“We’re in a load of shit here, man:” Mel Packer’s exit interview

Thursday, August 19th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
posted by Jeffrey Billman
Philadelphia City Paper

As you Cloggers are well aware, I've been obsessing a bit this week over the major parties' bullying tactics toward their minor party competitors — and more than a bit perturbed by the fact that Pa. law makes those bullying tactics not only possible, but almost assuredly successful. Sure, if I was part of the Sestak campaign, and worried about a spoiler in a close election, maybe I would have done the same thing. But that doesn’t make it morally right, particularly for someone who purports to represent the Democratic Party. Competition, it seems is for pussies. (I come from a state, after all, where ballot access is something of a free-for-all. During the 2008 presidential election, for instance, there were 13 minor party candidates on the ballot; it didn’t hurt anything.)

This morning I chatted with Mel Packer, the former Green Party candidate for Senate. First impression, based on a 20-minute conversation: He's a hell of a nice guy, completely sincere and not one of those third-party candidates who runs vanity campaigns.

“If you’re going to run at all, youre aware youre going to be challenged,” he says. “If you don’t walk in with a whole lot more [petitions] than what you need, you’re not going to be able to stop them from challenging you — and they might challenge you anyway.”

State law required about 19,000. His campaign filed about 20,500, he says: “If you don’t get 30,000, you’re going to be in trouble. At least 10 to 20 percent [are bad].” It's not so much a problem of fraud, but of human error, he says: People say they're registered when they're not, people move and don't update their registration info, and so on. Moreover, he says, the Sestak campaign had a process server send him a binder that included the findings of a handwriting expert (!) they paid to analyze some 700 petitions. The Sestak folks also challenged petitions where people signed in the space assigned for printed signatures (and vice versa), and people who write in their neighborhood instead of a zip code or city of residence.

“As you know, they have challenged every single candidate. Will not have any third parties in any of the statewide races.” If he lost, after all, he'd have to pay Sestak's expenses — including the handwriting expert — probably $80,000. “Who can afford that? I can’t afford that.”

He continues: “If you run, one of the things you hope to do is gain ballot status. If you can gain 2 percent, I think, they put [your party] on [the ballot] automatically the next time. You at least get ballot status. The other reason you do it is, you know third parties don’t win, but you hope they gain status.” There's also the principle of the thing, he adds: “This is what I’ve done my whole life because I believe in human justice and peace. Someone has to speak out on these issues.”

And no, Packer, 65, doesn't like the notion that he's a spoiler: “Spoilers — look at the policies of the two parties. We are in a lot of trouble. There’s no recovery coming except for the rich. … We’re in a load of shit here, man. … It’s an arrogant assumption of their part. Half the electorate stays home. It was reinforced out there collecting signatures. You hear that over and over again, “They’re all the same.” They can see what’s coming down, man. It’s a plain out corrupt system.”

A lifelong activist, Packer says he'll continue doing what he's done the last four decades — working on issues of “human justice and peace,” including drilling in the Marcellus Shale. “My thing has always been about getting up every morning and saying, I’ve got to do the right thing, trying to make the world a better place. … I do what any peace and justice activist does. I’ll go to my grave doing that — what a life.”

Not that it matters now, but you can check out his platform here.

http://citypaper.net/blogs/clog/2010/08/19/were-in-a-load-of-shit-here-m...