Green Party Election Party

Last Tuesday was election night for the Tucson City Council. What other place would I rather be than partying it up with Green Party candidates Beryl Baker and Dave Croteau. Myself and three other classmates went to Croteau's house to talk to prominent green people of Tucson. There were quite a few people there to support Baker and Croteau, including Claudia Ellquist, the co chair of the Tucson Green Party, who talked a lot about sustainability, what the Green Party means to not just local politics but national politics as well, and she also told us her thoughts about alternative fuels such as corn-based ethanol. It was interesting to hear her thoughts because, if you have been following my blogs at all, you know that alternative fuels is something I have done a lot of research on. She said pretty much what I have posted about before, that using corn-based ethanol does do damage to the economy because instead of using it for food, it is now being subsidized for other things like fuel, which is raising the price world wide. She said that there are areas in Mexico that cannot even afford to purchase corn from the United States anymore because of how much the price has skyrocketed.

The other topic that was referenced many times that night was the local media's coverage of the election. Many people thought the Citizen, Star, and Weekly were all biased in their reporting coverage. The biggest gripe was that the Ten Key Green Party values, which is prominent on their website was not even mentioned in articles by those three papers. A couple guys there were really hating on Nintzel of the Weekly for his Election 101 coverage a couple weeks ago. It seemed, from their perspective, that he said something like Croteau thought Tucson did not have a big meth problem. They told me that what they thought should have been said was how Croteau did not think Tucson's biggest problem was meth, but rather crimes against humanity, certainly meth would be a part of that. I do not really have an opinion on it because I have not read the article in question.

One other thing was that in these articles, the other party candidates would use words coined by the Green Party, the biggest one being sustainability and it was interesting to see how the other candidates incorporated it into their own campaigns.

Just a side note, there were a lot of people there drinking beer and wine and having a good time. It was an experience I have never had before and something I would do again in the future.