BLONG BELONGS IN THE SENATE - FOR A CHANGE

On an average day the U.S. Senate race between Dianne Feinstein and
Michael Huffington resembles a boxing match between two lookalike
candidates who are competing to see who can spend the most money and
sound toughest on crime and immigration. You may have no clue that
there's a candidate who sees things differently. But there is a third
choice. Her name is Barbara Blong, and she's the Green Party Candidate.

The Green Party of California is part of a global network of Green
parties existing in 73 countries and across the U.S. Although it is just
two years old, so far over 70 California Greens have been elected or
appointed to public office since the party's founding. The Green Party
emphasizes ecological wisdom, social justice, nonviolence, grassroots
democracy, and feminism. Greens see that all life is interconnected,
that violence to the Earth does violence to our own communities, that
violence to others is self-destructive, that cooperation is preferable to
competition, that sustainability is preferable to growth, and that
community-based economic development is better than the flight of capital.

Blong is a longtime activist in San Francisco and one of the founding
members of the local and statewide Green Parties. She helped register
the more than 100,000 voters who qualified the Greens for ballot status
in January 1992. Most recently, Blong has organized study groups and
given talks on environmental and women's issues, and participated in the
campaign against San Francisco's "matrix" program. She has paid
the rent and raised a daughter working as a landscape gardener and
massage therapist.

On key issues in this campaign Blong differs strongly with her opponents:

* She opposes "three-strikes" legislation and Proposition 184 and
proposes concentrating resources on crime prevention measures such as
education and job training.

* She forthrightly opposes the "Save Our State" initiative, Proposition
187, and the militarization of U.S. borders, and proposes adjustment of
NAFTA/GATT international trade treaties so that economies of other
countries can support the people who live there.

* She supports Single-Payer Health Care and Proposition 186 in order to
provide quality care to everyone, no exceptions.

* She supports electoral reform - proportional representation opens the
system to alternative voices, women, and minorities and campaign finance
reform equalizes candidates' access to voters.

Blong sees her campaign as "a means of countering the hopelessness and
despair I see all around me. It's also a chance for the Green Party to
build some practical experience in a new style of electoral politics. It
gives people someone to vote for now, and it's an investment in the future."

For more information, please contact the Barbara Blong for U.S. Senate
campaign committee, 2940 16th Street, Suite 200-8, San Francisco, CA
94103, (415) 255-2940, FAX: (415) 558-8135. An in-depth interview with
Barbara Blong by journalist John Trinkl is available upon request.

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