Green or Machine?

If you thought Green fever was over after the November election, think again.

Councilmember Michael Feinstein is giddy about this week's big win for the Green Party in Oakland, where Green candidate Audie Bock beat incumbent Democrat Elihu Harris in a run-off for a seat in the Assembly.

You can hardly blame him. This is the biggest Green Party victory in California's political history.

Feinstein appears this week on Bill Rosendahl's Local Talk, which airs on Century Communi-cations, talking about the Oakland election and calling it proof that voters want a progressive alternative.

The problem, he says, is that when the two major parties run candidates for office against the Greens, voters shy away from picking the Green to avoid splitting votes in case a Republican will get elected. The Oakland election was a run-off with only two candidates and two parties, giving the Greens a better chance of winning

"Vote Green, Not Machine" was the slogan they used - a slogan Feinstein has been heard chanting like a mantra since he heard Tuesday night that Boch had won.

That slogan wouldn't work in Santa Monica, of course, where voting Green IS voting for the machine. Not only are Feinstein and fellow Green Councilmember Kevin McKeown members of Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, which holds the council majority, but the Green platform seems to be driving the renter's rights organization nowadays.

So how about this for a Green Party slogan, Santa Monica style: "Vote Machine, Get Green."