, including the possibility that the party endorsed a candidate without full disclosure of information obtained during the screening process. As delegates, we were told that McGaa had been screened and approved by the screening committee. We had relied on the screening committee’s diligence. I found this especially disturbing because I had gone out of my way to attend as many of the debates prior to the endorsing convention as possible and McGaa’s late entry as a candidate troubled me considerably.

My initial questions

With both of those positions in mind, identifying myself as a freelance journalist, and stating clearly that any response would be considered on the record and for attribution, I posed a set of three questions to David Strand via email on 10 July 2002:

1. Would you be willing to provide me with copies of any notes or committee reports in which you raise concern about McGaa’s candidacy? If so, to whom—if anyone—were these notes or reports made available? Were the notes or any sort of report made available to the screening committee?
2. Can you give me the names and email addresses of the screening committee? I can’t seem to find this on the website.
3. On the surface, this appears to be a process problem (as you point out in your email to the mailing list). What steps have been taken to repair the process?

I received no direct response from Strand.

Accordingly, the next day—11 July 2002—I went public with my concerns on the mailing list and, identifying myself as a freelance journalist, asked the same questions of the party membership at large, requesting responses to the public forum mailing list:

1. Will any other member of the screening committee verify and corroborate that Ed McGaa made the statements as recalled above during his screening interview?
2. Will anyone explain why this information, if accurate, was withheld from the party membership and delegates. The only publicly available McGaa screening information I can find is http://www.mngreens.org/candidates/mcgaa.html. While I find some of the publicly-available McGaa screening information disturbing, it contains nothing even remotely similar to the above statement.
3. Will someone please identify and provide contact information for the members of the screening committee. Can someone please explain why this information isn’t publicly available (or if it is, where it can be found).
4. Assuming there are, indeed, verifiable problems with this particular candidate screening, will someone please identify what specific steps have been taken to ensure that similar problems don’t arise in the future.

Later that same day, one of the party officers emailed me the link to the 8 December 2001 meeting notes and email addresses for four of the screening committee members.

A 12 July 2002 post to the mailing list indicated that the veracity of Strand’s allegations had not been challenged by any other members of the screening committee; that the failure to incorporate Strand’s notes into the screening report was “an oversight”; and that I wasn’t the first person to raise these questions. I responded by writing that I certainly didn’t mean to question the veracity of Strand’s notes or comments, that I was asking for corroboration, and that a failure to challenge is not corroboration.

A couple of days later—14 July 2002—Strand responded with a public post to the mailing list. In this writing, Strand takes responsibility for the omission of his concerns from the screening report, states that he is discussing it now because “there was a moral obligation to share the information even if it was messy and inconvenient,” and outlines his methodology regarding his information disclosure. Most importantly, Strand says specifically that he “called Ed to let him know I would be sharing this information from his public screening interview.” Further, Strand states that he “met with Karen Carlson, the member of the [screening] committee who did the hard work of compiling the various reports, and we spoke about our differing opinions about these statements. She and I agree about what was said….”

In the days following there were various calls to rescind the McGaa endorsement on the mailing list. There were also several messages in support of McGaa and his candidacy.

In a post to the mailing list on 17 July 2002, coordinating committee member Joel Sipress implies that the coordinating committee at least considered rescinding the McGaa endorsement. “At our June meeting, the state coordinating committee had a lengthy discussion of the controversy surrounding the McGaa endorsement,” Sipress wrote. “We concluded that, under the constitution and by-laws of the Green Party of Minnesota, there is no mechanism for withdrawing an endorsement.”

An initial response from McGaa’s campaign

On 17 July 2002, I received an email from Jeff Taylor, the author of the “Progressive media: pro-Democrat and anti-Green?” guest article ARTS & FARCES internet published in June. Taylor was now one of McGaa’s campaign managers and was writing to tell me that he “doubted the accuracy of the Ed quotes” but that he agreed that “if he really said those things, the screening committee was obligated to report them to us before the [endorsing] convention.” Taylor had spoken about my concerns with Karen Carlson, McGaa’s campaign manager of record, who maintained that while one member of the screening committee, David Strand, believed McGaa had shown signs of anti-Semitism, “the other three members did not detect that at all.”

On a casual glance, this would appear to be an almost denial that McGaa had made the alleged statements, but there are two problems. First, it’s a second-hand statement from someone who wasn’t a participant in the event where the alleged statements took place. Second, there’s no denial that the statements were made, only that varying degrees of perceptions of what was said were involved. One could argue that the second-hand claim actually corroborates Strand’s allegation that McGaa did, in fact, utter the inflammatory statements.

Taylor goes on to state that the “‘jewish [sic] blood, jewish cash’ comment—which is as dumb as it is disgusting—was not uttered by Ed, nor was it uttered during the screening session. It came out of the mouth of someone who supposedly supported Ed at the first Greens-grill-McGaa session in Minneapolis (after the convention.” Taylor also writes that Carlson told him that “Ed mentioned the Goldman-Coleman name change once—probably in the context of Coleman’s political opportunism….”

So, here we have a denial from the McGaa campaign that Ed McGaa ever made the most damning statement Strand alleges and a corroboration of the derogatory statement regarding another candidate’s name change. Except these are second-hand accounts: someone who was not at the McGaa screening interview cannot know what statements were or were not made during the interview.

Questions for McGaa and his two campaign managers

With that in mind, on 17 July 2002 I re-identified myself as a freelance journalist and sent the following simple, direct questions to the McGaa campaign managers (Jeff Taylor and Karen Carlson) and Ed McGaaa himself:

1. Did Ed McGaa make the statements referenced above during his screening interview (specifically the statements contained in the complete paragraph above beginning, “For me, Ed set off alarm bells….”?
2. Can anyone on the screening committee corroborate that assertion?
3. Did Ed McGaa make those statements at any time? If so, when and under what circumstances?
4. I’m assuming there was a single screening interview for McGaa. Is this correct?
5. At the time of Ed McGaa’s screening interview, was Karen Carlson associated with the McGaa campaign in any manner?
6. At the time the final report from the screening committee was issued, the one that appears at http://www.mngreens.org/candidates/mcgaa.html, was Karen Carlson associated with the McGaa campaign in any manner?
7. To your knowledge, during the screening process, were any members of the screening committee associated with any political campaign or campaigns in any manner?
8. Any other comments?

I included the usual statement that responses would be considered on the record and for attribution.

As I wrote in the email I sent to McGaa and his campaign, I appreciate this is a difficult and uncomfortable situation for all involved. I’m convinced that these are important issues—both McGaa’s alleged statements and the way the Green Party of Minnesota has handled the issue—and asking these clarifying questions are consistent with the consensus seeking process used by the party as well as the Green’s #1 key value, grassroots democracy, specifically “to ensure that our public representatives are fully accountable ot the people who elect them.” The coordinating and screening committees are, after all, elected directly by the party membership.

Lani Hogan’s call for an investigation

Meanwhile, discussion around the issue of the McGaa screening continued on the mailing list. On 17 July 2002, Lani Hogan, a Green party member from Southeast Minneapolis, called for a coordinating committee investigation of the McGaa screening citing three specific points:

1. “The validity of the concern that there existed at Ed McGaa’s screening a conflict of interest on the part of one or more screening committee members;
2. “Whether such a conflict resulted in the withholding of important information regarding the candidacy of Ed McGaa which by rights should have been made available to the delegates to the [endorsing] convention of the Green Party of Minnesota;
3. “Whether they agree that withholding such information impacted the ability for the delegation to make an informed decision, and therefore possibly also impacted the results of the endorsement made that day.”

Later that day, 17 July 2002, David Strand clarified  and tempered his allegations somewhat. “I do not believe there to have been any malintent [sic] on the part of any member of the screening committee,” wrote Strand. “While individual members of the screening committee have interpreted the significance of Ed’s statements differently and I feel we failed in not getting the information I have shared to the delegates in the initial report and that omission is an error that points to serious flaws with the endorsement in question, I believe that all screening committee members did act and have acted in good faith.”

My intent was to get answers to the questions from McGaa and his campaign and, if warranted, propose a resolution to the Saint Paul Green Party to request a coordinating committee investigation of the matter. As Lani Hogan pointed out in her email, “... while there may not be a bylaw in place by which the endorsement of any candidate can be rescinded, it must not be ignored that the locals have the power to request a special meeting, a statement, or a course of action by the state party.”

The responses from McGaa’s campaign… and from McGaa

On the morning of 18 July 2002, I received an email from Karen Carlson acknowledging that she was, indeed, one of McGaa’s campaign managers. “I did not know that Ed was screening with us until the very morning of the screening,” Carlson wrote in her email. She also pledged to have a response by the next day, 19 July 2002. At first reading, I took this to be a denial of any sort of conflict of interest with regard to Carlson’s activities on the screening committee. In hindsight, I’m not so sure. One possible reading is that there indeed existed a conflict of interest of which she wasn’t aware until the morning of the screening. If so, she should have recused herself from the McGaa screening process.

The morning of 19 July 2002 brought another emailed assurance from Carlson that responses to my questions were her “number one priority today.” Late that afternoon Carlson sent email stating that she was unable to meet her promised deadline but that my query “will not be allowed to fall between the cracks.” I emailed Carlson late that evening that I was disappointed and that I would be moving forward with the story on Tuesday 23 July 2002, with or without her response. I’ve been sandbagged by the best and this was the work of a rank amateur.

On 20 July 2002 someone, presumably associated with the McGaa campaign but identified only by an email address (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)), forwarded a mailing list posting from Patti Hurd. Hurd is another member of the state screening committee who presumably participated in the McGaa screening. In this email posting Hurd brings two more allegations to light: one of the members of the screening committee brought a book to the screening interview and asked McGaa for an autograph and two members of the screening committee are currently working for McGaa’s campaign. More importantly, Hurd’s email includes a passage that could be interpreted as corroborating Strand’s allegations (but not of his interpretation):

“I am not here to try to convince anyone one way or another… what I am trying to point out is that based on his remarks that day, I did not come away with the feeling that Ed was a bigot. His choice of words is poor at times—and he admitted to us in our screening that he would need coaching. If I remember correctly, this was stated in the notes that were written up by the screening committee.”

Hurd’s statement, while not necessarily contradicting the allegations that Ed McGaa made the inflammatory statements, at the very least again brings the question of differing perceptions into the issue.

Imagine my surprise when I received an email from Karen Carlson on 22 July 2002 stating that “there have been some extenuating circumstances as of late Friday that prohibit me from answering your questions to the degree of detail which I would have liked.” Carlson goes on to state that she “did not begin work on a team for Ed until about 20 seconds after his MPR appearance.”

Carlson also issued a sort of back-handed veiled threat that I tossed off as more amateurishness:

“FYI upon my conversation with David Strand, I warned him that he was venturing in the arena of slander here which I understand he was almost taken to court for not so long ago regarding someone else seeking a green endorsement locally here in the TC [Twin Cities]. Such patterns are concerning indeed I strongly suggest you check into the nature and truth of these particulars as well and speak to Joseph Bester and Patti Hurd (other screening members) before you put your journalistic integrity on the line….”

Nothing more was heard from the McGaa campaign until 23 July 2002 when I received the following email from Ed McGaa, which read in its entirety:

“Mr. Frasse [sic]—I could not find your phone number on information so will inform you via e mail that a Slander Lawsuit against one David Strand for malicious slander is presently being considered. I have retained a lawyer and a lawsuit will be filed after false publications including yours are gathered.”

My response to McGaa was simple and direct and I include it here in its entirety:

“Mr. McGaa,

“Am I to assume that this is your response, in full, to the questions—seven very straightforward and one open-ended—I submitted to you via email on Wednesday 17 July 2002?

“As I stated in my previous correspondence of 17 July, please be advised that this and all correspondence is considered for the record and for attribution.
“Cordially,”

What I didn’t write, and probably should have, is that McGaa—as a lawyer—surely knows that slander is saying something false and malicious that damages someone’s reputation; libel is a false and malicious published statement that damages someone’s reputation.

Unanswered questions

The central questions regarding the McGaa screening remain unanswered. We have a process for addressing that shortcoming: the primary elections. Former Green gubernatorial candidate Ray Tricomo has stepped forward to challenge Ed McGaa in the primary. A debate between the two senatorial candidates is scheduled for 8 August 2002. Maybe these questions will be answered at the debate. I won’t be able to attend because of a previous commitment. The short-term issue will certainly be resolved if Tricomo defeats McGaa in the primary election.

But the more important, much larger question remains unanswered for the Green Party of Minnesota: How can an endorsement process be valid and democratic—and a specific endorsement legitimate—if crucial information is kept from the membership and delegates? And what safeguards have been put into place to prevent this from happening again?

As a member of the Green Party of Minnesota, I call upon all of the locals to pass the following resolution prior to the primary elections of 10 September 2002:

WHEREAS serious concerns regarding the screening process of endorsed senatorial candidate Ed McGaa have been raised by a member of the state screening committee; and

WHEREAS these serious concerns are still not included in the final screening report of Ed McGaa published at http://www.mngreens.org/candidates/mcgaa.html; and

WHEREAS serious concerns regarding a possible conflict of interest on the part of one or more members of the state screening committee have surfaced,

BE IT RESOLVED that the Green Party of Saint Paul respectfully requests that a thorough and complete investigation of these issues be initiated by the state coordinating committee of the Green Party of Minnesota with a final report to be published and made readily available to the public and distributed to the party membership.

If we don’t do this—or something very much like this—as a political party, we’re as guilty of the same politics as usual as the Republicrats. And we’ll smell just as bad as we see a mass exodus of interested, committed members who simply won’t tolerate politics as usual.

Note to Green party members: If you introduce some form of this resolution at your local or affiliate, please take the time to post as much as a follow-up comment to this article.