Montgomery County, MD Green Party Blog

In the first step toward the Green Party’s drive to get on all 51 ballots next year, the Arkansas Green Party submitted 17,197 signatures to the state board of elections yesterday.  If they have 10,000 valid signatures, they will be able to nominate candidates for any partisan office in the state.

From Ballot Access News:

Green Party candidate Daniel Brezenoff participated in a four way debate for the special election in California’s 37th Congressional District tp replace Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald that also included the Libertarian candidate.

Brezenoff condemned the Democrats for their continued funding of the Iraq war and neglect of environmental issues.  In addition, hge called for the impeachment of President Bush.

It’s rare when Green Party are allowed in debates at all. It will be interesting to see if this helps Brezenoff at the polls

Ballot Access News reports that West Virginia’s Mountain Party has voted to affiliate with the Green Party.  Since it achieved ballot status in November 2000, the Mountain Party has been the only ballot-qualified third party in West Virginia.  Affiliating with the Green Pary would give us ballot access in 20 states.  Membership still has to be ratified by the National Party but that seems only a formality. 

Cynthia McKinney received a rousing reception at a Georgia NAACP fundraising dinner in Savannah, blasting the Democratic Party for failures on Iraq, ignoring Hurricane Katrina victims and failing to impeach President Bush.

“From the Democratic Party to the Congressional Black Caucus to those habitual Democratic voters, we’ve lost our home team,” McKinney charged.  “Do we even know it?”

McKinney blasted the Democrats for making no efforts at “impeachment of a president guilty of lying to the American people, spying on the American people and bankrumpting our economy,” and even blamed the Congressional Black Caucus for voting “to fund the war machine and its surge.”

There has been wide speculation that McKinney might seek the Green Party nomination for president next year, but she has not made her plans known yet.  At the convention, her father, Billy McKinney, commented on her plans; “I have some idea, but it’s not ready to be divulged yet.”

Switch2Green!  A new website has been set up for Democrats (and Republicans) fed up with the two war parties: switch2green.org complete with registration help for all states where it is possible to register Green and with a computer generated letter that you can send to your congressperson, informing her that you have switched.

Switch2Green.org has already been mentioned on the Mike Malloy radio show.

Here in Maryland, the move has already begun.  In April alone, the party received 500 new registered voters, its biggest growth spurt in years.

As of June, the Maine Green Party had reached the highest registration precentage the Green Party has ever recorded.  The state has 26,000 registered Greens or 2.7%, up from 2.36% in November 2004.

The highest registration precentage for the Constitution Party is 3.48% in Nevada.  For the Libertarians, it is 1.88% in Alaska.

Green Party Candidate for Illinois governor, Rich Whitney is surging in the polls.  In the most recent Survey USA poll, conducted from 10/20/06 to 10/22/06, Whitney wins 14% of the vote.  Democratic candidate Rod Blagojevich is ahead with 44%, and Republican Candidate Judy Baar Topinka has 34%.

Most impressive is Whitney’s breakout among independent voters.  Topinka leads among independents with 31%.  Whitney is second with 29% and Blagojevich has 27%.

Whitney also wins 11% of Democratic voters and 8% of Republican voters.

A month ago Whitney was at 7% in the polls.

A new Zogby poll of New York State shows Green Party candidates making impressive gains among independent voters.

In the governor’s race, Green candidate Malachy McCourt is picking up 14% of the independents against Democrat Eliot Spitzer’s 53% and Republican John Faso’s 20%.

But, more impressive is the Senate race where Democrat Hillary Clinton picks up only 38% of the independent vote, Republican John Spencer 28% and Green Party Candiddate Howie Hawins 21%

In the Attorney General’s race Democrat Andrew Cuomo scores 31% of the independent vote, Republican Jeanine Pirro 25% and Green candidate Rachel Treichler 17%.

These gains are not matched among Republican and Democratic voters where Green candidates only score in single digits which holds down their overall showing. However, since independents are the only segment of the voting population that is growing–especially among younger voters–this is an indication that the Green Party has the potential to become a much more significant force in electoral politics in the future.

In Maryland, Kevin Zeese has shown nearly as strong support in the one available poll that provides a breakdown of the vote; a Survey USA poll from mid September.  In that poll Steele captured 45% of independent voters, Cardin 39% and Zeese 12%.  As in New York, very low numbers among Democrats (2%) and Republicans (3%) kept Kevin’s overall numbers low.  It would be interesting to see a breakdown on a more recent poll to see if Kevin is picking up any momentum among independents like the New York Greens.

The Green Institute hosted a conference on US policy in the Middle East entitled Surviving Victory: A New Definition of National Security last Wednesday.  The conference foreign policy analysts from both liberal and conservative perspectives, all of whom have become alarmed by Bush administration policies in the Middle East.

“This is really an effort to assess where we are right now in the wake of the catastrophe with Iraq and Afghanistan,” panelist Roger Morris, senior fellow with the Green Institute, said. “We want, above all, to point the way out. We want to ask: what are the alternatives here?”

“It’s an example of people coming together who agree on one thing and are willing to engage in healthy discussion even though they may not agree on other issues,” panelist Charles Pena said. Peña is a senior fellow of the Independent Institute and an adviser to the Status Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information. “We are fueling hatred in the Muslim world against us,” he said.

The panelists agreed that the situation in Iraq was now so chaotic and the prospects there so grim that no “fix” was possible, and that the United States had to choose the least bad of a series of bad options.  Staying the course meant the war would continue in the Middle East for decades and it would drain the U.S. budget while paving the way for more serious terrorist acts.

“Maybe the current situation is elevated to the point that it’s headed straight for disaster,” said panelist Winslow Wheeler, director of the CDI’s Straus Military Reform Project. America must leave, but it must be sensitive to its allies’ concerns in a practical way, he concluded. “We can’t leave in a manner like we came in.”

The broad range of political viewpoints at the meeting demonstrated a growing fear of the counsequences of Bush administration policies across the political spectrum in Washington.  The lessons of Iraq are going to haunt foreign policy analysts for years.