For President, I plan to support:
Submitted by esteban on Tue, 02/19/2008 - 1:03am.
Whoever gets the nomination from the Green Party convention in Chicago.
84% (16 votes)
My favorite candidate, whether or not they get the nomination in Chicago.
11% (2 votes)
The Democrat.
0% (0 votes)
The Republican.
0% (0 votes)
Bloomberg.
5% (1 vote)
Total votes: 19
How about a catagory for most qualified? Who gets nominated in Chicago may not be the most qualified or my favorite may not be the most qualified.
I intend to support and vote for the nominee of the Green Party for President of the United States.
I shall do so regardless of which of our excellent candidates is nominated.
I shall do so regardless of which corporate pro-Empire candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama, is nominated by the "moderate" half of the One Corporate Party With Two Names.
in good conscience support any Green candidate for the presidency whom I don't believe has a reasonable expectation to garner a minimum of five percent (5%) of the popular vote. Individual state and local Green parties have outstanding candidates competing for office with a much higher expectation of success who need our support to succeed and grow the party's overall appeal to voters.
Call me crazy but I think we accomplish more as a party by winning elections than wasting a quarter of a million dollars or more on calling ourselves a party simply because we happen to have a presidential candidate.
This is an old argument in the 3rd party world, unfortunately. It goes back to the early 20th century, at least. People have stormed out of conventions over whether or not a party has decided to run or not to run a presidential candidate. My own opinion is that, since the vast majority of Americans don't clue into politics outside of presidential election years, it would be a tragic waste of an opportunity if we were to sit out a presidential election because of the lack of a marquee candidate who won't get 5% (not even Nader is likely to do that). Running a fine person people are enthusiastic about as a candidate will do far more to get people motivated to work, to campaign, and to vote, and guess who benefits from that.......downticket candidates, the very ones to whom you refer as being so important. I've always felt, and continue to feel, that a 3rd party that wants to increase and expand its national appeal and influence must operate on parallel tracks: presidential campaigns and state/local campaigns simultaneously, not one to the exclusion of the other.
It goes without saying that John Eder, the first Green elected to a state legislature, was first elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 2002, an off-election year in the presidential cycle. An even greater contrast can be seen in election results from 2006, another off-election year in the presidential cycle. Greens won seventy (70) seats in local elections. Gayle McLaughlin was elected Mayor of Richmond, California and became the first U.S. Green to govern a city of more than 100,000 people. Rich Whitney won in excess of ten percent of the popular vote while campaigning for governor in Illinois - an all-time high for a Green seeking gubernational office.
This would be considered a banner year by any relative comparison; furthermore, all of these results were accomplished without any influence from the coattails of a presidential candidate or the party spending much needed capital on one. Consequently, there are clearly more variables involved in the mix at play than you suggest which brings me to the conclusion that the dogmatic assumption of the necessity for a third party to field a presidential candidate in order to grow at the grassroots level is overly simplistic and perhaps better suited to the early part of the twentieth century.
enthusiastically for Ralph or Cynthia. I will NOT vote Demogreen. I didn't vote for Cobb last time and I'm not going to vote for his successor (if he has one) this time.
.....an option for Brian Moore, the Socialist Party candidate? At least a few Greens will be supporting the SP this year.