Comments on: Cynthia McKinney Will be on Ballot for 70.5% of Voters

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 03:35:19 +0000

I am also a GP member who is voting for Nader in 08! Ralph is the reason I joined the GP. He is a far bigger name nationally. I went to his rally last week and saw other GP members who are voting for him. I think Matthew is right and the GP should have backed him when he has more supporters and raised more money than 2000, along with being on more states. I think he would have helped the party after this election, especially with poor showing by Cobb. I can see how they want to run another name other than Ralph, but if there is poor showing this year that won’t help. Vote Nader!

By: Matthew

Matthew — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 21:53:45 +0000

There needs to be some sort of green/left/independent coalition in the future. Going it alone isn’t working. Nader and McKinney have pretty much the same platform. Why split votes between them? With that said, since Nader is on the most ballots, and is the most visible candidate whose issues I agree with, this GP member is voting for the Ralphster in 08!

By: Will Yeager

Will Yeager — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:31:53 +0000

The proposition the Green Party’s long term interests are served by running Cynthia McKinney instead of Ralph Nader is a non-starter. When the post election analysis happens and it is seen in how many of the states that the Green Party retains ballot status under a McKinney candidacy compared to how many would have been retained under a Nader Candidacy, there will be regrets that the elitist greens were able to once again subvert the expressed democratic vote of the rank and file of the Green Party.

The California Green Party is floundering as a result of the Nader haters manipulation of the National Green Party by giving delegates to paper state without greens. The recent Dana Point Plenary was poorly attended in an urban area and follows the low attendence of the April Berkeley Plenary, both of which occurred after Nader wisely chose to not contest a process that was stacked against him. The one green one vote principle has been abused as can be seen by the actual votes in a primary and delegates sent ratios in a report prepared by Chuck Giese.

Complementary statements are well and good, but its the nuts and bolts of ballot status and votes that make a party work. The activity level in the Green Party is down as a result of the way McKinney was pre-choosen by the National Green Party elite. An example of this is that the California Green Party may not even publish an issue of its newspaper before this November’s election.

The long term interests of the Green Party would have been better served by running Nader in 2008. There is no significant new organizing in communities that are complementary to the urban, white middle to upper class groups that make up the current membership of the Green Party.

Green Party Voter Registration is down in California, the inter-party feud in up and matters seem not to be getting better.

I hope that there is a lot of soul searching after this November’s election that causes the Green Party to reinvent its current incarnation to avoid a slide into such relevancy as the Peace & Freedom Party has.

By: Mike Feinstein

Mike Feinstein — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:00:46 +0000

While the number of ballots we are on is important, the primary value of the McKinney/Clemente campaign in 2008 is buildling with different constituencies than we did before.

There was absolutely no way after Florida 2000, Obama in 2008 and eight years of the press blaming us for Bush, that McKinney (or Nader, or McKinney/Nader) was going to get 5% of the national popular vote in 2008.

Therefore, the key strategic value in 2008 for running on the presidential level was to make an additional and complementary statement about who we are, to what we did in 1996, 2000 and 2004, in terms of who we chose to be on our ticket.

Running Nader again would not have done that. McKinney/Clemente does do that.

Ballot lines and votes are important – but the nature of our electoral system understates our support because it disincentivizes people from voting for us and the ballot lines are unfairly hard to come by.

Therefore we have to see what kind of statement we are making with out nat’l ticket, to people who may support us for the next 50 years. And after having Nader as our standard bearer (and I was proud of it), we needed to say something new, if we wanted to grow in the breadth of who we are.

For the long term growth of our party, we made the right choice in 2008.

By: Ron Ralph

Ron Ralph — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:03:00 +0000

A sea change as citizens see their savings disappear.

nader paul kucinich gravel
Open the damn debates!
mckinney ventura
perot charts
RATM

By: Phil Sawyer

Phil Sawyer — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 02:16:04 +0000

Tom Yager:

Nevertheless, any state party always has the legal and moral right to secede from the national party.

By: WILL BATES

WILL BATES — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:15:47 +0000

TRENT ARE YOU THE MANAGER FOR PAUL IN LA? I NOTICES YOUR NAME ON THE SOS WEBSITE

By: 473367

473367 — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:40:59 +0000

Your arguments keep proving my point, Joell. If McKinney were not the nominee, one of the lesser-known candidates would be it, without the name recognition and fundraising ability of a former member of Congress. But that nominee would still be on the ballot in 32 states. Because the ballot access work was done by the national and state party organizations, not the Presidential nominee. The vast majority of our ballot lines were won before the nomination was made by Green Party supports – not Nader supporters, not McKinney supporters, not Swift supporters. (Or rather, by all of them together.) That is “the true measure” of the current Green Party.

By: NE

NE — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:32:52 +0000

I do not think that Cynthia McKinney will be leaving the Green Party after the 2008 election. I am guessing that she will be the 2012 presidential candidate as well.

By: joell

joell — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:02:16 +0000

So Nader is recruited in 2k,the GP revels in the success of his candidacy, and now, 8 yrs later, its not to be included on the yardstick for measuring party progress?

The GP has simply replaced Nader with Mckinney; and as with Nader, her supporters are mistaken for GP supporters and “party progress”

For the sake of discussion, lets focus on the post Nader GP era.

IN 04, a nobody was nominated,with disastrous results. In 08, a person of stature was nominated, and there will be a modest improvement over 04. And after the election and Mckinney leaves the GP, so will her supporters; the same thing happened with Nader in 2k

A true measure of the current GP is revealed by substituting either of Mckinney’s two main opponents for the nomination. Kat Swift raised a total of $232; and we’re talking about someone who’s running for president of the united states.

you can focus on “how the current organizational structure has developed since it came into existence in 2001″, but without Mckinney, there would be an 04 Cobb repeat or worse.