Cindy Sheehan, independent candidate for U.S. House from California’s 8th district (most of San Francisco), has 900 signatures on her petition to get on the ballot. She needs 10,198 valid signatures by August 8 (3% of the number of registered voters). She has a campaign headquarters at 1260 Mission Street. See her web page. No one has qualified as an independent for U.S. House from California since 1996. California’s requirement for independent candidates for U.S. House is the 4th most difficult in the nation (only Georgia, Illinois, and North Carolina have more severe requirements).
Well, I don’t live anywhere near SF, but I sent Sheehan $25. It seems important to have her on the ballot against Pelosi; I mean as far as letting the national DP leaders know that the Leftroots are not pleased.
One more State with an election system blatantly violating the fundamental principle that SEPARATE IS NOT EQUAL. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 495 (1954).
What century will a lawyer with some BRAINS do the CORRECT argument to a court (also with some BRAINS) ???
I don’t see how this is a separate vs. equal thing, this is blatantly just unequal.
Rookie mistake.
She won’t make the ballot.
Too many signatures. She’ll learn she should run on Green Party ballot line.
Greens would love to have her.
Yes, running as a Green (or Peace and Freedom) certainly would have been easier for her.
Would it have been? My understanding is that the write-in threshold to go from a primary to the general is a pain in the nads. More wonderful California election laws :/
She would have needed 1,847 write-ins in either the Green primary or the Peace & Freedom primary. Since she is so famous, and since there are 9,164 registered Greens in the 8th district, I think if she had tried to get the Green nomination by write-in votes, she could have done it.
Carol Miller is doing the same thing in New Mexico, i.e. running for the House as an independent instead of as a Green Party candidate. And (correct me if I’m wrong) she has significantly more signatures to collect as a result. Obviously there is a compelling reason for these two women to have rejected the possibility of going for the Green nomination, although it’s not obvious what that reason could be. Maybe they just don’t care to be affiliated with the GP (Miller was a Green Nader supporter in 2004, if I remember right).
Cindy and Carol Miller are not a valid comparison.
Cindy is rookie.
Carol Miller is a successful veteran. Carol Miller has run many successful New Mexico petition drives for herself, for other Green Party members.
Carol Miller is more than a celebrity in New Mexico. Carol Miller is a successfull mainstream Green Party politican. She served in administrations of both conservatives, and liberals. Carol Miller also received well over 25% of the vote running for congress in New Mexico. She ran twice.
Carol Miller has also been elected to various local leadership positions in New Mexico by members of the two larger parties.
As a person, who has run for office several times, she knows the real world, practical things, and lessons only a person who has actually been on the ballot can know.
She spent years working to build the Green Party.
Carol Miller remains a Green Party supporter. My friends in New Mexico tell me Carol’s stragtegy is for running as an Independent was to broaden the message.
On a practical level it was much simpler than having to deal with self destructive super majorities 2/3rds or better required by some Green Party locals. Some Greens call it consensus.
It runs off good citizens of action, who want to get something done in the community other than sit in a circle and talk for hours on end without positive action.
Consensus = nonsense. Tranny of the minority coffe klatsch crowd that never gets on the ballot for anything.
Carol Miller will not only make the ballot, she may get elected. And the Green Party will grow as a result.