From The World in Southwestern Oregon:

A Coos Bay psychiatrist is challenging Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., for his seat in Congress.

Dr. Rick Staggenborg won the Pacific Green Party of Oregon’s nomination for the U.S. Senate at the party’s convention in Corvallis on Saturday.

Staggenborg is a member of Physicians for a National Health Program and previously worked at the Bandon Veterans Administration clinic. He has spent recent months stumping for a single-payer health care system and limits to corporate involvement in politics. He said he would propose a Constitutional amendment to overturn a recent Supreme Court decision allowing the same free speech rights to corporations as citizens.

[Read more →]

USA Today has an article entitled “Obama’s liberal base ‘disengaged’”. An excerpt:

“…a growing number of liberal groups and activists say they’ve had enough of Democrats who break their promises or cater to conservatives.

“The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is now in shock,” says longtime Democratic activist-turned-blogger Chris Bowland, 52, of Santa Rosa, Calif. “It’s very clear the party hates us and has no respect for its base.”

Bowland, who this month changed his party registration to the Green Party, says the Democrats are going to pay for it at the polls in November.

“Who is it that shows up to man your phone banks and who goes knocking on your doors? Unions and left-wing activists like me,” he says. But Obama has broken his campaign promises and now, “we’ve had it. I’m done.”

In a press release sent out by his campaign yesterday, Duane Roberts announced his bid for the Green Party nomination for US Senate. He has entered the Green Party primary set for June by filing more than enough signatures to secure a spot on the ballot. The full text of the press release is below the fold.
[Read more →]

Green Party Gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney picked up a bit of news coverage at Examiner.com. The article includes polling data from Victory Research which shows Whitney currently stands at 3.9%. Whitney won better than 10% of the vote in his last race four years ago, and has been aggressively campaigning since he announced he’d run again this year on July 15, 2009.

To donate to Whitney’s campaign, visit his campaign website.

In a column posted to the Huffington Post, Rev. Lennox Yearwood lays out why Black voters want Green candidates, and expels the myth that any community of people can be unconcerned about the environment. Yearwood is chair of the Hip Hop Caucus.

From the Winter 2010 issue of Green Pages:

Greens play key role in growing anti-nuke movement
by Michael Canney; Green Party of Florida

Nuclear expansion threatens residents of the “Sunshine State,” but resistance is growing. [Read more →]

From Bruce Dixon at Black Agenda Report:

Can a black president be guilty of environmental racism? President Obama’s new proposed nukes are in one of the poorest areas east of the Mississippi. Burke County Georgia is majority black, the home of existing commercial nuclear reactors and directly across the river from the Savannah River nuclear weapons facility. Its river is the 4^th most polluted in the nation, and its residents are suffering a veritable epidemic of unexplained cancers, with no local, federal, public or private funds available to test their air, soil, water or environment for its causes.  But Burke County’s residents are neither silent nor powerless.

[Read more →]

From the Huffington Post Chicago:

Rich Whitney, the Illinois Green Party’s candidate for Governor, demands to be taken more seriously.

In 2006, Whitney overcame a vigorous challenge by the state’s Democratic party to appear on the ballot, collecting nearly 15,000 ballots more than the 25,000 required by state law. He went on to outperform all expectations, taking home more than 10 percent of the vote.

That election established the Green Party in the state of Illinois, quite literally: by garnering more than 5 percent, the party gained the official status of “established political party,” lowering the thresholds needed to get on statewide ballots and offering the party access to more voter data, among other benefits.

This year, in a race between two less-than-stellar candidates who narrowly escaped their respective primaries, Whitney believes he has a chance.

But the Tribune isn’t giving him one, he wrote Monday. From his office, via GreenPartyWatch:

…[o]nce again, the Tribune treat[s] the governor’s race as a two-person race. The Trib is acting as if 2006 never happened. This is unacceptable. I would ask you, my supporters, especially those of you who live in or near Chicago or who subscribe to the Trib, to call or write the Trib ASAP and let them know that this is unacceptable and cannot be permitted to continue.

HuffPost Chicago admits to having treated this as a two-person race as well. But we hear you, Rich; we’ll keep our ear to the ground for Green Party news.

Granny D, who’s given name was Doris Haddock, died yesterday at the age of 100.

In an article at the BBC News website she is quoted saying

“This country has become one in which, in order to run for office, a poor man has to sell his soul, or he has to be a multi-millionaire. That’s not democracy.”

Granny D, who walked more than 3200 miles in 1999 and 2000 to raise awareness of the need for campaign finance reform, ran for the US Senate from her home state of New Hampshire in 2004 on the Democratic Party ticket, drawing 34% of the vote against Judd Gregg. At the time she was 94 years old. Gregg was later nominated by Barack Obama to serve in his cabinet. Gregg declined the offer.

Granny D, who spoke favorably of then Green Party presidential nominee Ralph Nader, published the book Walking Across America in my Ninetieth Year. The subtitle was “You’re Never Too Old to Raise a Little Hell.”

Her personal website is GrannyD.com

The articles include pieces on Rev. Billy Talen, Green Party candidate for Mayor of New York City; the Arkansas Greens ballot access petition drive; difficulties in the California Green Party; IL Gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney; and finally a piece about Ken Adler, and his race for US House of Representatives.

Tresser is running for Cook County President, Whitney for Governor, and Jones for US Senate from IL.

Why Are Green Party Candidates Better? from Tom Tresser on Vimeo.

Over at World News Journal, David B posted the letter, which is copied in full bellow the fold.
[Read more →]

From Marie-Laure Josselin at RFI, “Green politics make their debut”:

For the very first time African states acted together during 2009’s Copenhagen negotiations on global warming. During the 90s, African green movements made a first, timid appearance. To this day they are struggling to get their voices heard by powerful traditional parties, although the continent has not been spared by deforestation, coastal erosion and pollution.

“Twenty years on, going green is finally a reality,” says Ram Ouedraogo of the Burkina Faso environmentalist coalition. “Much is yet to be done in both regional and continental levels. We can be hopeful today because future support looks brighter.”

Thanks to the arrival of multiparty systems, environmentalist parties mushroomed in the 90s, even though campaigning groups had become aware of the need to preserve the environment long before that.

[Read more →]

From Richard Winger at Ballot Access News:

The Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party has a snazzy new website at greenrainbow.org. In addition to the new look, the site has a Campaign 2010 link with profiles of candidates Jill Stein (governor), Nat Fortune (state auditor), and Scott Laugenour (state rep, 4th Berkshire). The site also has links to Green-Rainbow profiles on various social media websites. Check out the new site at greenrainbow.org.