Why We Run.

• Author: Kaplan, Rebecca
• Position: Green Party campaign for Oakland City Council, California

This is the most fun, exciting, all-consuming, exasperating, frustrating; time-consuming, exhausting and wonderful thing I have done. The "this" is running as a Green for the Oakland City Council. I am now in the final stretch and there is still a huge amount of work to be done, and a great many unknowns. Thanks to California's new early primary, the time for campaigning is compressed, so the same amount of work must be done in less time. Many organizations are still not used to the new schedule, and thus important groups like the Sierra Club and the California Nurses Association have not yet completed their endorsement decisions--so I, and other candidates, are trying to plan our leaflets and mailers while waiting to hear from key endorsers and potential donors.

But all of that is not the most important part. The vital, crucial part of this campaign consists of attending meetings, groups and events all over the city, meeting with people of widely divergent backgrounds, ethnicities, economic status and life experience, and watching their faces light up when they hear that this time there is a real choice--that there is a candidate running who is not beholden to corporate interests, and who will put the people of our city first! People want to be engaged in the political life of their region, but often aren't. This "non-voting" is not an indication that people think all is well; rather it is an indication that people have given up hope that their actions can make a difference. One of our biggest tasks as political candidates is to incite hope! People need to first believe that things can be different--that is the first step, which can lead to taking action to improve our world.

I have been an activist throughout my life, and I see running for city council as an extension of my activism. I found myself spending many hours in meetings of various grassroots groups, attempting to deal with issues from unjust evictions of tenants, to hazardous emissions from a waste incinerator in east Oakland, to efforts to increase public transit service. In all of these meetings, we would discuss what we wished the city council were doing differently--and I realized that by being on the city council, I could have direct impact on many crucial issues of social justice, ecological sustainability and grassroots democracy.

With my experience and training in law and policy, I have the skills to be an effective council-person. My education includes an M.A. in Urban...