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October 2008 |
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Open the Debates!
Open the Debates Action: Let Cynthia & Rosa debate! Help get Cynthia McKinney & Rosa Clemente in the news and in the debates! On Tuesday, Oct. 7, the second presidential debate is planned for Belmont University's Curb Event Center in Nashville, Tennessee. The third presidential debate is on Oct. 15 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. The debate sponsors intend to exclude the Green Party's presidential ticket. Let's not let that happen without a fight for democratic inclusion of all qualified candidates. By excluding all candidates except Democrats and Republicans, the debate sponsors are rigging the election. Cynthia and Rosa are on the ballot in enough states to win the election, so they deserve an invitation, and voters deserve to hear them debate! We encourage all Greens and friends to participate in the first in a series of actions we're planning for October. Please help us spread the word about the McKinney/Clemente campaign and their right to take part in the debates. Stay tuned for more actions throughout the month. Here's what you can do:
~ Talking points ~ Open the debates to Cynthia McKinney and other candidates on the ballot! Cynthia tells the truth - Let Cynthia debate! * Cynthia McKinney, Rosa Clemente, and the Green Party represent millions of voices whose opinions will be excluded from the debates unless they are invited. Ms. McKinney is the only woman presidential candidate in 2008. Ms. McKinney and Ms. Clemente are the first US presidential ticket in which both nominees are of African ancestry, and Ms. Clemente is Black Puerto Rican. Ms. McKinney has involved herself personally in the struggle of people in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region to fight permanent eviction and return to their homes -- the September 26 debate will take place in Oxford, Mississippi, a Gulf Coast state. The Green Party and its candidates represent the promise of an anti-war, progressive party that takes no money from corporations -- an imperative for America in the 21st century. No other candidate in the 2008 stands for what the McKinney-Clemente ticket stands for. * When debates are limited to two candidates, the voting public hears only a narrow range of ideas, opinions, and solutions. When presidential debates are restricted to Democrat and Republican, important and popular ideas don't get discussed, such as single-payer national health care, rapid and complete withdrawal from Iraq, ending the war on drugs, saving US democracy from a repeat of the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004, and impeachment of President Bush and VP Cheney. Without Cynthia McKinney, these ideas will be censored from the debates. * Cynthia McKinney will be on enough ballots to get elected to the White House. Any presidential candidate who is on enough ballots to be elected deserves to participate in the debates. * The only valid democratic measurement of public support for candidates is the election. Opinion polls are subjective, vulnerable to bias, constantly fluctuating, and often exclude candidates from the questions asked. Polls are not democratic and should not be used to determine who gets to participate in debates. * The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which sets rules for candidate participation, took over the debates from the nonpartisan League of Women Voters after the LWV withdrew in protest of the Democratic and Republican candidates' attempts to control nearly every aspect of how the debates were to be conducted. The CPD is owned and run by the Democratic and Republican parties, which have an interest in excluding all candidates except their own. The CPD is funded through contributions from corporations, which have their own interests in limiting the candidates who participate in the debates. * In Canada, the TV networks initially tried to exclude Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada, from the September 10 debates before the October 14 national election. After the Greens launched a "Reclaim Democracy" campaign and Canadians throughout the country demanded Ms. May's inclusion, Ms. May was invited to participate. Americans who value democracy and fair elections should demand multi-party debates too. Ballot Access Update Thanks you your help and many, many volunteers, the Green Party of the United States won hard-fought ballot access drives accross the country. Help us celebrate our success by volunteering to help the ballot access efforts coming in 2009 and 2010. This year we overcame a number of challenges to appear on 70.5% of the ballots available to Americans this year. In April, we met Arizona's early deadline and submitted over 20,000 signatures to win access to Arizona's ballot. We also coordinated a nation-wide effort to overcome long odds and stay on the ballot in Hawaii. Elsewhere in the West, we maintained our ballot access in Washington and won access for the McKinney/Clemente campaign in Utah. In the Midwest, our volunteers won ballot access in Iowa, despite floods which disrupted the short window the state Board of Elections allowed for collecting signatures. We also turned in a significant numbers of signatures to maintain ballot access in Minnesota. After their success in winning major party status in 2006, many volunteers from Illinois pitched in to collect signatures in several states. In Ohio, the Green Party took advantage of a judge's ruling in a separate court decision and filed a lawsuit to have the McKinney/Clemente campaign placed on the ballot. A judge ruled that because of the party's base of popular support, the state is not allowed to exclude the party from running a candidate for President. In the South, we won ballot access in Tennessee and fought hard to overcome difficult requirements in Virginia. After organizing many volunteers and fundraising on the state and national level to support the petition drive, the Green Party of Virginia won ballot access in a major swing state. The Northeast, we won anothermajor victory in New York, which gathering thousands of signatures in a very narrow petitioning window. After their petition went unchallenged, the Green Party of the New York State won ballot access for the McKinney/Clemente in ther nation's third-most populated state. We also organized successful petition drives in New Jersey and Rhode Island. This November, Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente will be on the ballot in 32 states including Washington, DC. If you live in Alabama, Alaska, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, or Wyoming, don't forget to write Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente in. In 2009 and 2010 we must work together to win ballot access in as many states as we can in preparation for the 2012 election. If we prepare now, we can be on all 51 ballots in 2012! Contributions are still needed to cover costs from this year's petition drives and fund our drives in 2009 and 2010. This year we raised over $10,000 solely to support ballot access efforts, but even that is a drop in the bucket compared to parties and candidates who are currently on 40 or more ballots. Please make a contribution at the Ballot Access Committee's webpage at gp.org/committees/ballot/. You can also volunteer to assist the Ballot Access Committee organize future efforts. We need help collecting petitions, fundraising, finding new volunteers, lobbying for fair ballot access laws on the state and national level, and holding state governments accountable to their laws in court. If you have legislative or litigation expertise or any other skills that can help us continue to win ballot access, please volunteer at gp.org/committees/ballot/.
Follow the Green Party on Twitter! Twitter is a free service that lets you receive short updates (140 characters or less) on a homepage you can visit at twitter.com, through your instant messenger or via text message. We're sending out important updates about our Congressional campaigns, TV appearances by the McKinney/Clemente ticket, new items in our online store, and everything else. Getting in on the updates is easy! Visit www.twitter.com/gpus right now. First, sign up for a free account at twitter.com. You can keep it simple or post your own image, begin updating friends on your Green Party activism, and search out new friends in your area if you'd like. Second, sign up to follow the Green Party of the United States' updates. You can follow us by visiting our page at www.twitter.com/gpus, or simply text "follow gpus" to 40404, which is Twitter's special number. That's it! Twitter is free except for standard text messaging rates. Start following the Green Party today!
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