The Flagpole, October 7, 1998

 http://www.flagpole.com/Issues/10.07.98/citypages.html

THE GREENING OF GEORGIA

3 write-in options for Nov. 3

Richard Fausett

 

These days in Georgia, it's not easy being Green.

 

Never mind the fact that if you live in Georgia, that probably means you have been swallowed by

the unchecked monster that is Atlanta. Never mind that you've got to eat 500 pounds of smog to get

from point A to point B. Never mind that many of our waterways aren't fit to dip in your toes, let

alone fish.

 

The pressing problem for Green Party candidates is that they're not on Georgia's November ballot.

If you want to cast votes for the party of Ralph Nader (the Greens' last-minute convert and

presidential candidate in the 1996 elections), you've got to write them in.

 

What that means, to be frank, is that the Greens' three statewide candidates lieutenant governor

candidate Hugh Esco, labor commissioner candidate Kerrie Dickson, and agriculture commissioner

candidate Hugh Lovel don't have an acid-snowball's chance in hell. However, this hasn't stopped

them from campaigning like it, for if they receive 40,000 votes on Nov. 3, state law requires that

the Greens be on the ballot come 2000.

 

That has embued the campaigns of Esco and Dickson with a sense of purpose and possibility. The

two have been criss-crossing the state for months, spreading the gospel that Bill Clinton and his ilk

might as well be Republicans, and that Georgia could be a lot cleaner.

 

"Atlanta is a disaster," Esco said in a recent visit to the Flagpole offices. "Most of the other people

running for office are talking about what kinds of roads they want to build. I'm talking about what

kind of roads I don't want to build."

 

Esco, 35, a former electrician, construction worker and community organizer, said bike and

pedestrian paths are a major plank in his platform. Constitutional hurdles and the limits of power of

a lieutenant governor aside, he'd like to get private money out of public elections. He promised to

stop the building of a second Atlanta perimeter and said he'd let the motor fuel tax fund be used to

create "alternatives to Carmageddon." The criminal justice system, he said, needs to be reoriented

"so it's like justice, and not slavery."

 

Kerrie Dickson, 47, a former nurse and construction foreman, said she'd fight to repeal NAFTA

and GATT. On a scale more in line with the influence of a state labor commissioner, she said she'd

fight for a livable wage and "allow for organizing on work sites without being fired."

Both candidates acknowledge that Georgia's environmental woes affect everyone, not just the

traditional left, and hope current crises will serve to make them a viable third party in the state. For

more information, call (800) 447-6694, or visit the Green Party web site at

http://petra.greens.org/georgia/. (RF)