Green Party Watch

Rebekah Kennedy, running for U.S. Senate in a head to head race against conservative Democrat Mark Pryor in Arkansas, took in 206,504 votes for 20.54% of the vote. This is the highest percent vote return of any Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate ever. Furthermore, 206,504 votes is the second most number of votes won by a Green Party U.S. Senate candidate ever, second only to Medea Benjamin’s 2000 Senate race in California (326,828). For a brief history of Green U.S. Senate candidates click here.

In Illinois, Kathy Cummings pulled in 115,621 votes for 2.56%, the fifth highest number of votes for a Green Senate candidate.

In Colorado, Bob Kinsey won 46,014 votes for 2.13%.

In Michigan, Harvey Mikkelson won 44,439 votes for 0.92%.

In Washington D.C., Keith Ware’s 14,602 votes netted him 7.45%, which puts him in the top 10 highest vote percents for Green Senate candidates.

Chris Lugo in Tennessee took 9,103 votes for 0.38&, and Steve Larrick in Nebraska took in 7,235 votes for 0.95%.

All told, these seven candidates won 443,518 votes, the most votes for a Green Party slate of candidates since the 2000 election, when Medea Benjamin and 9 other candidates brought in over 700,000 votes. This should be seen as a good sign for the Green Party.

My spreadsheet listing Green Party US Senate candidates is on Google docs, and it is mostly based on the excellent Green Party Election Database.

As reported in the Fall 2008 Green Pages, the Green Party’s seven U.S. Senate candidates:

Kathy Cummings – Illinois

Cummings is running against Richard Durbin because “in 2002 he knew Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. He kept that information from the public. He allowed Bush to fool the American people into starting an unjustified war. You can see Durbin confess to this on YouTube. See his ‘Bombshell announcement’ on my website. He kept quiet for five years because he claims he was sworn to secrecy by the Senate Intelligence Committee! By doing so, he showed his loyalty was with a dishonest regime and not with the People.” Cummings is a Peace candidate who supports the oath of office to uphold the constitution, provide health care to all people and create an ecologically sustainable country.

Rebekah Kennedy – Arkansas

Kennedy is a lawyer who has proudly worked in the areas of civil rights and on behalf of victims of workplace discrimination. She previously ran for the office of Arkansas Attorney General and received 4.67% of the vote. She is motivated by the fact that not one Democrat or Republican was willing to run against an incumbent in federal races. Kennedy is challenging Mark Pryor, motivated to run due to Pryor’s many votes in opposition to the people of Arkansas. She currently serves as Elections Co-chair for the Green Party of Arkansas, a position she also held from 2002-2007. Fromm 2007-08 Kennedy served as Public Relations Co-chair. Her reasons for running include challenging Pryor’s votes to continue support for the occupation of Iraq and the Military Commissions Act. Kennedy calls for the U.S. to take the lead in stopping global warming and to create a national health care system.

Bob Kinsey – Colorado

Kinsey is a retired United Church of Christ minister, history teacher, and a veteran of the Marine Corps. His son-in-law is currently serving in Iraq. Kinsey sums up his campaign with the phrase “Respect Life!” This means government must set policies to insure life into the future. The current economic system, run by uncontrolled growth, “is the ideology of a cancer cell.” “We have to redirect our economics to avoid the tipping point” of environmental catastrophe. He supports building sustainable infrastructure, tax incentives for wind power, organic agriculture, safe ranching practices, and mass transit. Kinsey connects his support of the Ten Key Principles to his values as a minister. “The Green Party values are a good secular representation of what Jesus called ‘the Kingdom of God.’”

Steve Larrick – Nebraska

Larrick is running against Ben Nelson, considered the most conservative Democrat in the Senate. On his website, Larrick discusseshis policies for ending the occupation of Iraq, providing health care to all Americans, solving America’s economic problems, reducing dependence on foreign oil and protecting civil liberties.

Chris Lugo – Tennessee

Lugo is running against Republican Lamar Alexander. For the past five years he has worked as a peace activist with state wide coalitions to end the war in Iraq. This activism will be helpful in getting out the anti-war message, which is at the core of his campaign. Having worked for the past ten years with a range of progressive coalitions in Nashville and across the country has given Lugo a sense of what issues are important at the Federal level. Lugo entered the U.S. Senate race “to be a voice for the progressive issues that need to be discussed in Tennessee – ending the war, bringing health care to every citizen, abolishing our nuclear weapons stockpile, addressing issues of racial justice in the South, media democracy, election reform, international peace, and publicly funded campaigns.”

Harley Mikkelson – Michigan

Mikkelson is a Vietnam veteran, a union member and an active Green Party member since 2002. He ran for Congress in 2002 opposed to starting a war in Iraq. In 2004 he ran calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. He has been in the Peace Movement since becoming active in Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1968. His campaign focus is to bring U.S. troops home immediately. In addition, Mikkelson would campaign for Fair Trade, in order to bring back jobs to the United States, and would stress the need to provide more educational opportunities and health benefits for everyone.

Keith Ware – District of Columbia
(no description in Green Pages – the following is from multiple sources) Keith Ware is a community, environmental and human rights activist in DC, and owner and operator of Nature Green, an Eco-store in downtown DC. “As a fourth-generation Washingtonian, as well as a father, business owner and community activist, I understand the District’s needs and will be the people’s voice.” “The fact that Washington residents have no federal representation violates their basic rights as U.S. citizens. This is an issue close to my heart as well as the hearts of all Washingtonians.”

In 1992, Linda Martin and Mary Jordan became the first Green Party candidates for U.S. Senate.

Mary Jordan ran for U.S. Senate in Alaska, receiving over 20,000 votes, 8.37% of the total vote in a three way race against the infamous Frank Murkowski. Linda Martin ran for U.S. Senate in Hawai’i against an entrenched Democratic Party in 1992 against Daniel Inouye, who had been in the Senate since 1962, and who handedly defeated his opponents winning over 70% of the vote in every re-election – that is until 1992. Linda Martin earned 49,921 votes, 13.73%, holding Inouye to 57.3%, while the Republican picked up 26.9%. Her race changed Hawai’i politics, and Green Party politics, setting records for both total votes and percent of votes by a Green in a partisan race. In this video, Mike Feinstein interviews Linda Martin in 2003 about her campaign.

Two years later, Barbara Blong picked up 140,567 votes running for U.S. Senate in California. In the 1990s, Greens ran for U.S. Senate in Alaska (twice), Hawai’i, California, Maine, Oregon (twice), New Mexico, and New York.

In 2000, with the Nader campaign getting big, Greens ran 10 candidates for U.S. Senate, who combined took in 706,538 votes, led by Vance Hansen (Arizona, 108,926, 7.80%), Medea Benjamin (California, 326,828, 3.08%, and Doug Sandage (Texas, 91,448, 1.46%).
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