Cindy Sheehan will accept the Peace & Freedom Party nomination for vice-president, if the convention nominates her for vice-president and if the convention nominates Roseanne Barr for president. The convention is in Los Angeles on Saturday afternoon, August 4. Sheehan, and also Rocky Anderson, and also Stewart Alexander, will attend the convention. Roseanne Barr cannot attend because she has an unbreakable commitment to work on that same day.
Why even have a primary?
It’s not irrational for presidential primaries to just be beauty contests. For nationally-organized parties, one state’s presidential primary can’t nominate the presidential candidate. And even for a one-state party such as Peace & Freedom, a lot can happen between the date at which names for the presidential primary are set, and the date of the party’s nominating convention. This is one such example. Roseanne Barr wasn’t interested in the PFP nomination back in March when the presidential primary candidate list was set, but now she is interested.
Rosanne and Cindy…
Really too bad the Green Party, and Dr. Stein’s campaign could not pull them into the Greens more securely.
It will be interesting to see how this goes.
All those folks really should be in the Green Party.
If it’s a Barr/Sheehan ticket, then they might get on the ballot in 6 or 7 more states (at most) since they are both nationally known. All in all, Barr is going to be Nader to the GP like he was in 04 and 08.
I was surprised to discover that the rules of the Peace and Freedom Party of California allow it to toss out the results from their primary and nominate candidates who come along at the last minute looking for a ballot line. How can the PFP justify that decision to Rocky Anderson, Stewart Alexander and the other candidates who competed in their primary? How could they justify that to their members, who voted in the primary?
I love Roseanne Barr and Cindy Sheehan and wish them well, and I’m sure Roseanne’s run for president will give her the publicity she is seeking for her message, but this is not a serious electoral effort.
Qualifying for ballot access in more than a handful of states will be extremely difficult, as any third party that has done it knows very well.
If you want to help with a serious ballot access campaign, and build a political party that can serve as the electoral arm of the progressive movement in the US, please go to: http://www.jillstein.org/ballot
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The left in this Country just keeps shooting itself in the foot. No need to round up leftists in this Country. they provide Comic relief.[Pun intended.}
How many TRILLIONS will the PAFP folks get from the Elephants to — guess what —
DIVIDE and CONQUER — 1860 – 1912 – 1992 – 2000 etc. ???
Where is that Delusional Utopia Morons Party – DUMP ???
—
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
NO MORON primaries, caucuses and conventions.
I hope people know before they start working on this campaign that I am still waiting to get paid. I was the Press Secretary for Roseanne Barr from the end of March until July of this year. I was paid 1/3 of what I was owed.
Anita… I am sorry you were stiffed. She does seem like a bit of a shrew.
Cindy Sheehan is a leading figure in the anti-war movement, which put thousands of people into the streets to address one of the most important issues in world politics and a defining issue for the Left. Cindy represents the best elements of the anti-war movement. She is credible, sincere, and independent.
Roseanne Barr is a sitcom actress with a history of wacky attention-grabbing outbursts. She might have some good positions on the issues, but I see no evidence that she can organize or lead.
If the two share a ticket, it would be to the benefit of Barr and the discredit of Sheehan.
Why? Just why?
If Roseanne Barr had won the Green Party nomination, I would be campaigning for her. And if these wonderful and courageous women were running for Congress as Greens and helping the Green Party get more ballot lines and win 5% of the presidential vote, I would be cheering them on. But under the circumstances this campaign will be viewed by many as a publicity stunt by a attention-seeking celebrity. I have marched with Cindy Sheehan and I admire her tireless work for peace and justice. I hope this campaign will help to get her message out to more people, but I encourage everyone to support Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala, and the Green Party’s 2012 presidential ballot access drive. If you are coming to the RNC, be sure to join Cheri Honkala in the March For Our Lives on August 27th: http://www.jillstein.org/march_for_our_lives
There are very few states in which they could get on the ballot, Louisiana and Colorado only require fees. But many states that require petitions have deadlines that are very soon and require a relatively high number of signatures. There are a handful of single state ballot qualified parties that could potentially endorse them, though there are deadlines for that as well.
That would be a great ticket. I wish we were going to have such a ticket in WA state.
I think the Peace and Freedom Party should just endorse Jill Stein. Why splinter the movement?
I find it interesting how many people presume that the P&F party will abandon the candidates who won or got substantial support in their primary, and who have a handful of other state ballot lines each, in favor of a candidate who competed in another CA primary and lost.
Roseanne and Cindy are welcome to seek the P&F ballot line, but i expect that Rocky, or perhaps Stewart, will get the nomination.
#16 Clay (and many others),
If PFP “should” endorse Jill Stein, then it “should” go out of business altogether. What you are really saying is that “the movement” is homogeneous. There’s only one Left. “The people” or “the 99%” are homogenous. They may have difference views on strategy and tactics but they have only one set of interests.
I disagree. I think that radicals (including the Greens) and socialists have a fundamentally different view of the world because they see the world through different eyes. Socialists are people who look at the world through they eyes of a radicalized wage worker. Radicals are people who look at the world through the eyes of a radicalized shopkeeper, artisan or self-employed professional. These visions are not the same, especially about how economic life should be organized and who should run it the economy. In spite of similar positions on many immediate, short run issues, in the long run the differences are more basic than the similarities.
Socialists and radicals need to work together on specific issues, and I am not opposed to endorsing individual Green candidates when they endorse individual socialists as a quid pro quo. But both need their own political party, platform, and slates of candidates.
Great comment by Bob Richard. On economics alone, one could argue that the differences between the Peace & Freedom and Green parties are far more profound than any substantive dissimilarities between the two major parties, both of which seek to protect the pampered privileged and those in the middle-class who naively aspire to be among their ranks.
Dating back to Dr. Spock’s 1972 presidential campaign, the Peace & Freedom Party has long championed and acknowledged that a healthy dose of democratic socialism would go a long way toward making the United States the great country it could be.
Unlike the Greens, the Peace & Freedom Party has never waged a shameful “safe state” strategy to protect the Democrats. It has never been subservient or subordinate to either corrupt party.
Recognizing that the “lesser evil” still results in a wicked outcome for working folks, it has always been committed to dislodging both corporate-dominated parties from power.
The sooner, the better.
In the annals of American history, the Peace & Freedom Party is a party that can hold its head high.
Let me just add this to what those who defended the Peace and Freedom Party of California wrote above: Dr. Jill Stein has not requested the presidential nomination of our Party. I am sure that there are many people (mostly Democrats, of course) who think that we should nominate President Barack Obama. That gentleman has not asked for our nomination either. (Granted, it would be more likely that Dr. Stein could win than President Obama.)
The main point here is that our Party also has its own set of democratic procedures to follow. If any candidate desires the nomination our Party, he or she first needs to ask for it and then contend for it. It also would help very much if that person makes a comprehensive study of our Party’s platform and policies and seriously talks to us about the issues involved.
#18 I think this is a mischaracterization of the problem. People have egos and can’t come together even when they agree about basically every issue because everybody wants their name on the ballot. The Greens reach out to Labor constantly. I don’t believe the Greens are radicals.
#19 What’s the difference on economy?
#21, “People have egos and can’t come together even when they agree about basically every issue …” That applies to the differences among Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson and their numerous predecessors. Except for the part about egos and names on the ballot, I think it also applies to Stephen Durham, Peta Lindsay, Stewart Alexander and the Socialist Equality Party candidate, whose name I don’t remember right now. In their case, it’s not about ego; it’s about the belief that only your own organization has the correct analysis and is therefore capable of leading the working class. But your comment does not apply between those two groups of candidates.
#21, “The Greens reach out to Labor constantly”. So do the Democrats. With what message and program?
#22, progressives, populists and radicals either don’t think socialism is necessary or don’t think it is possible. They believe that capitalism would be just fine if only you could have an economy that consisted entirely of small-scale businesses, with heavily regulated corporations only in those industries that require large-scale organization. Socialists believe that democracy is limited until the people as a whole control the economy as a whole — that basic decisions about resource allocation and production are inherently public decisions, that private profit is no longer a valid mechanism for those decisions.
There is a great deal of positive support for the Green Party and Dr. Jill Stein here.
The best suggestion is that both Cindy and Rosanne run as Green Party candidates for congress.
Both could get their positive message out, and work with the many Greens that agree with them.
Go Green Party!
In response to Demo Rep’s comment, I suppose I should point out that the Peace and Freedom Party gets absolutely no money from Republicans, certainly none for any Republican Party organization or party body. This has been true for decades, anyway. I have been a state officer of the Peace and Freedom Party in California continuously since 1990, and this has certainly been true since then, and true of our candidates as well.
(We do have one “Republican” candidate, Mary McIlroy, who will appear on the ballot in November in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. But she is an Irish Republican, and a dedicated socialist. Not a GOP supporter!)
I suppose this person just can’t understand why we would not join in supporting Democrats who vote money for each and every crazy war, fail to enact promised union rights reforms, promote unsafe nuclear power, give huge tax cuts to the rich (despite all the noise they make beforehand), and kill people all around the world by drone strikes, most of them non-combatants. What’s not to love there?
Just a comment on why some people, including Roseanne Barr and her supporters, are not loyal to the Green ticket now that the decision has been made. Something Barr apparently failed to understand ahead of time is that there is precious little democracy in how the Green ticket is chosen. Some states have primaries, with varying influence on convention votes, but a great many delegates are from states with no real Green organizations, and the delegates are essentially self-selected. The fix was in over a year ago, and Jill Stein was fated to get the nomination no matter what Green voters wanted. Barr came to understand that, a little late, and was apparently disgusted with the process.
In the California Peace and Freedom Party, all delegates (the members of the State Central Committee) are elected in the June primary election. They make the decision on who appears on the ballot. None are self-appointed representatives of imaginary chapters, they all required the signatures and votes of actual voters in order to be chosen.
The Presidential Preference Primary is a “beauty contest” non-binding vote, and is set up that way by state law. The process was distorted this year by the Secretary of State eliminating one of the candidates, and by a new Green Party rule that kept a candidate from running in both the Green Party and Peace and Freedom Party primaries. (The Peace and Freedom Party does not forbid this. In 2008 two candidates, Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney, ran in both the Green and Peace and Freedom primaries. The Green Party leadership enacted the rule afterwards to keep the voters from expressing their preference for a possible unity candidate.) Barr chose the Green primary, as she could not do both. So her support within the PFP has not been tested, but she certainly has some.
The decision will be made democratically, by those elected by the voters to do so. (And a week in advance, I for one don’t know how it will go.)
18 –
I agree. Every person should form his own political party, because no two people have the same life experiences, the same world view, and the same position on every issue.
So I am going to start my own party. I’m not even going to let my wife join. And I will change the world one person at a time.
Hey! I’m done already!
Break out the cheese doodles.
14) You are very right about all of the deadlines and petitions to get on the ballot, plus the single state parties. Here is the listing of the states where I believe the Barr/Sheehan PFP could get on the ballot either as a party or a candidate if they begin making the effort right after their convention ends–Conn, Del, Fla, Id, Iw, La, Minn, RI, Tenn. The single state Reform/Indpendence/Indpendent parties of Fla, La, Miss, Kansas, Minn, NY. The Natural Law Party of Mich. The down sides–deadlines, petitions, no organization outside of Calif, the giant headstart of the GP, and not wanting to split the vote on the left. I agree with 24. Go for congress. P.S. The deadline has passed in Colorado.
25) Irish Republican?
Clay @ #22. Thanks for your question.
While the Green Party platform is appealing, at least compared to the meaningless pablum offered by President Obama and the Democrats, the American people are hurting, and they’re hurting badly.
According to the U.S. Census, nearly half of the citizens in this country — 146.4 million, including more than 49 million who fall below the poverty level — are considered low-income. The real unemployment rate, moreover, exceeds 15 percent and might be closer to one in every five Americans. That’s a national disgrace.
Worse yet, according to the Federal Reserve’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finances, the current financial crisis has wiped out 18 years of gains for the median U.S. household, dropping total family assets from $126,400 in 2007 to barely $77,300 in 2010 — the same level as in 1992.
Moreover, the values of homes, savings and retirement accounts for middle income and working-class Americans plunged and debt as a share of assets rose from 14.8% to 16.4% during that same three-year period, while the wealthy quickly recouped their losses and have prospered enormously since 2009.
It’s time for radical economic change.
Unlike the Greens, a party woefully short on specifics when it comes to the economy, the Peace & Freedom Party — remaining true to its democratic socialist values — wants to redistribute work by transitioning to a 30-hour work week (an idea once proposed by former Senator Eugene McCarthy and others more than thirty years ago) without any cut in pay or benefits.
The P&FP also supports a doubling of the minimum wage, indexing it to the cost of living, and a guaranteed income allowing those who cannot work to live in some degree of dignity while alleviating poverty and homelessness.
In keeping with the ideals of the party’s founding in 1967, the Peace & Freedom Party also calls for increased taxes on the wealthy — possibly a capital levy on wealth instead of, or in addition to, higher taxes on income — to meet society’s basic human needs.
In short, the Peace & Freedom Party wants a fundamental restructuring of the U.S. economy, one based on fairness and equity.
Like some of the smaller parties on the American Left, the P&FP vigorously defends the poor and working class when almost nobody else will…
I have no qualms with the Greens, but they’re simply not radical enough for me.
The Green Party, moreover, has merely replaced the Democrats, a party that in recent years has morphed into the GOP while the Republicans became an entirely unrecognizable entity on the fringe of American society, a shameless — and mindless — mouthpiece and defender of the rich and powerful during a period of unprecedented income inequality.
For most Americans, the past five years have been like a bad dream. For the poorest among us, it has been an utter nightmare.
Foreclosures and joblessness should worry both parties, but — thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court — they’re so insulated by record amounts of campaign cash from corporations and wealthy individuals that they’re not losing a minute of sleep… Screw the average American.
Though the late Benjamin Spock was too modest to say so himself, some forty years later, the Peace & Freedom Party might just be what the doctor ordered — a radical, independent political movement prepared to remedy the growing ills of society, something that Democrats and Republicans alike on Capitol Hill have proven unwilling or incapable of addressing.
If you’re going to cast a protest vote in the Citizens United era, at the very least it ought to pack a punch.
Who knows, with a little luck the Peace & Freedom Party might land a solid left hook in November.
#23- The differences between the SP-USA (Alexander) and the other “Socialist” parties are actually pretty important,both ideologically and historically (most of the other ‘socialist’ parties are splinters of the Socialist Workers Party, historically a pro-Soviet party which the SP-USA has never been). A nation under the Socialist Party USA would look quite different from one under the Socialist Workers Party
#23- And by the way the PSL (Peta Lindsay) is far more extreme than the SP-USA (and even the Socialist Workers Party) as evidenced by their public mourning of the death of Kim Jong-Il
#29 The Greens want a 30-35 hr work week, as stated in section H of the platform. They want universal income (D), They want the same tax system you want (E). What gives?
By the way, Mitt Romney wants to index the minimum wage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-oGn6-dypE
#27, Richard Winger posted on a previous thread that the Colorado deadline for presidential candidates is in august this year. There are also a couple other minor state parts that theoretically could endorse a candidate for president if their deadlines haven’t passed, but most are not likely to do so. For example the Vermont Progressive Party, the South Carolina United Citizens Party, and the Oregon Progressive Party. The Kansas reform party already has nominated a candidate.
How many delusional utopian MORON folks in 1933-1939 for peace, against war, etc. ???
SOME percentage of the same sort of MORONS in 2012 – deja vu all over again — used by the EVIL CONTROL FREAK monsters like Obama and Romney like puppets on strings ???
—
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V. — to ABOLISH the EVIL minority rule gerrymander Electoral College and the EVIL monarchy stuff it has produced since 1796 – i.e. in Prez John Adams and ALL later Prezs — including especially Obama.
#33-The Oregon Progressive Party has already nominated Rocky Ansderson
#33. The South Carolina United Citizens Party tried to endorse Barack Obama in 2008 and would doubtless do so again in 2012 if they could.
The Dems, being anti-fusion, simply ignored the 2008 endorsement.
The problem is with all the sweetness and light associated with what one calls “democratic socialism” is that it is still state (and authoritarian/totalitarian) control of the economy—and that it does not work. Socialism (as well as communism and fascism) is still state control.
“Cindy Sheehan will accept the Peace & Freedom Party nomination for vice-president, if the convention nominates her for vice-president and if the convention nominates Roseanne Barr for president.”
So would she reject a Prez nomination or a VP nomination with another candidate? That’s being kinda picky if you ask me.
This sounds like a PR stunt by the Barr and Sheehan groups.
33) They could got a ballot in Colorado, but they would have to move fast. I’d forgotten about the other states.
# 25 Never any shortage of EVIL statists using the income and assets of other folks for their EVIL leftwing / rightwing control freak schemes in world history.
The New Age EVIL has been more and more govt borrowing — due to growing tax revolts by tax slaves — getting nothing but un-declared wars, major rot of the inner cities, urban sprawl, etc. etc. — from the EVIL gerrymander gang monsters — Donkey or Elephant – whichever gang happens to be in control in the various major legislative bodies — esp. since 1929.
Dear #13, #24, #27, and anyone else who tells anyone to run for Congress at this late date: How long have you been reading Ballot Access News, and why don’t you know that in California you need to file for Congress (or other partisan office) about 10 months prior to the General Election. You must be confusing the United Sates of America with a democracy.
Here, the question is not just who can vote, but what they are allowed to see on their ballot.
In addition to ballot access comes a plethora of election reform issues including campaign finance (voter access to information about the choices they face) and the lack of proportional representation in legislative bodies. Without PR, votes are meaningless.
Dear #37 – Bob, Your experience has been in observing authoritarian states. Peace and Freedom Party advocates a multi-party form of Democratic Socialism. First, we establish a political democracy where the People control the State. Then, the People extend democracy to the economic sphere by controlling major industry and resources through the State apparatus which is controlled democratically by the People, not by the historical aberrations of authoritarian control by a dictator or small cabal of plutocrats. Socialism is essentially the extension of democracy to the economy.
42) I also meant 2014, 2016, ect.
Anyone who says the Barr campaign is a publicity stunt needs to look at the amount of publicity Roseanne gets for her work in show business vs. the amount of publicity she has gotten from her Peace and Freedom announcement.
If you think someone who had the #1 show on television needs to come to the Peace and Freedom party for publicity, you’re more looney than I ever would have imagined.
Minor party candidacies are a good way to silence the press, not vice versa. The suggestion that anyone would come to this party for publicity is delusional at best — but, more likely, part of an intellectually dishonest smear campaign.
Think about it.
Roseanne’s television show was Number 1 in the ratings how many years ago? 15 years? She had a talk show since then, it only lasted one or two seasons.
I’d like to know where Roseanne Barr will have ballot access, should she win the P&FP nomination.
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