Women Top Green Party Presidential Ticket
Final Call, News Report, Ashahed M. Muhammad
CHICAGO (FinalCall.com) - There is still a woman with an active campaign to become the first female president of the United States, and her last name is not Clinton. She is Cynthia McKinney and on July 12 she was officially named the presidential nominee for the Green Party of the United States at their convention recently held in Chicago.
This is the first presidential run for Ms. McKinney, a former member Congress from Georgia who previously served six terms representing DeKalb County’s 4th Congressional District. Ms. McKinney believes that the best way to effectively deal with quality of life disparities in health, economics, and social conditions between Blacks and Whites is by influencing public policy.
“Our responsibility is to seek out a solution so that we can influence those collective decision makers, so that we can become those elected decision makers so that we can have power over public policy with the stroke of a pen,” Ms. McKinney told The Final Call.
In an historic and unprecedented move, Ms. McKinney selected 36-year-old journalist, community organizer and activist Rosa Clemente as her vice-presidential running mate making it the first all-female presidential ticket in history.
Ms. Clemente is well known in activist circles as a result of over a decade of outspoken advocacy. The South Bronx native said she was surprised to be asked to join the ticket but she is ready for the challenge and the opportunity to represent the politically active Hip Hop nation.
“I was honored but overwhelmed,” Ms. Clemente told The Final Call. “When she called me, I thought she wanted me to consult on the campaign, not be her VP, not saying that I am not ready. I wasn’t overwhelmed with the task. This is a historical moment for the hip hop generation and it’s not an ego thing, it’s just the truth and that means a lot.”
Ms. Clemente said Ms. McKinney’s candidacy represents many people not typically approached by political pollsters including the “average brothers and sisters on the street, the real working class, the real people that work two jobs and still fall under the poverty line.”
Many Green Party members said the Republicans and Democrats who got the country into this mess in the first place are bereft of new ideas and do not have solutions to get the country out of its economic and political morass.
While McKinney and Clemente deny attempting to play the political spoiler in the national presidential election, some analysts say whatever votes they receive will be votes from those who would have probably cast votes for Sen. Barack Obama.
Political analyst and radio talk show host Farai Chideya told The Final Call that she is glad that there are more voices being added to the political discourse in America.
“I’m a huge fan of political diversity. Whether or not they get a lot of votes, American democracy should have a lot of depth,” said Ms. Chideya, adding that it will be interesting to see the reaction of the “die hard civil rights generation Democrats” to the McKinney/Clemente Green Party candidacy.
Ms. McKinney also believes that her candidacy is proof that the Green Party cannot be placed “in a box” and is open and accessible to all. She is also aiming to expand the reach of the Green Party beyond its traditional base with the goal of obtaining five percent of the national vote, which would propel the Green Party to major political party status.
“It is in the interest of the other two major parties to put the Green Party in a box and say they are only interested in the environment, but the Green Party has taken a stand for reparations and for descendants of the enslaved in this country. They have taken a stand against police brutality and racial profiling. They have acknowledged the fact that this country was built on genocide of the indigenous people in this country. So the Green Party is also a justice party, a peace party, a democracy party. Of course it is a party for respect for this planet that gives us life but that is not all that this party is.”
Her vice-presidential running mate agreed.
“I keep saying the Green Party is not an alternative, it’s now the imperative for our survival. I really believe that,” said Ms. Clemente.
ea
(blog author) says:
Added on August 10th, 2008 at 6:16 pmWhere are the Inquisitors?
We recently passed, on July 25th, the thirty-fourth anniversary of Barbara Jordan’s statement at the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Impeachment Hearings in 1974. The question at hand was whether the actions of Richard M. Nixon, while President of the United States of America, were of a nature and severity to merit the standard of high crimes and misdemeanors. Did his actions subvert the Constitution of the United States? Representative Jordan made clear to millions of Americans how important it was to ask the question — and to answer it.
She expressed the solemnity she felt on the occasion of being amongst the inquisitors charged with this duty. For, indeed, she was a representative of the nation and a subject of its jurisdiction. The Constitution was the foundation of the system of laws of this country. Jordan declared that she would not be an idle spectator to its diminution nor its destruction.
Nearly three-and-a-half decades ago, Members of Congress understood that they were granted the tool of impeachment as check on the powers of the Executive. Nearly three-and-a-half decades ago, Members of Congress understood that if a President or his or her surrogates were to subvert the Constitution, all parties were to be held accountable. Nearly three-and-a-half decades ago, Members of Congress understood that if the President presumed to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus outside the prescribed exceptions, he or she would be challenged by them, the appointed inquisitors.
Well, things have changed in the last three-and-a-half decades. In 1974, Barbara Jordan made clear the tool of impeachment was not intended for things petty, but things big. I think the appointed inquisitors have become confused about this. In 1998, it was the tool of the hypocritically and righteously indignant. In 2005 and 2006, with credible evidence of illegal wire-tapping, intelligence withholding, and expanding presidential powers beyond the scope dictated by the Constitution, the leadership of the House of Representatives considered the tool of impeachment a mere object of decoration and took it off the table. They proceeded to sit down on the job and feast on complicity in duplicity.
There was a voice, however — a single voice, barely heard. This voice asked if the President abused the power and privilege of his office. It raised the question: Did the President or his surrogates subvert the Constitution? This voice pleaded, “Where are the inquisitors?â€?
This voice belonged to Cynthia McKinney.