California holds a primary on June 3 for all office except president. Among the offices at stake in the Peace & Freedom Party primary are contests for county central committee.
The PFP presidential primary in February was merely a “beauty contest” with no binding results. The truly meaningful presidential primary is the June event, because the county central committee members will collectively comprise the state central committee, and the state central committee will choose the party’s presidential nominee at a state convention in August. The process is somewhat burdensome to Peace & Freedom Party rank-and-file members, because the ballot just lists the candidates for county central committee. Some of the candidates support Gloria La Riva, some support Cynthia McKinney, some support Brian Moore, some support Ralph Nader. But the ballot doesn’t show these preferences. In addition, there are a fair number of write-in candidates for county central committee, and many voters won’t know anything about the write-in candidates, even though each California polling place will have a list of the declared write-in candidates for all offices, including party office.
Thank you for this very important notice.
As a party member from 1992 to 2003 I happen to know that there is a story behind the story.
The Peace and Freedom Party is the Ugly Contest. It has been in the firm fascist grip of aged [and thank god, dying!] hippies from the time warp of the 1960s. It is a one state national party [I will repeat that s l o w l y for some of you: a o n e s t a t e n a t i o n a l p a r t y !]
It’s Left Coast print house organ, the Partisan, might as well be called ‘the Puppet’. There are few California articles, and those that do appear seem to come from Venice Beach and from other old time activists. [No party new comers need submit! Try again in a couple of decades!]
Most of the radical socialist, radical environmental, radical feminist, radical communist pieces seem to have floated over the fly over states from New York City’s ‘Village Voice’.
A new generation of more practical, more ethical anti establishment activists could bring the crippled, ailing, aging [thank goodness!] dinasoar into the 20th century!
Thank you very much for the article about the Peace and Freedom Party, Richard!
So Phil, did Steve Gordon of Third Party Watch ever get ahold of you for blogging detail? Did you ever get ANY THING printed in the Partisan?
Any guesses on whether Ralph Nader, Gloria La Riva or Brian Moore will get the FPF ballot line? Or is the contest to close to say at this point?
All the Stone Age party hack stuff is obsolete and dangerous.
NO caucuses, primaries and conventions are needed.
General election ballot access using equal nominating petitions.
P.R. for legislative body elections.
Approval Voting for executive / judicial elections.
Don: Steve Gordon of Third Party Watch (aka Bourgeois Conservative Party Watch) has not contacted me. I have never submitted any material for publication in “The Partisan.”
“NE”: In my opinion, the contest is too close to call. My choices for president are: (1) Ralph Nader; (2) Cynthia McKinney; (3) Brian Moore; (4) Gloria La Riva. That is my orientation and that is how I intend to vote if I am elected to the County and State Central Committees and become a delegate to the State Presidential Nomination Convention.
Gee Phil, where were you in 2004 [oh, firmly in the John, clone of George II, Kerry camp, in a state where the &@*#$%$ Dems win by over a million votes every four years] ? And TPW? Hmmmmmmmm.
Profiles of the candidates (LaRiva, McKinney, Moore, Nader) have been posted on the California Peace and Freedom Party website at:
http://peaceandfreedom.org/
Gee, Don, it seems that you have some unresolved issues!
By the way, in 2004, I was a member of the American Independent Party of California during the primary season and I voted for Michael Peroutka (the only person on the ballot) as an “adoped favorite son” for our state. By the time the general election rolled around, I was a member of the Natural Law Party of California. I wanted to vote for the Nader-Camejo ticket but we failed to qualify such for the ballot (as you well know). I considered voting for Michael Peroutka again but I decided instead to vote for the Kerry-Edwards ticket. Among many other issues that I took into consideration, I gave a lot of thought to the separation of church and state situation. My opinion is that Senator Kerry has a much better grasp of the need for the separation of church and state than does Mr. Peroutka.
These things I have written on this website and others many times. My policy and practice is to always vote for the best person. I do not utilize that “safe state” stuff, etc.