By Mark Wachtler
Green Party election candidates are making waves and garnering headlines this election cycle. And in two states, they’re doing it in completely opposite ways. In New York, the Greens’ Gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins is generating excitement with his experience, media style and assists from Ralph Nader and Jill Stein. In Texas, the Greens are taking the shotgun approach. They nominated 50 candidates for the November election, with 44 of them successfully making it onto the General Election ballot.
Back in April, Opposition News reported on the announced candidacy of Howie Hawkins, a longtime progressive and socialist grassroots activist. The Green Party nominee for New York Governor began his political activism in 1967 at the young age of 15 with the Peace & Freedom Party protesting the Vietnam War. These days, Hawkins is a perennial election candidate and coming closer and closer to victory each time.
Four years ago, Howie Hawkins ran for Governor and received enough votes to earn the Green Party of New York major party status. He finished third among seven candidates. In 2011 and 2013, he ran for local offices in Syracuse. Each time, the Green candidate received over 40% of the vote in failing bids. In 2011, he just missed unseating the Democratic Party incumbent by 96 votes. He finished with 48% of the vote in that race. Read the Opposition News article, ‘Greens Howie Hawkins launches Campaign for NY Governor’ for more information.
Hawkins has also been energized by his fellow Green activists and the most well-known name in the movement, Ralph Nader. Two weeks ago, the men appeared together at a campaign event in Albany. They joined Green Congressional candidate Matt Funiciello. “You have a marvelous opportunity to break new ground and send a message all over the country,” local media outlets reported Nader telling the candidates and the gathered crowd.
The national Green Party has also energetically climbed on board the Howie Hawkins campaign bandwagon. “If we can get the word out to New York voters that Howie is the only progressive on the general election ballot, we can establish the Green Party in New York as the third major party and the voice of progressives who are independent of the corporate oligarchy and its representatives in the Democratic and Republican parties,” 2012 Green Presidential nominee Jill Stein told party members in a recent email, “That kind of result will help Greens across the country be taken seriously as the progressive alternative to corporate politics.”
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It’s terrific that Howie is running for the third time in a row for Governor, and I hope he surpasses 50,000 votes as he did in 2010 so the Green Party can maintain its New York ballot status.
If they do, I hope they do a lot more with it than they have in the last four years.
They should be running hundreds of candidates right now. In every one of the 150 Assembly Districts, the would need about a half-dozen signatures to get on the ballot, instead of 1500 that the LP and other independent bodies need to obtain.