Cynthia McKinney media release:
Cynthia McKinney Takes Lead with Clear Majority of Delegates As Green Party Heads to Chicago Presidential Nominating Convention
[Washington, DC] Recently released preliminary results show that Cynthia McKinney has taken a clear lead in the delegate count for the upcoming Presidential Nominating Convention of the Green Party of the United States, scheduled for Chicago, from July 10th – 13th. With the addition of the recent Florida and New York mail balloting results, McKinney now has an outright majority of 267 of the 550 allocated delegates. With these results, former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney now commands her first clear majority of convention delegates in the ongoing contested four-way race for a Green Party presidential nomination.
McKinney is widely acknowledged, both inside and outside the campaign, as a leading contender for the Green Party’s presidential nomination. Campaign organizers point out that nearly two-thirds of delegates have been named and instructed so far. There are 840 total possible delegates, including 34 uncommitted delegates, and some states for which allocation is incomplete. McKinney’s lead puts her ahead of all other announced and write-in candidates, including early returns for Ralph Nader, who has announced he will run independent of the Green Party.
However, her campaign is not taking anything for granted. Campaign supporters have taken the initiative to carry her message to the public in spite of inequitable access to the public airwaves and debates, which are being used to promote some candidates to the exclusion of others. “Ms. McKinney may be heading into the convention with an impressive lead,” said one campaign staffer, “but this contest is not yet over, and we’re urging our supporters to engage with this campaign and help us use this opportunity to bring to the forefront issues no other candidate in this race is prepared to raise as effectively as Cynthia does.”
Cynthia McKinney has an impressive public record serving two terms in the Georgia Assembly and six terms in the U.S. Congress. She is the only genuinely anti-war candidate currently running for President, and a recognized and beloved spokesperson and leader for the disfranchised millions of women, African-Americans and other people of color who too often have been denied their right to vote or to have their votes fairly counted. McKinney has been traveling the United States as well as abroad and speaking to tens of thousands of people who feel they are not represented by the existing political parties or leaders in office. Her campaign has built a broad coalition, greatly expanding on the Green Party’s traditional base.
Congresswoman McKinney broke with the Democratic Party after a newly elected majority in the House of Representatives failed to end the war on Iraq or address the critical social, economic and environmental crises faced by the nation. Even now her former party’s presidential candidates refuse to make concrete promises to end ongoing carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor to address the Bush-Pelosi saber-rattling against Iran. These are issues that the Green Party has made a focus in their recent campaigns.
McKinney’s campaign and candidacy have not gotten the press coverage enjoyed by other emerging party candidates, such as former Congressman Bob Barr, who this past weekend won the Libertarian Party nomination. Nor has she enjoyed the media attention focused on the independent Nader campaign. Even so, her campaign is attracting broad grassroots support from citizens who have taken matters into their own hands to spread her message, on YouTube and elsewhere. As one example, see:
http://www.runcynthiarun.org/Video/FocusedOnGloryOfBetterAmerica
Campaign organizers point out that the Green Party is expected to be on nearly all state ballots by November. With over 200 elected officials currently serving at the local level, the Green Party is the most successful emerging American political party in nearly a century. The media, supporters note, particularly those using the public airwaves, have a responsibility to fully inform the American electorate of all their choices in the upcoming election.
McKinney emphasizes her long-term strategy of ‘adding a chair to the table’ for the disfranchised by winning a 5% electoral count, qualifying her Party for public campaign funds in future elections. “Despite the limits and problems relating to national elections, it will take only 5% of the Presidential vote in November to add a seat to the table of decision-making. This will open the door on the long-closed two-party system to some essential public scrutiny and input, and position the Green Party for the 2012 race,” noted Cynthia McKinney. “Reclaiming our nation from the corporate war makers will be a long and arduous process. But it is work we cannot afford to postpone. The Green Party has been tilling this soil for nearly twenty years now. And the stakes for people across this country and around the world are simply too high for us to shrink from the challenge in this election cycle.”
For more on Cynthia McKinney’s campaign, and the issues being raised, please see her campaign site at:
I wasn’t quite sure where to mention this, but I see Roseanne Barr bas announced she is voting for Cynthia McKinney
http://www.roseanneworld.com/blog/2008/06/since_i_will_vote_for_a_woman.php
You got some strange memories there Jeremy. Nader started off saying he wanted just an endorsement, not the nomination. And no way did 22 state GPs give him their lines – my recollection is that none did.
Here’s my memory of what happened in 2004: Cobb led a valiant effort from the floor to convince Greens that the only way to restore public trust in the Green Party was to run a safe-states strategy, as opposed to Nader’s swing-state strategy. He prevailed with about 2/3 of the vote, after which Nader pulled an Alan Keyes: bolted the party (of which he had never been a registered member) and attempted to get ballot status in other ways. Some of those ways were on the up-and-up — he got the remnants of the Reform Party to endorse him, for instance, which gave him ballot status in seven states where Buchanan had done well enough to retain it, and he conducted successful signature drives in a bunch of other states — but one of the things he did was to encourage state Green Party chapters to give him their ballot line instead of Cobb. I read somewhere that 22 states did so, though I think that’s a bit too high. Needless to say, the folks in charge at the GP aren’t too happy with Nader.
Sure.
We need to have a correspondant there.
Jeff – I might go. Although, some of my old “friends” might try to run me out of there. Maybe the GP will give IPR press creds, unlike that other party. Would you be willing to go on behalf of IPR?
Jeff- please send back some reports to make us Libertarians feel better about our own convention.
Anyone planning on attending the GP Convention? I live in the Chicagoland area, so I’m debating wandering over there to see the socialists in action.
I referred them to my website.
Wiki says it was something about him not wanting their nomination, but rather their “endorsement”.
Andy – I believe that Nader screwed the Green party back in 2004 in some way. Not sure what happened.
300k sounds optimistic to me. Cobb only got 120k in 2004, and I have a hard time seeing how 2008 could be anything but worse for the Greens.
In any other year it would have been way easier for McKinney to gain some press because, straight foward, she is an african american woman running for president, but of course that won’t fly this year.
I think she will gain some press if she, and I think she will, eventually decides to attack on Nader. The biggest issue is that her largest state backers are the same as Nader so it kills her buzz. Also, her website is TERRIBLE and CONFUSING.
My opinion is that McKinney will eventually get some much needed press and tally out at around 300k votes.
Karen Kwiatkowski politely declined, despite my virtual begging, several times. Smith I declined to ask. I’m not that desperate, yet. Evidently Mary Ruwart is too pure to go along with a hybrid mongrel ticket. Nancy Lord Johnson & Jo Jorgensen declined long ago. Crickenberger acted as intermediary between Jorgensen & me. Gives you an idea of how long ago. I even asked ENM.
Jeff Wartman, well, it would be difficult to blame the Indians for not seizing an opportunity presented to them by a blue-eyed man, wouldn’t it?
Though if you’re recruiting candidates in blog comments, I don’t think any one need be too concerned about it.
Are you really this delusional?
I love thought train of thought there.
“All these stupid unacceptable third party tickets are splitting the third party vote, so I’ll launch ANOTHER third party Presidential bid!”
I added that they could combine a signature/petition drive with a voter registration drive.
So who will you blame when you get on ZERO state ballots and receive ZERO votes?
I said to them what I just said here, more or less.
The NCAI and all the tribes recognized by the U.S. government with websites and emails.
By the way, I’m still looking for a woman libertarian to complement the ticket. Any suggestions or volunteers?
Bob: Care to share which Indians, and what you said to them?
Thanks Fred. Yep, first of what I hope will be many hundreds over the years.
Andy, sharper minds than mine have been applied to that question, and I can;t help but wonder if some of the answers can’t be found in this post. The post asks the question, are Greens, and by extension all smaller party activists, similar in make up to software developers who work in the free software field. In a reply to that question, Steven Herrick, a Green Party professional in Wisconsin, wrote about a post he made more than seven years ago on a similar topic at his blog Chlorophyll.
The greens are about to make the same mistake more or less as the libertarians. Separately, neither ticket can win. Nader just further splits the teeny tiny third party pie. What was needed was exactly what I said; libertarian nomination of a ticket the greens could endorse. They wound up nominating a ticket a lot of libs can’t even endorse. So now I will pursue the only other possibility left: An independent Progressive Alliance ticket which both greens & libs can and should vote for. Plus we can coordinate & combine the downticket ballot coattails. I’ve asked the Indians in Oklahoma to get me on the ballot there & in other states. Further to NOT help the green or lib ticket get on so as to not split the progressive vote, but help all other ballots. I’m waiting to hear from them.
I’m still not exactly clear on why Nader and the Greens split.
McKinney’s campaign and candidacy have not gotten the press coverage…
This flies in the face of complaints I’ve seen that McKinney’s going out of her way to avoid mainstream press coverage. Maybe she’s due for an uptick after the Green convention. Barr’s definitely gotten more press post-nom.
First article here Gregg? Welcome 😀