Alan Augustson started out running for the Green Party’s presidential nomination. He participated in several online debates and was active in the blogosphere. Then last summer, he suspended his presidential campaign and announced he would instead be running for Congress against Democrat Rahm Emanuel. He’s still running, and so are 60 other Greens in Illinois, which will host the 2008 Green Party convention.
According to Green Party Watch, the Illinois Green Party will have 16 candidates for Congress, 19 for state legislature, and 26 for county-level offices. Rich Whitney, the party’s candidate for governor in 2006, received an astounding 10% of the vote, qualifying the ILGP for major-party status. “Since then they have been rising to the occasion and becoming a model state Green Party in America,” says GPW.
This could have been, and in fact, SHOULD HAVE BEEN, the Libertarian Party of Illinois in this position.
However, in 2006 the Libertarian Party of Illinois chose to sit on their hands rather than getting on the ballot and running candidates.
Matt – Do you remember Alan from Capitalist Dove? He posted there a lot. Maybe he’ll get on board at IPR. He’d have a more amenable audience.
I don’t line up very closely with the Greens, but it would be awesome if Augustson helped bounce Emanuel out of the House. He’s a cancer and is one of the main enablers for pro-war Democrats in congress.
Go Alan go!
LPiberty – I think I’m going to try to put together a candidates page here at IPR.
Is there a convenient site that lists minor party candidates for Congress?
I went looking at some of the later pages on the LP candidate tracker. Though not a great site, I like the name:
http://realedealforcongress.com/
Good for them!