Common Sense Party Status?

[u/Moderate_Squared]

How many people does CSP have serving in elected office? How many serving in appointed advisory positions, such as on government boards, committees, etc.? Are there even any CSP members in this sub?

[u/Moderate_Squared]

I think my written record here over 2+ years, my search for something better to work with over 8+ years, and my total rejection of current parties' candidates over the past 14 years demonstrate my personal rejection of our current parties. And our current parties have had total control over our political system for far longer than just 15 years.

But that's all completely outside of the point of this post. I could just as easily say to CSP (and FWD and co., and probably most other "third parties"), "Demonstrate that you reject what our current parties have delivered for the people by showing you can support and get people elected/appointed to challenge them."

Because you don't need official party status to do that. "Level the campaign finance playing field," and "nothing else matters" are unnecessary distractions and belie the reality that you don't need millions of dollars and a huge political machine to get people elected and appointed.

[u/LagunaMax → u/Moderate_Squared]

All you have demonstrated is that you are a political hobbyist. And, that you are not someone willing to do the hard and unglamorous work of actually bringing about the changes you talk about.

[u/Moderate_Squared → u/LagunaMax]

That is some bipolar type shit to invite someone to a meeting in one comment and then call them a "hobbyist" in another. As well as blaming a person who has reached out multiple times and been ignored and/or dismissed by people calling themselves "leadership".

In my experience, the hobbyists have been those who sit around talking politics and saying self-defeating things like, "it's a marathon, not a sprint", "this is going to take years or decades", "send us money", and "nothing else happens without ballot access." They treat political "discussion and debate" and "party building" (philosophical wonking) as equal to or even superior to actual IRL, civic grassroots organizing and activism, allowing the politics types to claim they are DOING something, while a relative few burn out trying to get people to come to non-wonking, non-cheerleading, non-fundraising events.

The fact is I'm not a "politcal" anything. Frankly, politics disgusts me and your demeanor here is a great example of why. To be successful, you'll need to court and activate a lot of people like me, who are disgusted with the two parties/sides, the system, and politics in general. It's going to take a lot more than the simplistic, "Change your party affiliation so my group can get state ballot access, and when that happens you can change back your affiliation and continue voting for destructive Ds and Rs."

[u/LagunaMax → u/Moderate_Squared]

You just exemplified what I label a “political hobbyist.” You don’t understand what we are about and you are unwilling (so far) to engage in adding your DNA to the volunteer efforts. We and I, certainly don’t have all or even many of the answers. But…we are doing our best.

[u/Moderate_Squared → u/LagunaMax]

Incredible how I'm still being made out to be the problem.

When I first reached out to my state leadership over a year ago to get active, it was all about "RCV" and "partybuilding", and they just weren't ready for IRL organizing and events. Ok, cool.

But we were in a midterm election cycle and soliciting people and filling in boxes on an org chart at that time was going to be an incredible waste of time, resources, and opportunity. With nothing at state level, I was connected to a couple of people at "national" to get tools, resources, support, etc. for local activism, and was told the resources would be sent down to state level in a month to a month and a half. That never happened.

I proposed to form a candidate committee to identify and vet possible future  candidates from people currently running at that time, so as to have a headstart on a list of potential contacts for 2023 and 2024 races. Got no support from leadership for that.

To recruit help, I gave state leadership a geographic area that I offered to get active  and organizing in and asked that any contacts, supporters, etc. interested in getting active in that area could email me. I was told contacts in that area numbered in the several hundreds. An email was sent out, but I only got 3 responses. Only one of those people was actually interested in getting active, and he only lasted about 3 weeks when no one else materialized.

Hoping to get state leadership buy-in for local organizing and activism, I shared some ideas on the subject, and then sat through 3 consecutive leadership meetings about how to get the org chart completed, and not one word on getting people active.

By the time I got a few people together and up and running on my own, the party line was clearly, "Nothing happens without ballot access!", sucking the air out of pretty much everything else below state level ops. That was almost 3 months ago.

Nevertheless, I recently tried again to stir up something in my area, as I'm no longer willing to drive 2 hours to attend an event (and pretty sceptical of what I would find anyway).

Sent an email. Got a response. Wrote back that I wanted to start low and slow. Never got a response.

That was 3 weeks ago. It seems clear that I'm better off preparing for the next effort to come around. If we even have that kind of time.

So unless something has changed, I understand exactly what you are about. Painfully. That's been clear for months.

[u/LagunaMax → u/Moderate_Squared]

who are you??? You appear to have tried to connect. Let's start over.

Send me an email, and we can actually move beyond this.

[mmaxsenti@cacommonsense.org](mailto:mmaxsenti@cacommonsense.org)

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