Cynthia McKinney won't seek Green Party nod for President in 2008
Gregg Jocoy
September 13, 2007
Ballot Access News covers the announcement as well.
I feel terrible that we Greens have not gotten ourselves well enough organized to bring a candidate like McKinney what she needs to attract her to the campaign. I feel particularly terrible because she, as a Georgian, could potentially have gives substantial time to the growth of the party here in York County, SC, which we badly need.
It's hard to think of a non-black presidential candidate who can understand the need for a focus on growth in the south. This area is under constant attack from nuclear and anti-environmental forces at the corporate and governmental level. Being an economically depressed area suffering at the hands of out-of-state polluters and a still dominant plantation mentality and wealth structure which all too often goes back generations, the south is ripe for the sort of populist message that a McKinney campaign could have brought.
It's not that Nader couldn't do the same thing, it's that he won't. He'll express that message, but will only hit a southern state once or twice during the campaign. Wrongly or rightly, I had hoped we would benefit from more frequent and well coordinated presidential campaign appearances.
In fact, I had hoped that Elaine Brown would seek the nomination as well, leaving us potentially with two Georgia women seeking our state party votes at the convention, and thereby coming to the state a few times. Now it seems that such is not to be.
Which is in some ways a real tragedy. Because we are not well enough organized to give them what they need to make a run, we lose out on the growth they could have brought us. Let's not try to fool ourselves into believing that a run by an unknown and unqualified Green candidate will do absolutely anything to grow the Green Party. Indeed, instead of growing the party, another no-name campaign by an unqualified candidate will only secure our position in the minds of the voters as "those guys who run for offices and never win."
Our candidate need not win the election, but must be dedicated to the growth and maturation of the Green Party. The non-voter must be persuaded that being a Green voter is better, and worth the time investment. The person who is abused by the system must find safe-haven in our midst, and self-determination in her future. I would like to think that we are well enough advanced to show someone like McKinney that we will follow her lead in growing the Green Party. I would like to think that someone like her would be able to see a core of sane and solid citizens in the Green Party who can work with her to craft the powerful force for change we all know we need.
But I think that part of the problem is that we have so many folks who want their way rather than wanting Green success and Green growth. Being able to post long missives against this or that Green, as I have myself done, seems more important to some than being able to celebrate Green victories where they happen.
Mike Feinstein wrote a note to the national Green Party in which he says that the California Green Party must address the problem of their inability to cross the electoral threshold in partisan races. It's not the inability to win a congressional seat that has him concerned, but our inability to win county council, state legislative, judicial and other seats which are partisan. I'm not sure which seats are partisan, but those listed often are.
These sorts of questions, how do we get Greens elected as Greens, are much more important that who we run for President. I just want to be able to run a presidential campaign which is a credit to the Green Party and does not leave us weaker than we are now.