Saturday, December 08, 2007

Green Party Presidential Picks

I have, in general, refrained from a too obvious preference for one of the Green Party candidates over the others. However, the date has come when I can not hold back. I will outline a few of the reasons why I support Kent Mesplay and why I do not support some of the other candidates.

As I looked at the field of candidates, there are some obvious differentiations that can be made. The ones that I believe to be most important are these two.

  • Does the candidate have the ability to construct a nationwide organization, bringing together the best local Green Leaders in a movement that will help build, rather than limit, this part?
  • Does the candidate have a grasp of issues and policies such that they could acquit themselves well in comparison with the choices of other parties. be that Clinton or Obama, Huckabee or Romney or McCain?

There are only three candidates who, in my opinion, can provide positive responses to both. They are Nader, McKinney and Mesplay. Jared Ball and Kat Swift both provide good reasons that one might vote for them and Ball has an energetic group of volunteers. Neither of them have expressed enough understanding of or willingness to act on the major environmental issues that we are facing now starting with Global Warming. Jesse Johnson and Elaine Brown have not built enough of a campaign to be visible and neither says anything about the key environmental issues on their web sites.

Another way to look at these candidates is to look at the character and capabilities of their supporters. Those who externalize all failings rather than accepting any personal responsibility are not good advocates for a candidate. I am sure that, if some are not chosen, it will be called a plot rather than the fact that their volunteer supporters failed them.

Kent Mesplay is the one candidate who has consistently, from the beginning, has not played identity politics. He is the one candidate who has addressed a range of issues, from peace to the environment and will not be a single issue candidate. He is the one candidate who has published his position on energy policy at a time when the Democrats are playing with our heads and failing in their leadership after being given an opportunity.

I have no idea what Nader will finally do. His name is currently listed as a draft candidate on the national Green Party web site. I tend, however to favor a candidate from within the party rather than once again telling the world that we need a savior from outside.

I find that my judgement of Cynthia McKinney is biased by the fact that too many of her supporters are angry people too quick to blame others for "gaming" the system. I also find that those who speak for her are, in fact, rank amateurs whose presence in a campaign can only hurt the party. My association with Pete McCloskey and the team that he was able to assemble in 2006 makes this a very high bar as far as anyone achieving it. It give me reason, though, to question McKinney's judgment.

By the same logic, I find much positive about Jard Ball and little positive about Elaine Brown. Her most vocal supporters are the ones who do the most damage to her candidacy.

When working with McCloskey in 2006, I was amazed to find that there those who had supported him in the 1970's who were willing to take leaves of absence from work and come back to work for him again. It was all about his honesty in the way that he treated people, direct and not without leveling honest criticism when required. I sense the same honesty in Mesplay.

My absentee ballot will be in the mail by January 7. When it arrives, I will be voting for Kent.

8 comments:

Julius Martov said...

On McKinney see
COINTELPRO HOAX

Julius Martov said...

What is up with these Greens?
Anti-Semtic Kooks

Julius Martov said...

Saturday, December 08, 2007
CYNTHIA McKINNEY RUNS FOR PRESIDENT WHAT WILL SHE DO ABOUT THE LaROUCHE/FULANI PARASITES IN THE GREEN PARTY?
How Fred Newman & Lenora Fulani Use Totalitarian Deception to Manipulate Social and Political Activists

Wes said...

It was as predictable as sunrise that the mention of the name McKinney would bring forth ADL condemnation. I could just have easily written McCloskey and gotten the same response. I am sure that the ADL has a bot looking for all mentions of those names just so they can slam them again.

However, we have already investigate those charges and they remain conspiracy theories, the stuff of Hollywood movies and not rational political debate.

Interesting to hide behind the name of a 19th / early 20th Century Georgian political party. It is a word the means "minority" in Russian. It represents a viewpoint that hopefully will remain in a very small minority.

There were other reasons for my choice NOT to endorse McKinney. Dragging out this old junk is detrimental to your view because, in comparison, it makes McKinney look good.

I will leave these here just to show how silly y'all appear.

Julius Martov said...

Pete McCloskey, I assume. Honourable man. Who made a huge error to say the least by speaking at one of Willis Carto's yearly Holocaust denial conferences. Google, "Barnes McCloskey Carto, " betcha you'll find it.
McKinney denied on her website that she had a security detail or volunteer coordinators from the "New Black Panther Party, " (the old BPP, including Elaine Brown have condemned those anti-semitic loons) or the NOI. But, when one googles NOI McKinney Cokely you should find a piece in a google cache of a piece by a editor for the Black Commentator, in which he points out to his dismay that Steve, "Jewish Doctors inject Black babies with Aids, " Cokely worked for McKinney.
Likewise she says that no one by the NBPP or NOI worked for her, after the filmed footage of the anti-semites at her campaign party when she lost in '06, uttered a stream of ugly invectives at Jews. You can find the video at YouTube, "Cynthia McKinney and her Crew." IIRC.
Finally ADL bot? snort. I have a Google Alert for McKinney and Cindy Sheehan along with Kucinich.
Georgian political party? Um, the Mensheviks were part of the RSDLP of Lenin, an all Russia wide party, well before 1917. Bolshevik meant majority (which they weren't in the RSDLP) and Menshevik, meant minority.
Next should I correct y'all on say Petra Kelly of the German greens, heh?

Julius Martov said...

Say hi to Joe Louis Hoffman, btw for me. He was an organizer for the Green Party in Ca. after we both worked on the Jesse Jackson campaign in '88. Joe shot the hoops when he grew up in Chicago with Fred Hampton, as a kid, yrs. before Hampton was assasinated.

Julius Martov said...

Paid goon.
Steve Q Muhammad, Congressional Staffer - Salary Data
Over 31K

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/081306/opinion_20060813064.shtml
Jason Winders
Executive Editor

Whatever you do, don't make the Kung Fu master your scapegoat. He was just doing his job.

Although listed as "staff intern" on Cynthia McKinney's payroll, Steve Muhammad serves as the congresswoman's personal bodyguard. Now, you might not know the guy by name, but you certainly know the palm of his hand, which seemed pasted to the lens of every television camera pointed Cynthia's way last Tuesday night.

His night culminated in a shoving match between reporters, supporters and bodyguards. During the altercation, various media reports quoted Muhammad as saying, "That's right, and I'm going to touch you again if you do that again." Pow.

Keep in mind, Muhammad is a grandmaster in Kenpo-style karate. Before he shoved cameras, he stood in front of them. Then known as actor Steve Sanders, Muhammad starred in the Bruce Lee classic "Enter the Dragon." Double pow.

So Cynthia was wise not to blame this loss on the Kung Fu master and his fists of fury. But that didn't slow her from pinning it on everyone else.

After a crushing defeat at the hands of Hank Johnson in Tuesday's runoff, McKinney and Co. blamed all the usual suspects for their fall. The Media? Check. The Voters? Check. "The Man"? Check.

But I didn't expect them to pull a page from the Mel Gibson playbook. As the congresswoman passed through a camera swarm at evening's end, a member of her entourage reportedly said: "You wanna know what led to the loss? Israel. The Zionists. You put on your yarmulke and celebrate." The Jews? Check.

Now, I don't know what it was about last week, but buck-passing became the national pastime. Suddenly everything that happened was someone else's fault.

And McKinney and Co. were only the latest in a long line of excuse makers.

Lisa said...

There is a feeling that Nader may announce after the premier of the documentary about him, An Unreasonable Man, airs nationwide on PBS, starting Dec. 18ish.

Will he announce an independent or a GP run? We'll see.