2018 was a great year for me and I want to begin 2019 by thanking everybody who donated, volunteered, supported or voted for my campaign for State Delegate. Glenn Ross and I (G-45) and all the Green Party candidates across the state of Maryland pushed forward a vision of independent politics focused on grassroots democracy, social justice, peace, and ecological wisdom. We did well but there is a lot of work to do if the Maryland Green Party is going to be a meaningful political force within the next decade.
I mostly took the last two months of 2018 off from this work to reflect on the campaign, reconnect with family and friends, and think about what I wanted to do next. That time was incredibly productive and valuable for me.
One key question I asked myself was “Do I want to keep working to build the Green Party or should I just join the Democrats?” This question was actually relatively easy for me, I fundamentally believe that people need more choices than the ones they have right now and I like doing the work to expand the possibilities. I will write a full blog post about this soon, but for now let me just say, I am happy to continue to work to build the Green Party as the second party in Baltimore and across the state of Maryland.
A second key question “Do I want to run again?” is a little more complicated, I feel confident that as of right now I do. I am not sure whether that will be in 2020, or 2022 or some point further down the road. The 2018 campaign was always part of longer term strategy and I am still thinking about what the next campaign will be.
What I do know I am focusing on in 2019 breaks down into three key areas:
- Building the Green Party
- Creating community conversations that include more people in the discussion and decisions made by our elected officials
- Envisioning policy solutions that people and planet over profit and power.
In 2019 I will be blogging, podcasting, hosting events and creating other content that works toward each of these three goals. During the month of January I will be introducing several new platforms and exploring each of these goals in more depth.
One of the most valuable expressions I heard during the post election down time was supporters asking “What do *we* do next?” That question reminds me that this is a collective process and I look forward to working with as many people as possible in 2019!
Happy New Year, let's work together to make 2019 the bridge to a new decade in which movements for people and planet remake politics and build a new and better world!