Showing posts tagged “Cynthia McKinney”
Matt Saldaña ·
27 Jul 2009, 3:46 PM ·
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2008 Green Party presidential nominee, and former U.S. Representative (D-GA), Cynthia McKinney was scheduled to deliver a keynote speech to the roughly 100 Green Party members who attended last week’s convention in Durham. Due to health issues, she instead spoke to the group about her recent brush with the Israeli Navy, and her involvement with the “Free Gaza” movement, via online video.
Audience members lined up to ask McKinney questions, but because of a communications mishap, McKinney only referred to Gaza-related questions from the video stream’s live chat. One question involved Hurricane Katrina, though she responded by talking about Palestine. In fact, other than a brief reference to her 2008 run (disparaging those who didn’t understand it), and general praise for the Green Party candidates who spoke at a live-streamed news conference Friday, McKinney made almost no mention of her party’s gathering in Durham.
Last month, McKinney and 20 others were seized by the Israeli Navy after attempting to sail through a blockade to deliver humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Consulate has said McKinney’s group could have delivered humanitarian supplies by land, and accused the group of making a “reckless political stunt.”
McKinney was scheduled to be deported immediately, but refused to sign deportation papers and spent a week in jail, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“I spent seven days in prison because I wanted the children in Gaza to have crayons,” McKinney said in her video address. Continue reading »
national, politics Cynthia McKinney, Gaza Strip, green party, Israel, Jesse Johnson, mountaintop removal, Palestine
Matt Saldaña ·
24 Jul 2009, 9:09 AM ·
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At first glance, the Green Party’s agenda for its 2009 National Meeting in Durham is a bit, well, all over the map. Major topics include single-payer health care, mountaintop removal mining, a former presidential candidate’s excursions into the Gaza Strip, and–in the words of steering committee member Holly Hart–”strategic messaging workshops and planning.”
“We wanted to talk about strategy, and what messages are really resonating with the American people,” Hart explained.
2009 is an off-year, so the Greens can afford to try out different strategies and see what’s working–and what isn’t.
On the national level, last year did not work so well. Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney finished sixth, behind Barack Obama, John McCain, Ralph Nader, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin, at roughly 153,000 votes (roughly one-tenth of one percent). By contrast Ralph Nader received more than 2.8 million votes (or, 2.7 percent) as a Green Party candidate in 2000.
Green Party candidates were elected to 22 local offices throughout the country in November 2008, though most of those elections were non-partisan, according to Phil Huckleberry, chair of the Illinois Green Party.
This year, Huckleberry said 132 Greens are running for office, including “What Would Jesus Buy?” author and comic preacher Rev. Billy Talen, who is running for mayor of New York City.
In Illinois, Huckleberry said no one had ever been elected to a partisan office as a Green but “we fully intend to do that in 2010.”
“Just about anything can happen,” he said.
Update (7/25/09): The spelling of Rev. Billy Talen’s name has been corrected.
national, politics 2008 election, Billy Talen, Cynthia McKinney, green party
Matt Saldaña ·
30 Oct 2008, 4:27 PM ·
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Sad the debates–and with them, the winks, shoulder pats, split-screens and refusals to answer questions–are over? There’s one more left.
Third-party candidates Bob Barr (Libertarian Party), Ralph Nader (independent) and Chuck Baldwin (Constitution Party) will debate today at 4:30 p.m. at the City Club of Cleveland. Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney was invited, though is not confirmed for the event. (Her campaign Web site is down.) Watch the live stream here, or later tonight on C-Span (time unconfirmed).
An earlier attempt at a debate among the four candidates unraveled, resulting in a last-minute debate (streaming video) between Nader and Baldwin on Oct. 23. In an interview with the Indy, Barr said he did not participate in the debate, organized by Free and Equal, because “it was very poorly organized, and we weren’t given enough notice.”
Barr is the only candidate on the North Carolina ballot. Nader and McKinney secured write-in status; Baldwin did not.
Raleigh, Wake County, music, national 2008 election, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin, Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader
