Michael E. Arth
Encyclopedia
Michael E. Arth is an American artist
, home/landscape/urban designer, public policy analyst
, advocate for the homeless, futurist, and author. He was a candidate for the governor of Florida in 2009 and 2010.
posters in the early 1970s, to original prints like etchings, serigraphs, and lithographs, to paintings, and photography
. A large format book of his work, Michael E. Arth: Introspective 1972-1982, was published in 1983. He shifted focus in 1986 to home
and urban design
. In 2007, in collaboration with filmmaker Blake Wiers, he produced his first feature length documentary
. His book, Democracy and the Common Wealth: Breaking the Stranglehold of the Special Interests,
was published in 2010.
a small number of private residences in Southern California
from 1986 to 2000, most notably "Casa de Lila," a seven-story Spanish style villa integrated into a mountain ridge in the Hollywood Hills
.
In 1999, Arth founded a more pedestrian and ecology-oriented version of New urbanism
called New pedestrianism
. His new approach calls for very compact new towns and neighborhoods where tree-shaded, pedestrian and bike lanes are in front of all residences and businesses, with tree-lined automobile streets at the rear. While the pedestrian lane idea is not entirely original (examples of rear loading garages with front sidewalks that replace streets were built in Venice, California, as early as 1910), his fervent emphasis on this as a panacea makes his work distinctive.
Arth asserts that living in what he calls a pedestrian village
, coupled with a compact, mixed-use neighborhood or village center, will ameliorate a wide range of problems related to urban living. Having such a development built near a downtown
area or newly-created village center reduces the amount of travel time that would normally be spent in an automobile, thus increasing the physical activity of the homeowner and saving energy. In more densely built new towns or developments, he claims that this new form of housing would greatly reduce the dependency on the automobile and the resulting village-like towns would vastly increase both aesthetics and quality of life. He also promotes the creation of similar pedestrian amenities that can be retrofitted to existing towns. Arth's design and development company, Pedestrian Villages Inc., develops projects that follow the principles of New pedestrianism
.
in DeLand, Florida
, where he could try out some of his ideas. Subsequently, he purchased 32 dilapidated homes and businesses, which he restored over a seven-year period. Running out the drug
dealers and rebuilding the downtown neighborhood won him the support of the community and a number of awards. He changed the name of "Crack Town" to Downtown DeLand's Historic Garden District. Arth enhanced the existing infrastructure by planting trees and by building pedestrian lanes, gardens, courtyards, and bike facilities in the district.
that would involve building nearly car-free Pedestrian Villages in place of what he terms "the current band-aid approach to the problem." A prototype, Tiger Bay Village, was proposed for near Daytona Beach. He claims that this would be superior for treating the psychological as well as psychiatric needs of homeless adults, and would cost less than the current approach. It would also provide a lower cost alternative to jail, and provide a half-way station for those getting out of prison. It could also provide a community for those in drug treatment and the non-violent mentally ill who are either incarcerated or living on the street. Work opportunities, including construction and maintenance of the villages, as well as the creation of work force agencies would help make the villages financially and socially viable. In 2009 Arth launched an extensive website that explains the village concept in detail.
It also tells the story of the first year of Florida’s 2010 gubernatorial race. In the main text, and in the postscript, Arth writes about how he became an independent candidate for governor after being “frozen out” of the "undemocratic" Florida Democratic Party
for not having millions of dollars, and for suggesting that campaigns be about issues instead of money.
The first sixteen chapters are about how to break up the oligarchy
and make "a more perfect union" that creates what Abraham Lincoln
called a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." To do this would require trading the winner-take-all
voting system for ranked choice voting in single member elections, and replacing single-member congressional districts for multi-member congressional districts, which would use proportional representation
and a form of ranked choice voting called single transferable voting. It would also require doing away with private campaign financing, paid lobbyists, and most campaign advertising; and replacing influence-buying and propaganda with highly regulated public campaign financing that would cost a tiny fraction of what is spent now. "Pre-voting," by the electorate, with publicly financed micro-payments during the campaign, would determine both placement and ranking on the ballot in order to simplify the process and get voters more involved in thinking about the issues.
Self-Driving Vehicles: He writes that the use of shared driverless car
s, combined with the increased use of virtual reality
for work, travel, and pleasure—could reduce the world's 800,000,000 cars to a tiny fraction of that number within a few decades. Arth believes this should be the aim of public policy for various environmental, safety, and economic reasons.
UNICE: Arth coined the term UNICE (Universal Network of Intelligent Conscious Entities) in the 1990s to describe a conscious intelligence that he theorizes "might be the result of a new form of intelligent life developed from a hive-like interaction of computers, humans, and future forms of the Internet."
Eco-Policy Design: Arth has developed an "Eco-Policy Design" to eliminate most human-caused emissions by 2029. The plan is based on a range of economic and environmentally sustainable policies.
in June 2009. According to various press releases and blogs, the Democratic Party Chair Karen L. Thurman personally barred Michael E. Arth from speaking at the 2009 Democratic Conference, reportedly telling him that she wasn't going to let him speak and that she "wanted to concentrate on one candidate." This was despite the primary still being 10 months away. On the first day of the conference, held at the Disney Yacht Club and Resort October 9–11, Arth had an ideally situated table rented from the Florida Democratic Party for $500. When he and his entourage showed up the next day, all of his material had been put in storage by party staffers and his table had been assigned to someone else. His newly assigned table was in a distant and nearly empty room on the opposite side of the convention building from the other candidates. With the help of Disney employees, and under the supervision of documentary film cameras, the table was moved back to near the same location. As soon as the camera was put away, a Democratic Party staffer tried to get Arth to move his table and also tried to prevent Arth and his volunteers from hanging his banner. Again, Disney staff intervened and Arth was allowed to stay and put up his banner. As a result of being frozen out of the Democratic Party, and believing that reform would have to come from outside the two-party system, Arth switched to independent status, or "no party affiliation".
and better representation through voting rights reform. He disdained the private campaign financing system which he says elects fundraisers in the place of good leaders and marginalizes the issues. He wanted to do away with the winner-take-all voting scheme and replace it with Instant Runoff Voting and Proportional Representation
. He called the War on Drugs
"a war on the poor," and pointed out that Florida's incarceration is 8 times higher than Canada's. He said that Florida prisons are growing faster than any other state because of deinstitutionalization of the mentally disabled, drug prohibition, and minimum sentencing laws.
On his candidate Facebook
site, and on Twitter
, Arth wrote that a top official in the state Democratic Party had tried to talk him out of running. Arth said that he was told the newspapers and other major media outlets would not write about him because campaigns were about money and not ideas. Arth quoted the official as saying, "If you don't have $3 million you cannot even get started. You will need $1.3 million a week to win it." He wrote that he asked the editors of several newspapers if it was true they would not write about his campaign. The Daytona News-Journal, a major Florida newspaper, answered his question with a front-page news article with four pictures on June 23, 2009. The article was both above and below the fold, plus a second page, and included four photographs.
Immediately after the article appeared, Arth rose from no listing in the polls to 4% in a Mason-Dixon poll asking Democratic voters who they would vote for in the primary. His name recognition among Democrats at this point was 9%. Apparently 45% of the Democrats who recognized his name were already saying they would vote for him. A column written the next week by Pamela Hasterok in the same newspaper asked "why couldn't a novice with as many good ideas as Arth become governor?" The same theme was picked up by the Washington Independent in a story titled, "Michael E. Arth, Dark Horse of the Week," which suggested keeping an eye on Arth.
More media coverage followed, including a front page article about Arth in the West Volusia Beacon. The subtitle to the headline was "Can a Renaissance man with no money be Governor?" The article mentioned that the Florida Democratic Party
leadership was snubbing Arth and, on August 6, 2009, Arth's campaign released a press release and candidate's statement. The release stated that numerous attempts by Arth and his campaign to make contact with the party's leaders had been fruitless and that the leadership was systematically favoring one candidate over the other—more than a year in advance of the primary—even while requiring neutrality on the part of its members.
campaign on the road, and touring the state by bicycle
beginning in Spring 2010. This is a nod to former Florida governor, Lawton Chiles
, who walked the state of Florida in 1970 in successful pursuit of a U.S. Senate
Seat. It is also a nod to Arth's interest in solar energy, electric vehicle
s, and his New Pedestrianism movement. Regarding this trip, from Key West
to Pensacola
, he said, "There are always creative ways to get around the power elite, for justice and democracy to persist." In fact, Arth was delayed getting started because he wanted to finish the book. His "Biking Mike" tour started with the Pridefest event in Key West on June 12, 2010, followed by the parade. Arth expected to cycle for two months. He rode in the Lake Helen, Florida
July 4 parade, and almost ran into a small tornado near the half-way point in Jacksonville. He finished the 800-mile ride mid-day on July 28, just in time to attend a town hall meeting in Pensacola where a BP representative and other officials were discussing the BP Oil Spill. Arth spoke about this and other spills, and the dominance of energy policy
by the oil industry. His blog, at his gubernatorial web site, gives a running day-by-day account of his adventures.
(FDP) over their endorsement of a rival candidate. He wrote in a statement that accompanied a press release:
At least a few other Democrats agreed. An anonymous DEC chair was quoted as saying, "The primary should be an election, not a coronation." A Democrat from Gainesville, Luis Cuevas, with Progressive Push (a Political Action Committee) said, “It’s like the old Soviet Union
. The party leaders choose the candidates and you get to vote for the people they chose.” Hilliary A. Martin, a Democratic official in Volusia County, wrote:
Pat Hatfield of the West Volusia Beacon, an admitted Democrat, wrote an impassioned opinion piece on the subject titled "This Means War!" She wrote: "DeLand’s own gubernatorial candidate Michael Arth is fighting the good fight to get his party’s nomination. He’s run into the true party system at work.... When you go to the polls, you have a choice between two hand-picked candidates... regardless of party, it's the party cheeses who choose the candidates."
On August 25, 2009, Michael E. Arth filed a grievance and proposals with the Florida Democratic Party titled "The Democratic Party is not being Democratic." The grievances were about his being "frozen out" of the party and the proposals included suggestions for how the party (and the nation) could become more democratic through electoral reform. The Miami Heralds Naked Politics Blog printed the entire four-page grievance.
Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell wrote a column on September 2, 2009 titled "Politicos are Hacking Away at Our Choices." Maxwell wrote that party hacks—whom he defined as "those who put personal and party agendas ahead of the public"--from both Republican and Democratic Parties, have forgotten their place.
Michael E. Arth invited Florida's top three leaders, the Governor, the Chief Financial Officer, and the Attorney General to an informal debate on August 6, 2009 at a Democratic Club in Deltona, Florida. Charlie Crist
, the current governor, is running for Senate in 2010, and the other two, Alex Sink
and Bill McCollum
are running for the governor's seat. Only Arth showed up, but the "debate" went on anyway. Arth's entourage brought life-size, standup cutouts of the three leaders. Arth said, "Whether they are here or not doesn't matter because they won't debate the serious issues affecting Floridians." Arth said that the leaders would not discuss the soaring prison population, electoral reform, or how to properly manage growth to prevent a wide range of problems. He also said that politicians will usually only talk about things that people agree about and gave these examples:
In a written commentary to an article by Aaron Wiener in The Washington Independent titled "Florida Gubernatorial Debate: Three Cardboard Cutouts and One Real Live Arth," Arth wrote:
DeLand's Stetson University invited Arth and Florida's top three leaders to an event titled, "The Next Governor of Florida," on April 26, 2010. Only Arth showed up, but he brought the cardboard cutouts with him again.
During the primary, Arth confronted Rick Scott at a rally with questions about how Scott would handle the soaring incarceration rate and the War on Drugs
. In the filmed encounter, Arth compared Scott's rambling and evasive "non-answer" to something Sarah Palin
would say. Arth staged a photo opportunity after Scott's speech and flummoxed Scott by informing him that he (Arth) was also a gubernatorial candidate. Scott quickly ducked out of the building. Scott later won the Republican primary after spending an estimated $50 million of his own money.
After the primaries, Alex Sink challenged Rick Scott to a series of five debates but, at an Orlando rally on August 28, brushed off a direct face-to-face challenge from Arth to debate. Eric Jotkoff, the Florida Democratic Party communications director, who had orchestrated attempts to freeze Arth out of the race, had Arth escorted out of the rally by a security guard. Rick Scott, for his part, ignored requests to debate from both candidates. Arth was so frustrated by the unwillingness of the major candidates to face off for the sake of public scrutiny that he proposed that debates among all candidates should be a condition of running for office.
By the October 25, 2010 Tampa debate between Scott and Sink, Scott had spent $60 million of his own money on the campaign compared to Sink's $28 million. At the same debate, Arth and his running mate, Al Krulick, posed with standup cutouts of Alex Sink and Rick Scott that had wads of cash protruding from their clothes and hands. Both Arth and Krulick complained on microphone that they had been frozen out because of a corrupt electoral system that was all about money and the preservation of a financial elite. A show of hands requested by the moderator indicated that neither of the two-party candidates were acceptable to many of the people in attendance. Arth wrote after the event that he was dressed as Robin Hood
"to represent the demand of the people for return of the common wealth that was taken from us by the robber barons and their two-party sycophants." This echoed the theme of a front page story on Arth in the Orlando Weekly
, which was circulated at the debate.
, and Independent Peter Allen.
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
, home/landscape/urban designer, public policy analyst
Public policy
Public policy as government action is generally the principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. In general, the foundation is the pertinent national and...
, advocate for the homeless, futurist, and author. He was a candidate for the governor of Florida in 2009 and 2010.
Art
Michael E. Arth has worked with a wide range of media; From rock concertRock concert
The term rock concert refers to a musical performance in the style of any one of many genres inspired by "rock and roll" music. While a variety of vocal and instrumental styles can constitute a rock concert, this phenomenon is typically characterized by bands playing at least one electric guitar,...
posters in the early 1970s, to original prints like etchings, serigraphs, and lithographs, to paintings, and photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
. A large format book of his work, Michael E. Arth: Introspective 1972-1982, was published in 1983. He shifted focus in 1986 to home
Architectural Design
Architectural Design, also known as AD, is a UK-based architectural journal first launched in 1930.In its early days it was more concerned with the British scene, but gradually became more international. It also moved away from presenting mostly news towards theme-based issues...
and urban design
Urban design
Urban design concerns the arrangement, appearance and functionality of towns and cities, and in particular the shaping and uses of urban public space. It has traditionally been regarded as a disciplinary subset of urban planning, landscape architecture, or architecture and in more recent times has...
. In 2007, in collaboration with filmmaker Blake Wiers, he produced his first feature length documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
. His book, Democracy and the Common Wealth: Breaking the Stranglehold of the Special Interests,
Democracy and the Common Wealth
Democracy and the Common Wealth: Breaking the Stranglehold of the Special Interests is a 2010 book by urban designer, policy analyst and artist Michael E. Arth...
was published in 2010.
Building and urban design
Arth designed, built, and landscapedLandscaping
Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including:# living elements, such as flora or fauna; or what is commonly referred to as gardening, the art and craft of growing plants with a goal of creating a beautiful environment within the landscape.#...
a small number of private residences in Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
from 1986 to 2000, most notably "Casa de Lila," a seven-story Spanish style villa integrated into a mountain ridge in the Hollywood Hills
Hollywood Hills
The Hollywood Hills is an affluent and exclusive neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in the southeastern Santa Monica Mountains. It is bound by Laurel Canyon Boulevard to the west, Vermont Avenue to the east, Mulholland Drive to the north, and Sunset Boulevard to the south.-Hollywood Hills...
.
In 1999, Arth founded a more pedestrian and ecology-oriented version of New urbanism
New urbanism
New Urbanism is an urban design movement, which promotes walkable neighborhoods that contain a range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually continued to reform many aspects of real estate development, urban planning, and municipal land-use...
called New pedestrianism
New pedestrianism
New Pedestrianism is a more idealistic variation of New Urbanism in urban planning theory, founded in 1999 by Michael E. Arth, an American artist, urban/home/landscape designer, futurist, and author...
. His new approach calls for very compact new towns and neighborhoods where tree-shaded, pedestrian and bike lanes are in front of all residences and businesses, with tree-lined automobile streets at the rear. While the pedestrian lane idea is not entirely original (examples of rear loading garages with front sidewalks that replace streets were built in Venice, California, as early as 1910), his fervent emphasis on this as a panacea makes his work distinctive.
Arth asserts that living in what he calls a pedestrian village
Pedestrian Village
A pedestrian village is a compact, pedestrian-oriented neighborhood or town, with a mixed-use village center, that follows the tenets of New Pedestrianism. Shared-use lanes for pedestrians and those using bicycles, Segways, wheelchairs, and other small rolling conveyances that do not use internal...
, coupled with a compact, mixed-use neighborhood or village center, will ameliorate a wide range of problems related to urban living. Having such a development built near a downtown
Downtown
Downtown is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's core or central business district ....
area or newly-created village center reduces the amount of travel time that would normally be spent in an automobile, thus increasing the physical activity of the homeowner and saving energy. In more densely built new towns or developments, he claims that this new form of housing would greatly reduce the dependency on the automobile and the resulting village-like towns would vastly increase both aesthetics and quality of life. He also promotes the creation of similar pedestrian amenities that can be retrofitted to existing towns. Arth's design and development company, Pedestrian Villages Inc., develops projects that follow the principles of New pedestrianism
New pedestrianism
New Pedestrianism is a more idealistic variation of New Urbanism in urban planning theory, founded in 1999 by Michael E. Arth, an American artist, urban/home/landscape designer, futurist, and author...
.
The Garden District
In 2000, while working on a book and documentary, The Labors of Hercules: Modern Solutions to 12 Herculean Problems, Arth found a small slumSlum
A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...
in DeLand, Florida
DeLand, Florida
DeLand is the county seat of Volusia County, Florida. In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city's population to be 24,375. It is part of the Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated population of 436,575 in 2006...
, where he could try out some of his ideas. Subsequently, he purchased 32 dilapidated homes and businesses, which he restored over a seven-year period. Running out the drug
Crack cocaine
Crack cocaine is the freebase form of cocaine that can be smoked. It may also be termed rock, hard, iron, cavvy, base, or just crack; it is the most addictive form of cocaine. Crack rocks offer a short but intense high to smokers...
dealers and rebuilding the downtown neighborhood won him the support of the community and a number of awards. He changed the name of "Crack Town" to Downtown DeLand's Historic Garden District. Arth enhanced the existing infrastructure by planting trees and by building pedestrian lanes, gardens, courtyards, and bike facilities in the district.
Solution to homelessness
In 2007 Arth proposed a controversial national solution for homelessnessHomelessness
Homelessness describes the condition of people without a regular dwelling. People who are homeless are unable or unwilling to acquire and maintain regular, safe, and adequate housing, or lack "fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence." The legal definition of "homeless" varies from country...
that would involve building nearly car-free Pedestrian Villages in place of what he terms "the current band-aid approach to the problem." A prototype, Tiger Bay Village, was proposed for near Daytona Beach. He claims that this would be superior for treating the psychological as well as psychiatric needs of homeless adults, and would cost less than the current approach. It would also provide a lower cost alternative to jail, and provide a half-way station for those getting out of prison. It could also provide a community for those in drug treatment and the non-violent mentally ill who are either incarcerated or living on the street. Work opportunities, including construction and maintenance of the villages, as well as the creation of work force agencies would help make the villages financially and socially viable. In 2009 Arth launched an extensive website that explains the village concept in detail.
New Urban Cowboy
New Urban Cowboy: Toward a New Pedestrianism, a feature length documentary, was released in April 2008. The film chronicles Arth's rehabilitation of DeLand's Garden District and explains the philosophy behind New Pedestrianism.Democracy and the Common Wealth
Democracy and the Common Wealth: Breaking the Stranglehold of the Special Interests is a wide-ranging, 480 page book published in 2010 that exposes what Arth calls the “dirty secrets” of America’s electoral system. Arth proposes solutions to fix the electoral system, and then gives a long list of solutions to failed policies that could result from having a truly representative democracy led by effective, trustworthy leaders, who would be elected by a majority, and who would not have to spend their time raising campaign funds, or catering to paid lobbyists.It also tells the story of the first year of Florida’s 2010 gubernatorial race. In the main text, and in the postscript, Arth writes about how he became an independent candidate for governor after being “frozen out” of the "undemocratic" Florida Democratic Party
Florida Democratic Party
The Florida Democratic Party is the official organization for Democrats in the state of Florida.-History:The Florida Democratic Party has historically dominated dodo Florida's state and local politics. Florida's Governor's Mansion was closed to Republicans from 1877 until 1967, when Claude R...
for not having millions of dollars, and for suggesting that campaigns be about issues instead of money.
The first sixteen chapters are about how to break up the oligarchy
Oligarchy
Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with an elite class distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, commercial, and/or military legitimacy...
and make "a more perfect union" that creates what Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
called a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." To do this would require trading the winner-take-all
Winner-take-all
Winner-take-all is a computational principle applied in computational models of neural networks by which neurons in a layer compete with each others for activation...
voting system for ranked choice voting in single member elections, and replacing single-member congressional districts for multi-member congressional districts, which would use proportional representation
Proportional representation
Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...
and a form of ranked choice voting called single transferable voting. It would also require doing away with private campaign financing, paid lobbyists, and most campaign advertising; and replacing influence-buying and propaganda with highly regulated public campaign financing that would cost a tiny fraction of what is spent now. "Pre-voting," by the electorate, with publicly financed micro-payments during the campaign, would determine both placement and ranking on the ballot in order to simplify the process and get voters more involved in thinking about the issues.
Futurist and environmentalist
Michael Arth's ideas include:Self-Driving Vehicles: He writes that the use of shared driverless car
Driverless car
An autonomous car, also known as robotic or informally as driverless, is an autonomous vehicle capable of fulfilling the human transportation capabilities of a traditional car. As an autonomous vehicle, it is capable of sensing its environment and navigating on its own...
s, combined with the increased use of virtual reality
Virtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
for work, travel, and pleasure—could reduce the world's 800,000,000 cars to a tiny fraction of that number within a few decades. Arth believes this should be the aim of public policy for various environmental, safety, and economic reasons.
UNICE: Arth coined the term UNICE (Universal Network of Intelligent Conscious Entities) in the 1990s to describe a conscious intelligence that he theorizes "might be the result of a new form of intelligent life developed from a hive-like interaction of computers, humans, and future forms of the Internet."
Eco-Policy Design: Arth has developed an "Eco-Policy Design" to eliminate most human-caused emissions by 2029. The plan is based on a range of economic and environmentally sustainable policies.
2009 Democratic Conference
Arth began running for Florida Governor as a DemocratDemocratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
in June 2009. According to various press releases and blogs, the Democratic Party Chair Karen L. Thurman personally barred Michael E. Arth from speaking at the 2009 Democratic Conference, reportedly telling him that she wasn't going to let him speak and that she "wanted to concentrate on one candidate." This was despite the primary still being 10 months away. On the first day of the conference, held at the Disney Yacht Club and Resort October 9–11, Arth had an ideally situated table rented from the Florida Democratic Party for $500. When he and his entourage showed up the next day, all of his material had been put in storage by party staffers and his table had been assigned to someone else. His newly assigned table was in a distant and nearly empty room on the opposite side of the convention building from the other candidates. With the help of Disney employees, and under the supervision of documentary film cameras, the table was moved back to near the same location. As soon as the camera was put away, a Democratic Party staffer tried to get Arth to move his table and also tried to prevent Arth and his volunteers from hanging his banner. Again, Disney staff intervened and Arth was allowed to stay and put up his banner. As a result of being frozen out of the Democratic Party, and believing that reform would have to come from outside the two-party system, Arth switched to independent status, or "no party affiliation".
Campaign message
His campaign emphasized the importance of radical transparencyRadical transparency
Radical transparency is a management approach in which all decision making is carried out publicly. The term was used by Daniel Goleman in his book...
and better representation through voting rights reform. He disdained the private campaign financing system which he says elects fundraisers in the place of good leaders and marginalizes the issues. He wanted to do away with the winner-take-all voting scheme and replace it with Instant Runoff Voting and Proportional Representation
Proportional representation
Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...
. He called the War on Drugs
War on Drugs
The War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention being undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade...
"a war on the poor," and pointed out that Florida's incarceration is 8 times higher than Canada's. He said that Florida prisons are growing faster than any other state because of deinstitutionalization of the mentally disabled, drug prohibition, and minimum sentencing laws.
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
site, and on Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
, Arth wrote that a top official in the state Democratic Party had tried to talk him out of running. Arth said that he was told the newspapers and other major media outlets would not write about him because campaigns were about money and not ideas. Arth quoted the official as saying, "If you don't have $3 million you cannot even get started. You will need $1.3 million a week to win it." He wrote that he asked the editors of several newspapers if it was true they would not write about his campaign. The Daytona News-Journal, a major Florida newspaper, answered his question with a front-page news article with four pictures on June 23, 2009. The article was both above and below the fold, plus a second page, and included four photographs.
More media coverage followed, including a front page article about Arth in the West Volusia Beacon. The subtitle to the headline was "Can a Renaissance man with no money be Governor?" The article mentioned that the Florida Democratic Party
Florida Democratic Party
The Florida Democratic Party is the official organization for Democrats in the state of Florida.-History:The Florida Democratic Party has historically dominated dodo Florida's state and local politics. Florida's Governor's Mansion was closed to Republicans from 1877 until 1967, when Claude R...
leadership was snubbing Arth and, on August 6, 2009, Arth's campaign released a press release and candidate's statement. The release stated that numerous attempts by Arth and his campaign to make contact with the party's leaders had been fruitless and that the leadership was systematically favoring one candidate over the other—more than a year in advance of the primary—even while requiring neutrality on the part of its members.
"Biking Mike"
In late November 2009, the Orlando Sentinel reported that Arth would be taking his grassrootsGrassroots
A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures...
campaign on the road, and touring the state by bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
beginning in Spring 2010. This is a nod to former Florida governor, Lawton Chiles
Lawton Chiles
Lawton Mainor Chiles, Jr. was an American politician from the US state of Florida. In a career spanning four decades, Chiles, a Democrat who never lost an election, served in the Florida House of Representatives , the Florida State Senate , the United States Senate , and as the 41st Governor of...
, who walked the state of Florida in 1970 in successful pursuit of a U.S. Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Seat. It is also a nod to Arth's interest in solar energy, electric vehicle
Electric vehicle
An electric vehicle , also referred to as an electric drive vehicle, uses one or more electric motors or traction motors for propulsion...
s, and his New Pedestrianism movement. Regarding this trip, from Key West
Key West
Key West is an island in the Straits of Florida on the North American continent at the southernmost tip of the Florida Keys. Key West is home to the southernmost point in the Continental United States; the island is about from Cuba....
to Pensacola
Pensacola
Pensacola is a city in the western part of the U.S. state of Florida.Pensacola may also refer to:* Pensacola people, a group of Native Americans* A number of places in the Florida:** Pensacola Bay** Pensacola Regional Airport...
, he said, "There are always creative ways to get around the power elite, for justice and democracy to persist." In fact, Arth was delayed getting started because he wanted to finish the book. His "Biking Mike" tour started with the Pridefest event in Key West on June 12, 2010, followed by the parade. Arth expected to cycle for two months. He rode in the Lake Helen, Florida
Lake Helen, Florida
For the high-altitude lake in Lassen Volcanic National Park, see Lake Helen Lake Helen is a city in Volusia County, Florida, United States. The population was 2,743 at the 2000 census. As of 2004, the population recorded by the U.S...
July 4 parade, and almost ran into a small tornado near the half-way point in Jacksonville. He finished the 800-mile ride mid-day on July 28, just in time to attend a town hall meeting in Pensacola where a BP representative and other officials were discussing the BP Oil Spill. Arth spoke about this and other spills, and the dominance of energy policy
Energy policy
Energy policy is the manner in which a given entity has decided to address issues of energy development including energy production, distribution and consumption...
by the oil industry. His blog, at his gubernatorial web site, gives a running day-by-day account of his adventures.
Arth's campaign for electoral reform
Arth praised the Democratic Executive Committees (DECs) and rank and file members, with whom he met and gave talks to, but confronted the leadership of the Florida Democratic PartyFlorida Democratic Party
The Florida Democratic Party is the official organization for Democrats in the state of Florida.-History:The Florida Democratic Party has historically dominated dodo Florida's state and local politics. Florida's Governor's Mansion was closed to Republicans from 1877 until 1967, when Claude R...
(FDP) over their endorsement of a rival candidate. He wrote in a statement that accompanied a press release:
- "This attempt by a few members of the FDP to choose the candidate for the rest of the party is also done by the Florida Republican Party and others. One almost expects this sort of behavior in the Republican Party, but it is especially painful to see it in my own party. The term “Democratic Party” should not be an oxymoron. There must be electoral reform both within and outside the party. Combined with a winner-take-all system that narrows voters’ choices by marginalizing third party challengers, a tiny cadre of officials within the two parties further narrows that choice by often anointing candidates in statewide elections. This is only a small part of what is wrong with our electoral system. We should reform our electoral system by requiring party neutrality until the primary, while also instituting minimal public campaign financing, instant runoff voting, direct voting, and proportional representation. This would bring dignity to politics, stop the vote-buying, help keep good people honest, eliminate spoilers and vote strategizing, make gerrymanders extinct, and bring out the best candidates. Voters often complain about not being properly represented, but they usually do not blame the real culprit—our electoral system. Instead they tend to blame the politicians who they see as venal, superficial, power-hungry, mendacious, and preoccupied with non-stop fundraising. Only by reforming the electoral system can we get the leaders we both need and deserve."
At least a few other Democrats agreed. An anonymous DEC chair was quoted as saying, "The primary should be an election, not a coronation." A Democrat from Gainesville, Luis Cuevas, with Progressive Push (a Political Action Committee) said, “It’s like the old Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. The party leaders choose the candidates and you get to vote for the people they chose.” Hilliary A. Martin, a Democratic official in Volusia County, wrote:
- "The Florida Democratic Party bylaws tell me that our Democratic Executive Committee has to remain neutral while a few party leaders select, promote, and fundraise for a candidate who is far less suitable than Mr. Arth. It’s outrageously undemocratic, both for us and for the voters. The party bylaws need to be rewritten so it that it is clear that both the DECs and the FDP stay neutral before the primary. In compensation, Mr. Arth should immediately receive the same number of ads that were already given to the other candidate. Anything less would be a disgrace."
Pat Hatfield of the West Volusia Beacon, an admitted Democrat, wrote an impassioned opinion piece on the subject titled "This Means War!" She wrote: "DeLand’s own gubernatorial candidate Michael Arth is fighting the good fight to get his party’s nomination. He’s run into the true party system at work.... When you go to the polls, you have a choice between two hand-picked candidates... regardless of party, it's the party cheeses who choose the candidates."
On August 25, 2009, Michael E. Arth filed a grievance and proposals with the Florida Democratic Party titled "The Democratic Party is not being Democratic." The grievances were about his being "frozen out" of the party and the proposals included suggestions for how the party (and the nation) could become more democratic through electoral reform. The Miami Heralds Naked Politics Blog printed the entire four-page grievance.
Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell wrote a column on September 2, 2009 titled "Politicos are Hacking Away at Our Choices." Maxwell wrote that party hacks—whom he defined as "those who put personal and party agendas ahead of the public"--from both Republican and Democratic Parties, have forgotten their place.
- "Next up, we have the Democrats, who have crowned their chosen candidate for governor—and don't want other Democrats getting in the way. Highlighting the party elitism is Volusia Democrat Michael Arth, an urban designer who made headlines about seven years ago for helping transform a crime-ridden area in downtown DeLand into a trendy neighborhood known as the DeLand Garden District. Arth decided to run for governor—and had this silly idea that the Democratic Party would welcome another Democrat to the race. Boy, was he wrong...."
Debate
Charlie Crist
Charles Joseph "Charlie" Crist, Jr. is an American politician who was the 44th Governor of Florida. Prior to his election as governor, Crist previously served as Florida State Senator, Education Commissioner, and Attorney General...
, the current governor, is running for Senate in 2010, and the other two, Alex Sink
Alex Sink
Adelaide "Alex" Sink is an American politician of the Democratic Party. Sink was the Chief Financial Officer for the state of Florida and treasurer on the board of trustees of the Florida State Board of Administration...
and Bill McCollum
Bill McCollum
Ira William "Bill" McCollum, Jr. is a former Florida Attorney General. A Republican, he was Florida's 36th attorney general, taking office in 2007...
are running for the governor's seat. Only Arth showed up, but the "debate" went on anyway. Arth's entourage brought life-size, standup cutouts of the three leaders. Arth said, "Whether they are here or not doesn't matter because they won't debate the serious issues affecting Floridians." Arth said that the leaders would not discuss the soaring prison population, electoral reform, or how to properly manage growth to prevent a wide range of problems. He also said that politicians will usually only talk about things that people agree about and gave these examples:
- "Sink's site has five issues, but it's really the same issue repeated 5 times. She proposes trimming some fat from current programs. Elsewhere, on ads paid for by taxpayers, McCollum has talked about going after sexual predators. Of course we need to go after criminals and trim government waste – these are issues that require no debate. Instead of talking about things everyone agrees on, let's get to the bottom of how these three leaders, the trustees of Florida's nest egg, could lose $61 billion in 18 months, even after more than a dozen critical reports warned them that the Florida State Board of AdministrationFlorida State Board of AdministrationThe Florida State Board of Administration manages pension funds for nearly 1 million current and retired Florida teachers, public employees, and their families...
was engaging in questionable investment practices".
In a written commentary to an article by Aaron Wiener in The Washington Independent titled "Florida Gubernatorial Debate: Three Cardboard Cutouts and One Real Live Arth," Arth wrote:
- "Having mute, life-size cutouts of Florida's leaders on stage with me is not a joke. It's a serious commentary on the sad state of our electoral system and the kind of leaders it produces. Not all politicians are bad, but our flawed electoral system tends to select for venality and other undesirable traits. Our leaders avoid the real issues, prevaricate when forced to talk, and spend much of their time raising money from interests highly invested in the status quo....If voting really worked it would be illegal. As George CarlinGeorge CarlinGeorge Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
once said, "I haven't voted since I stopped taking drugs. That was in the late '70s, and the delusional thinking stopped immediately on both fronts."
DeLand's Stetson University invited Arth and Florida's top three leaders to an event titled, "The Next Governor of Florida," on April 26, 2010. Only Arth showed up, but he brought the cardboard cutouts with him again.
During the primary, Arth confronted Rick Scott at a rally with questions about how Scott would handle the soaring incarceration rate and the War on Drugs
War on Drugs
The War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention being undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade...
. In the filmed encounter, Arth compared Scott's rambling and evasive "non-answer" to something Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin
Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...
would say. Arth staged a photo opportunity after Scott's speech and flummoxed Scott by informing him that he (Arth) was also a gubernatorial candidate. Scott quickly ducked out of the building. Scott later won the Republican primary after spending an estimated $50 million of his own money.
After the primaries, Alex Sink challenged Rick Scott to a series of five debates but, at an Orlando rally on August 28, brushed off a direct face-to-face challenge from Arth to debate. Eric Jotkoff, the Florida Democratic Party communications director, who had orchestrated attempts to freeze Arth out of the race, had Arth escorted out of the rally by a security guard. Rick Scott, for his part, ignored requests to debate from both candidates. Arth was so frustrated by the unwillingness of the major candidates to face off for the sake of public scrutiny that he proposed that debates among all candidates should be a condition of running for office.
By the October 25, 2010 Tampa debate between Scott and Sink, Scott had spent $60 million of his own money on the campaign compared to Sink's $28 million. At the same debate, Arth and his running mate, Al Krulick, posed with standup cutouts of Alex Sink and Rick Scott that had wads of cash protruding from their clothes and hands. Both Arth and Krulick complained on microphone that they had been frozen out because of a corrupt electoral system that was all about money and the preservation of a financial elite. A show of hands requested by the moderator indicated that neither of the two-party candidates were acceptable to many of the people in attendance. Arth wrote after the event that he was dressed as Robin Hood
Robin Hood
Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....
"to represent the demand of the people for return of the common wealth that was taken from us by the robber barons and their two-party sycophants." This echoed the theme of a front page story on Arth in the Orlando Weekly
Orlando Weekly
The Orlando Weekly is an alternative newsweekly distributed in the Greater Orlando area of Florida. It features local news, views, arts, entertainment, local music coverage, an events calendar and classifieds...
, which was circulated at the debate.
Results
In the November election, Arth received 18,644 votes, or .35% of the total votes cast, behind Republican Rick Scott, Democrat Alex SinkAlex Sink
Adelaide "Alex" Sink is an American politician of the Democratic Party. Sink was the Chief Financial Officer for the state of Florida and treasurer on the board of trustees of the Florida State Board of Administration...
, and Independent Peter Allen.
See also
- New pedestrianismNew pedestrianismNew Pedestrianism is a more idealistic variation of New Urbanism in urban planning theory, founded in 1999 by Michael E. Arth, an American artist, urban/home/landscape designer, futurist, and author...
- New urbanismNew urbanismNew Urbanism is an urban design movement, which promotes walkable neighborhoods that contain a range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually continued to reform many aspects of real estate development, urban planning, and municipal land-use...
- Labours of Hercules
- DeLand, FloridaDeLand, FloridaDeLand is the county seat of Volusia County, Florida. In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city's population to be 24,375. It is part of the Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated population of 436,575 in 2006...
- EschatologyEschatologyEschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
- Florida gubernatorial election, 2010Florida gubernatorial election, 2010The 2010 Florida gubernatorial election took place on November 2, 2010. Incumbent Governor Charlie Crist chose not to run for a second term and instead ran for the Senate seat vacated by Mel Martinez. This resulted in an open race for Governor of Florida...
- New Urban Cowboy: Toward a New Pedestrianism
- List of urban theorists
- HomelessnessHomelessnessHomelessness describes the condition of people without a regular dwelling. People who are homeless are unable or unwilling to acquire and maintain regular, safe, and adequate housing, or lack "fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence." The legal definition of "homeless" varies from country...
- Principles of Intelligent UrbanismPrinciples of Intelligent UrbanismPrinciples of Intelligent Urbanism is a theory of urban planning composed of a set of ten axioms intended to guide the formulation of city plans and urban designs. They are intended to reconcile and integrate diverse urban planning and management concerns...
- Birth creditBirth creditA "choice-based, marketable, birth license plan" or "birth credits" for population control has been promoted by urban designer and environmental activist Michael E. Arth since the 1990s...
- Driverless CarDriverless carAn autonomous car, also known as robotic or informally as driverless, is an autonomous vehicle capable of fulfilling the human transportation capabilities of a traditional car. As an autonomous vehicle, it is capable of sensing its environment and navigating on its own...
External links
- Michael E. Arth's website
- Michael E. Arth Florida Governor 2010 website
- Arth's blog
- Information about UNICE
- Producer of New Urban Cowboy
- New Urban Cowboy site
- Online portal to The Labors of Hercules
- About New Pedestrianism
- Villages for the Homeless website
- Interview: Florida Candidate Michael E. Arth 8-01-09
- YouTube video of campaign video "I am the Very Model of a Pragmatic Humanitarian"