Done with the Greens

Last week we were presented with either the hopelessly clueless or mindlessly malevolent U.S. Senate candidate for the Green Party in Pennsylvania, Carl Romenelli. The national Green Party has put out this press release defending the GOP's near-total bankrolling of Romenelli's petition drive to be put on the ballot (his "rival" Santorum's interns even helped collect signatures).

The Greens completely miss the boat on this one. The issue isn't whether or not Pennsylvania deserve a variety of political candidates (they do). The issue isn't over Bob Casey's progressive credentials (they're not top-notch).

What's raising my hackles (and the hackles of others) is that Romenelli and the Greens are either too politically at sea to understand, or too pig-headedly stubborn to care, that the only reason GOP donors ponied up to the Romenelli campaign was to make it easier to elect a candidate whose agenda is diametrically, 100% opposed to that of the Green Party.

I've been supportive of the Green Party in trying to elect candidates to local office. I'm even supportive of third party candidates running to the left of Democrats in important elections. I don't begrudge Romenelli or the Green Party their spot on the ballot in Pennsylvania. But don't make up ridiculous rationalizations about why its okay to accept money from your political and ideological enemies whose sole purpose in doing so is to use you in order to advance their retrograde agenda.

This whole episode has led me to believe that the people who are behind the Green Party are either too naive or too fucking stupid to participate in politics.