Great Candidates -- Mesplay, Johnson, and Swift

Friday, July 11th

Candidates Forum

There was a delicious irony to the garish, ostentatious "Red Lacquer" ballroom of Chicago's old Palmer House Hotel being the setting for the final Green Party presidential candidate forum. This hotel is a monument to the First Gilded Age of corrupt capitalist wheeling 'n dealing. Today, my Green Party is the leading edge progressive voice speaking in the Second Gilded Age.

(Left to right) Kent Mesplay of California, Jesse Johnson of West Virginia, Kat Swift of Texas

By Friday evening, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was already the presumptive nominee. Accordingly, as I watched the three "minor candidates" ably fielded tough questions, I could not help but feel a certain pride in the depth and talent within the Green Party.



Dr. Ken Mesplay, California's favorite son, was the strongest on the environmental issues which are, after, the bright green center of our philosophy. I spoke with delegates from all around the country and it seems everyone, everywhere was impressed by Kent's knowledge and commitment.

Jesse Johnson, a bona-fide mountain man from West Virginia, has a towering presence. He spoke about the devastating effects of mountaintop removal by the rapacious coal industry. One thing I learned was that the Appalachian Mountains are the watershed for the rivers that supply drinking water to many states in the Southeast. The clogging and destruction of these waterways is a factor in the drought currently plaguing the Southeast. Johnson says what we need is not "the audacity of hope," but rather, the "audacity of truth." Johnson puts the lie to the pernicious Democrat-Republican mythology that all "working class white people" are racist reactionaries who can only be moved by an appeal to their fears (by the way, this mythology may yet cost the clueless Democrats another presidential election).

Kat Swift, our braided, blonde sister from Texas, is a young, tough activist with a lot of charm. She is smart. But she is open-minded and not too proud to admit she doesn't know it all. At one point, during a response to a question about energy, she joked that her "expert" on energy policy was Dr. Kent Mesplay. One question from the floor was about the touchy question of Israeli-Palestinian relations. Kat gave one of the wisest answers. She said that conversations with people on both sides of that bloody divide has convinced her that, in order to make peace, we have to go around the "leaders" with vested interests in maintaining the conflict and that the United States, of course, cannot be a so-called broker for peace while arming one side. Since this also happens to be my personal opinion, I thought her answer was very wise.

Let's throw a Mountain Party.

There is a time for thinking and a time for doing. Thankfully, Jesse Johnson and the Mountain Party of West Virginia have been doing. The following is a press release that came out this weekend to announce the fact that the courts of West Virginia have allowed the Mountain Party affiliation with the Green Party to stand and that the national Green Party Presidential Nominee will appear on the ballot in that state. I copied the entire release.

The Green Party of the United States is having a Mountain Party

Forwarded by the Green Party of the United States
http://www.gp.org

West Virginia Mountain Party
http://www.mtparty.org/

For Immediate Release
22 February 2008

Contact: Joel Brown, 703 864 5199

West Virginia Law Upholds Green Party Ballot Line

"It's taken more than half a year to get where we are today, but the fight was worth it. No political party should be denied access to ballot lines based on arbitrary rulings of civil servants or elected officials," commented former West Virginia Mountain Party Chair Jesse Johnson.

Johnson who with Mountain Party Treasurer Frank Young led the fight for ballot status for the Green Party in their home state began the battle after the Mountain Party affiliated with the national organization.

"It's far too common all across this country that states deny access to bone fide candidates that run for lesser known political parties thereby stunting and in some cases effectively eliminating growth among those parties," continued Johnson. "It's often our toughest battle to secure and keep these ballot lines. Our candidates have much to contribute and our country has even more to gain by having viable choices to the current reigning parties and it's anti-democratic and unconstitutional to keep us off the ballot."

Because of the perseverance of Johnson and Young, West Virginia 2008 general election ballot will bear the name of whomever the national Green Party selects for their presidential and vice presidential nominees at their national convention this July in Chicago.

Since his victory in the ballot access issue, Mr. Johnson has resigned from his post as West Virginia Mountain Party chair and is free now to pursue his prior intention to run for president of the United States for the Green Party.

The Green Party's 2004 nominee for Vice President, Pat LaMarche commented on the addition of another ballot line to the Green Party's rapidly expanding slate of ballot access, saying, "We are so very grateful to Mr. Johnson for his vigorous loyalty to our party. We are extremely excited about his intention to run for president. If every candidate for every political party had the experience that Mr. Johnson has fighting for democracy; we would have better leaders who are far more respectful of the democratic process at every level of government."

Green Party Presidential Debate

The 1st Green Party Presidential Debate has come and gone. It did not get much media attention. The only major print media coverage was in the San Francisco Chronicle.

In some ways, this was a refreshing example of what Grassroots activism is all about. The committee that put this together was just a group of Greens who thought this needed to be done and so they did it. Some, but not all, had positions in the party. All were dedicated to making this as good as they could make it. Score on for the Grassroots.

Still, in my opinion, the debate brought to the forefront some of the real problems that we have as a party.

Candidate Status: All political parties have a problem when candidates pull out of the race late in the game. One might ask what will happen to the voters in Iowa who cast a ballot for Richardson, Dodd or Biden are going to do and how any delegates they might have acquired will be voting at the Democratic Nominating Convention.

The Green Party has the same situation with Elaine Brown who pulled out too late to have her name removed from the ballot. But, we confounded that problem by including the name of Ralph Nader on the ballot. There is no indication that Nader is going to run. While I understand his hesitancy to participate in the debate as if he were running, it does the party no good if this continues right down to our own convention. I can see nothing good coming out of a situation where, going into the convention, Nader has not yet declared. That will be a repeat of 2004 and a disaster for the party.

The Green Party has very few primaries. Only a few states (California, Arkansas, Illinois, DC and ???) We depend on the State Parties to deliver delegate votes that represent the real preferences of their members. I hope this happens. Because if it does not, then it leave the door open for a continuation of the intercine warfare that has gone on since Milwaukee.

Only Ralph Nader can control this. It is up to him what happens. But, I personally will not be voting for a candidate on the hope that they run.


Narrow Focus: While we are scrambling for candidates, the question on farm policy opened up a failure for all of them. I don't think that any Green Candidate has a grasp of the range of policy issues that they need in order to win votes all across this land. The solutions are clear. Most are in our platform and those that are not will be in the national platform by the time the convention comes around. It is just not very high on the priority list for anyone, but it had better be if we want to continue growing the party in Illinois, in Iowa, in Minnesota.

I would include in this list the fact that environmental questions: those dealing with global warming and energy, were not very prominent in the debate. The Peak Oil question was not well thought out and combining it with the one of "what would be your first act" allowed McKinney to dodge it entirely.

The only response to the Peak Oil question video at YouTube was decidedly negative. "Looks like nobody here is really prepared...".

If we are to make headway as a party, we need to allow for no excuses in terms of being prepared. We have to be ready every time we open the door, or open our mouths.
At least, you could tell that Jesse Johnson and Kent Mesplay had thought through the issues and had something worth saying.


Celebrity Factor: Greens continually criticize the Republicrats and Democans for choosing candidates who do not represent the people, who do not have the right position on issues. Yet, when we come down to choosing our candidates, we do the same thing. So far, I have seen no sign that Cynthia McKinney has any better grasp on the issues than most of the other candidates do. So, we have to ask on what basis do those who support her candidacy make that decision. The rationale that I hear generally comes down to her national name recognition and her ability to articulate a contrarian message, to "speak the truth to power" as it were. It sounds much like that rational given by Democrats for choosing Obama over Clinton. I guess that we are not so different.

Conclusion: Given the seriousness with which I take the issues around Climate Change and energy, given the fact that Nader has not yet announced if he is running and still does not mention ecology issues in his latest "critique" of the duopoly and their platforms, given that Cynthia McKinney seems to think that buying pollution credits is a Green thing to do, I found not reason to discontinue my support for Kent Mesplay. He is the only candidate who is clearly articulate on the one issue that means the most to me.