Following is a list of Green Party candidates running in the 2012 US elections. More candidates will be added as we become aware of them. Jump to your state to connect with your local Green Party and candidates:
United States President
A special election for West Virginia Governor was held on Tuesday, October 4th, and the WV Mountain Party’s Bob Henry Baber came in third with 2%, while Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin beat Republican Bill Maloney 49.4% to 47.2%. Thanks to Ballot Access News for the story.
West Virginia is holding a special election for governor today, October 4, and one of the candidates is the Mountain Party’s Bob Henry Baber. The Mountain Party, WV’s Green Party affiliate, has made a name for itself by opposing mountaintop removal mining, which both Democrats and Republicans support and which MP candidates have dubbed “ground zero for global climate change”. WBOY Channel 12 recently interviewed Baber for his thoughts on the election:
“To speak for the common man, woman and child of West Virginia and try to move West Virginia into the 21st century and tell the truth about where we are, running a three-legged race with Mississippi to be the poorest state in the union — and we should be the wealthiest — it can never be a futile effort. You just do what you do and leave it to the voters to decide. Where would the world be without futile efforts?” he said.
“Politics is awful hard to read. I know the people are sick of the negative ads. I feel that I have some wind at my back right now. I think the Mountain Party is going to grow this year.”
Over at Alternet, Jeff Biggers has published a detailed interview with Bob Henry Baber, the West Virginia Mountain Party’s candidate for governor in an October 4th special election:
In a blatant genuflect to the coal industry’s stranglehold over state politics, the West Virginia Broadcasters Association blocked the participation of popular Mountain Party gubernatorial candidate Dr. Bob Henry Baber last week, as it hosted a widely denounced debate between the two climate-change-denying, Big-Coal-bankrolled candidates.
Never has West Virginia seemed more like an embarrassing 19th-century throwback to dirty politics and absentee corporation control over the very heart of democratic elections than in the upcoming gubernatorial race.
Never has Baber’s inspiring and heartfelt campaign platform for a just transition to a sustainable and clean energy economy in ailing coal country seemed more timely — and threatening to the Democratic and Republican Parties.
West Virginia Mountain Party gubernatorial candidate Bob Henry Baber participated in a 3-way televised debate on September 7th with his Democratic and Republican opponents. Baber is running in a special election for WV Governor to be held October 4th. WBOY ABC-12 reported on the debate:
Baber, though, said it’s government’s job to protect the entire state, “not just one industry.” … “If we had a real EPA we’d never have started down this road of mountaintop mining,” said Baber, a former Richwood mayor and former chairman of the Mountain Party who now works as the major gifts officer at Glenville State College. “Mountaintop mining is vile. It’s wrong, but we’re tied to it for the time being.”
Baber said the state needs to encourage new, greener technologies. “Those who have gotten the most have given the least, and it’s dragging down the whole state,” Baber added.
Read the entire article with more quotes from Baber and his opponents at ABC WBOY-12.
2011 may not be a big year for federal elections, but it is an excellent year for Green Party supporters around the US to pitch in and lend a hand to the intrepid Green candidates who are running for offices big and small. Here is a list (alphabetical by state) of some of the Green candidates who have declared campaigns in 2011. If you know of more Green campaigns in upcoming elections, or if you notice anything wrong with the information here, we’d love to hear about it in the comments.
Thurs. 8/18 UPDATE: More candidates and websites have been added for Maine, Maryland, and Minnesota, among others. Thanks to everyone who has left comments, and keep them coming!
Arizona:
Dave Croteau and Mary DeCamp, Tucson Mayor (primary August 30)
California:
Larry Bragman, Fairfax Town Council
Terry Baum, San Francisco Mayor
Connecticut: read more »
PITTSFIELD — Mark C. Miller, the Green-Rainbow party candidate who challenged state Rep. Christopher N. Speranzo last November, formally announced he’s a contender for the seat Speranzo has to give up if he’s confirmed for the Central Berkshire District Court clerk-magistrate job.
In an announcement to supporters Thursday, Miller said he plans to run for the 3rd Berkshire District seat, which covers most of Pittsfield.
Miller told The Eagle that he expects a tough race, but he also expects to win — in part because this campaign will be better organized and have more volunteer help than his previous one.
The fact that he commanded 45 percent of last November’s vote, for a campaign he essentially ran alone, tells him that he has a real chance this year, he said.
When: June 12
Event page: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=nf#!/event.php?eid=191149454269542
Bring all your Green Party friends out to this event. Plus, we will have a special guest in attendance. The campaign for the Green Party/Partido Verde in 2012 has begun!
In addition, Green Party members will set up a table and register voters with the Green Party after the march. Come join us.
LGBT Pride Los Angeles is here again. If your organization supports LGBT rights and is against waging wars, you are welcome to march with …Out Against War and the LA LGBT Greens on Sunday June 12. Out Against War is doing a special theme around Bradley Manning, the Gay alleged Wikileaker. Everyone is welcome to bring signs & banners. Hand out your own literature to parade onlookers.
The Green Party is looking for candidates to run in 2012. If you are interested, drop me a message. The time to run is now. No more excuses.
We understand that we need to get more Green Party candidates elected at the local and state level before truly having meaningful change at the Presidential level, and we would love everyone to participate not only in Los Angeles, but around the state.
From the Sun Gazette:
Having tested the political waters last year, Kevin Chisholm appears ready to dive into a larger pool…
An engineer by profession, Chisholm retired last year as chief energy official for Arlington Public Schools. As the Green Party County Board candidate in 2010, he garnered just over 6 percent of the vote against Democratic incumbent Chris Zimmerman and Republican Mark Kelly.
Chisholm said he would be running as an independent because he sees himself “more a political centrist” than what is represented by the Green Party. He describes himself as fiscally conservative and socially liberal.
In an article at the Charleston Daily Mail, reporter Jared Hunt reports that the Mountain Party has unanimously nominated Bob Henry Baber as their nominee for Governor.
Baber was the first Mountain Party member ever elected to public office when he won the 2004 Richwood mayoral election. He had lost out to (Jesse) Johnson for the party’s gubernatorial nomination earlier that year.
He acknowledged that being a third-party candidate is an uphill battle.
“It’s a tough way to go — you don’t have a lot of finances; you’ve got to do a lot yourself,” he said. “Our party is a party about the truth, and sometimes telling the truth is not the most popular thing in the world to do.”
Addressing one of West Virginia’s blessings, and burdens, Baber said
“We are hooked on coal, the whole country’s hooked on coal and oil, and we’re going to be for the foreseeable future,” he said. “But we absolutely need to start a plan to get off coal and oil. We should have done this a long time ago, and now it’s time to start.”
Coal mining has offered West Virginia’s working families jobs at above average wages, but has despoiled much of their land and killed and maimed many miners, with the benefits enriching a small number of mine owners and others similarly situated.
H/T to Independent Political Report and writer Daniel Surman.
D.ERIS has a write-up over at Third Party Daily of an article at the Register Herald which quotes Mountain Party senatorial candidate Jesse Johnson extensively.
I think that every American and every West Virginian looks at the two-party system, looks at the Democrats and Republicans and says, “We have a problem.”
For the full story, please hit the Third Party Daily link above.
In the spirit of the approximately 14 million latino people in California, two new Facebook pages have been created with the intention of attracting spanish-speaking voters. One as a statewide page, and another as a city-wide page. I would recommend adding both pages. The “group” page has an added benefit of being able to automatically invite all group members to events or questions/polls. “Like” pages are directed more at just being a fan of something, in this case, the Partido Verde of California.
Both pages were intentionally made so that the information is in spanish, but until we begin getting a large influx of spanish-speaking voters, most of the commentary will be in English.
Here is the Partido Verde California page. The page has been made as a “Like” page.
http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=18831#!/pages/Partido-Verde-de-CaliforniaGreen-Party-of-California/202418046449891
Here is the page for the Partido Verde Los Angeles, which has been made into a “group” page.
http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=18831#!/home.php?sk=group_209400249078012
Feel free to pass the news around, especially if you ever want to grow the Green Party movement. Drop us a comment if you have any suggestions on how to improve outreach.
via Ross Levin at IPR:
The full story from the South Carolina Green Party:
Eugene Platt is doing great work in local government alerting people to the serious problems with SC’s electronic voting machines.
Voting machines targeted: James Island PSD official pushes for replacement
BY EDWARD FENNELL
JAMES ISLAND — A day after engineering a “historic” vote by his fellow James Island Public Service District commissioners, Eugene Platt set his sights on a larger goal.
Platt on Tuesday urged James Island Town Council to adopt a resolution calling for South Carolina to replace its electronic touch-screen voting machines. The iVotronic machines, Platt contends, have many problems and voters have little confidence in vote counts they produce. He told council the JIPSD was the first elected body in the state to urge replacement of the machines, and the town could become the first municipality to do so.
“I hope you will do something similar and start and statewide trend and get the attention of the state legislature,” Platt said.
This 2010 Summary was compiled and distributed by Brent McMillan, Executive Director of the Green Party (US).
Summary of Green Party Wins for 2010 (rev. 11/30/10)
Total candidates running: 339 (of which 300 ran on 11/2/10)
Wins for the year: 34 (of which 19 were on 11/2/10)
Win rate for the year: 10.1%
Partisan wins: 2 (both were new officeholders)
Incumbents re-elected: 26
read more »
Illinois Green Party candidate for Governor Rich Whitney led all Green Party gubernatorial candidates in 2010 in total votes and percentage of the total vote, with 99,625 votes, 2.70% of the vote.
Only three times in history have Green Party gubernatorial candidates exceeded 10% of the vote. The first was in 1994, when Roberto Mondragon, who finished with 10.4% of the vote in New Mexico. The other two were in 2006, when Pat LaMarche finished with 10% in Maine and Rich Whitney finished with 11% in Illinois. (See a spreadsheet of historical Green Party gubernatorial candidates here).
This year was definitely a downturn for Greens running for Governor. In Illinois the votes for the Green Party candidate were 1/3 of the 2006 votes. In California the Greens got half what they did in 2006. Massachusetts went from 42K to 32K, Maryland went from 13K to 11K, Tennessee went from 2,700 to 1,800, Minnesota went from 10K to 6K, and Nevada went from 6K to 4K. However the Green vote went up in Ohio (from 38K to 56K), New York (42K to 58K), Michigan (20K to 21K), and Arkansas (12K to 14K), from which you can cast your own theories.
In the post election chatter, some have questioned why Greens bother to waste the resources to run for Governor when the odds are so stacked against them. In some states, ballot access and/or recognition as a political party is based on gubernatorial returns. In other states, it has no impact at all. I would argue that running a green party candidate for a high profile state-wide race has several benefits.
First, it has the potential to influence the dialogue by putting Green Solutions out front next to the partisan, safe, and centrist positions of the two corporate political parties. It forces Democrats to ask why their candidate isn’t supporting what the Green Party candidate is supporting.
Second, it has the potential to raise awareness of the Green Party statewide. It has been noted that many voters have not heard of the Green Party. If a good Green Party candidate in a high profile race actually gets some media and equal debate access, s/he has the potential to get the Green Party message in front of tens of thousands of voters, and some of them might like that message enough to join the party or even run for office themselves.
Third, it gives all the Greens out there someone to vote for. There were over 400,000 votes cast this year for Green Party candidates for Governor. Think about it this way. There are 400,000 voters in the United States that would prefer a Green Party Candidate running their state than a Democrat or a Republican. That’s a lot of people. If we don’t run candidates, those voters are going to have to hold their nose and vote for another party’s candidate. The Green Party owes it to those Greens in America to give them a candidate to vote for.
Finally, political parties run candidates. That is how they are defined. If the Green Party doesn’t run candidates, they aren’t a political party. We should personally thank all of the Green Party candidates who ran for office this year, they gave the voters something Green to vote for.
2010 Green Gubernatorial Results
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