One year minus a day ago, Rich Whitney won just over 10 percent of the vote as the Green Party candidate for governor of Illinois. A former official of the Socialist Labor Party, it's a very safe bet that most of the people who backed Whitney last fall did so as a protest vote, knowing little about his stand on issues.
Why? Dissatisfaction with the Democratic and Republican candidates. The incumbent, Rod Blagojevich, won re-election despite an ethically challenged (and that's being nice) first term as governor and the general belief among Illinoisans that the first Democratic governor in a generation did little to fix the state's long-term fiscal problems--other than utilizing temporary fixes.
For his lack-of-efforts since winning reelection, The approval ratings for "Governor Elvis" are so low, they're below President Bush's in blue Illinois. "Blago" is now subject to a nascent recall drive, although there is no mechanism--yet--that allows recall of state officials
The Republican candidate, Judy Baar Topinka, never recovered from a brutal Republican primary, and in my opinion, Topinka's heart wasn't in the race, and the voters responded accordingly.
So that's how Whitney got his 10 percent last year.
But what hath the Green god wrought?
Well, Whitney's relatively high vote count makes the Greens an established party in the Land of Lincoln. That means the Greens can field candidates for ward and township committeemen, and unlike independent and other minor-party candidates, the Greens don't need as many petition signatures to qualify to appear on a statewide or local-office ballot.
And the Green Wave showed its strength yesterday.
From the Chicago Sun-Times:
The Green Party is supposed to be a bastion of of anti-war, pro-environment independents who don't sit in back rooms smoking cigars.
But when the smoke cleared at the Cook County Clerk's office Monday, 23 people had filed to run for Green Party ward committeeman.
Many more filed to run for everything from Metropolitan Water Reclamation District to U.S. Congress. Some Democratic candidates in close elections fear Greens will siphon votes from them, allowing Republicans to win.
"If that does happen, in most cases I'm not going to lose any sleep over it because most of the Democrats we're dealing with here are . . . hard to distinguish from Republicans," said Rich Whitney, whose 10 percent showing as a Green candidate for governor last year won the party its current ballot status as an established party. "We're not in races to spoil. We're in them to win. I think some of these races are going to be winnable."
Let's focus on Whitney's "hard to distinguish" comment. Sometimes that's true between Democrats and Republicans, particularly in Illinois. The 1998 gubernatorial race between Glenn Poshard and the to-be-imprisoned tomorrow George Ryan comes to mind.
What do the Illinois Greens offer? Are they the, "Hey, I've got some newspapers to drop off at the recycling center" types? Or are they something more sinister?
It might be a reach to call disgraced former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney a Green Party member, but a few weeks after she indicated that she wouldn't run as the Green Party's candidate for president next year, she made appearance for two Green candidates, one in South Carolina, and one in Syracuse, New York.
The Palmetto Scoop has a run-down on McKinney's bizarre political career.
Here's what South Carolina Green Party official Gregg Jocoy has to say about McKinney:
I know Cynthia McKinney will bring an entirely new and energized group of people to our side.
That'll be interesting and I'm looking forward to the blogging opportunities the Green Party will offer me.
But there is more to the Green Party than Cynthia McKinney's involvement. The Massachussets branch is known as the Green Rainbow Party, and in August they had a convention, as Solomonia reported. That get-together turned into a racist, Islamist, anti-Semitic bash.
Oh, Cynthia McKinney showed up too.
Related posts:
Cynthia McKinney and the Greens
Massachusetts Green Party: Enough to make you puke
Still in the 1960s: 2008 Green Party convention coming to Chicago: UPDATED
Illinois gov race--Rich Whitney: What is Green once was Red
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