Can you imagine the Green Party vice presidential candidate this year, whoever it is, saying that he or she doesn’t “have a right to tell voters in swing states how to vote?” That’s the line that got people so angry. Of COURSE she has that right…as a candidate for vice president that’s her JOB. I mean, DUH. What was the point of the Cobb/LaMarche campaign even trying to get on the ballot in those states if their own candidate didn’t think she “had a right” to urge people to vote for her?

Here’s a transcript of that part of the interview – which speaks for itself – from http://www.democracynow.org/2004/10/7/left_out_in_cleveland_three_vp. Does this sound like a candidate who’s going all out to get as many votes for her ticket as possible, or like a candidate who’s trying to have it both ways and encourage people to do whatever it takes to get Bush out of office, i.e. vote for Kerry (without actually coming out and saying so)? And what if she had been a resident of a state where she DIDN’T “have the luxury” of voting for herself (and what a contemptuous phrase that is anyway)? What if Pat LaMarche were from Pennsylvania or Florida? Would she have even bothered to run for vice president?

AMY GOODMAN: Pat LaMarche, who are you voting for for president?

PAT LAMARCHE: Well, I live in a district of Maine—we are the only other state besides Nebraska where we split our electoral votes. I live in a part of Maine where Kerry has about a 20% lead, so I have the luxury of voting for myself and David Cobb for president. But we are very sensitive this year. The Green Party is very sensitive to the fact that George Bush is the worst president in the history of time. He has serious competition for that title. He needs to go. I feel like we’re on the titanic with George Bush, there are no lifeboats. I’m interested in getting a few of the women and children off.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re telling people in swing states to vote for John Kerry?

PAT LAMARCHE: I’m telling people in swing states that I don’t have a right to tell them how to vote, but that I certainly understand their feelings and their feeling of immediacy and necessity, especially in the progressive community to eliminate George Bush as president of the United States. I think the world is looking for us to do that. I think right now, we have gotten off on the hook a little bit by the fact that we might just have the world’s worst president by accident, but if we re-elect him, it’s on purpose.

As for Pat LaMarche, she most certainly did make that famous statement, and I know because I heard her say it, on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! program on Pacifica Radio.

The only thing that ever said that was a headline written by an editor who wasn’t even at the press conference that the headline was about.

Please do a better fact check on your stories.