Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Howie Hawkins To Seek Green Party Line To Run Against Cuomo

My sense is the Working Families Party functionaries are talking a good game about getting a candidate from the left to run against Cuomo this year but in the end will not do so.

Howie Hawkins, who ran on the Green Party line against Cuomo last time around, may be the best third party candidate/protest vote we're going to get against Cuomo this time around:

Howie Hawkins today announced he will seek the Green Party nomination to run for governor, as he did in 2010.

Hawkins, a graveyard-shift United Parcel Service worker from Syracuse's South Side, has no illusions about his chances of winning, but he does have ambitious goals for the race.

In 2010, Hawkins won 59,906 votes -- more than any other third-party candidate who ran against Democrat Andrew Cuomo. This time around, Hawkins wants to quadruple his vote total to lodge a "strong protest'' against the policies of Cuomo and the Democrats.

His message is one of help for the middle class and working poor. He advocates guaranteed employment, single-payer public health care, tuition-free state university education, and a $15-an-hour minimum wage. He supports a ban on hydrofracking and a transition to 100 percent "clean energy" by 2030, among other positions.

 Sounds like a great message to me.

6 comments:

  1. I voted for him 2010 and I will certainly vote from him again this time around, unless WFP does come up with a better candidate (but I agree that they will likely endorse Cuomo). We can no longer vote the lesser of two evils in our major races anymore (since really both the Dems and Republican candidates are equally evil). Instead we should all support the candidate that truly does have the best platform, so the Dems and Republicans realize that we will no longer take this two part system lying down.

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    1. Great points - totally agree with you. Barack Obama has led an assault against public schools and public school teachers, and while many complained about him and his education policies, many of those same voted for him in 2012. I voted Gree in 2012 and I didn't care if my vote was going to be the difference between Romney getting elected or Obama getting elected. I was voting Green regardless. No lesser of two evils for me.

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  2. Howie Hawkins is having a NYC kick-off even this coming Saturday. According to the web site, only 13 people have signed up, which is pretty depressing. Here is the link:

    http://www.howiehawkins.org/nyc_campaign_kickoff?recruiter_id=5901

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  3. Is there a way to delete the comment above? I couldn't see how to do it.

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  4. Only a portion of supporters use online RSVP. Turnout is always much better for Howie's events than what you can predict from an event page.

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