Category: Convention

More Stuff that Happened at the GPUS PNC

12/8/2016

(This should really be #9, continuing from a previous post, but I don't know how to hack the HTML to start the OL at 9.) I was among many attendees who got to shake Dr. Cornel West's hand. As I mentioned before, Kayleen got a hug from the man.
I also got to shake the hand of presidential candidate Darryl Cherney, the Earth First! activist. I told him that he was at the first Green Party meeting I had attended, once it was officially formed in Harris County, and he remembered being there at the Montrose Library in January 2000. Cheney graced the gathering with some guitar-playing and singing at the Friday evening talent show/fundraiser, but I was busy with other stuff and missed it.
Almost all the speakers in the Saturday morning session, including presidential and other candidates, were allowed five minutes to address the crowd. According to some sources, candidate Dr. Bill Kreml (website officially discontinued) didn't think that was enough, as if he would be coming all the way to Houston to give a five-minute speech. He was missed. Even Darryl Cherney, who made it clear from the beginning that his presidential campaign would involve no travel, came to Houston in August to hang out with a few hundred comrades.
As long as we're dropping the names of presidential candidates, I got to drive Kent Mesplay on the golf cart between the University Center and the Moody Towers refectory.
SKCM Curry took more than her five minutes, as everyone knew she would, but then plenty of others went a little over time. If she made good on her pledge to challenge the nomination on procedural grounds, which she made on RT's Watching the Hawks, I didn't see it, and it wasn't successful.
Plenty of attendees were in thrall at the appearance Saturday morning of Julian Assange via video conference, with 2004 nominee David Cobb feeding him questions. (Sorry, can't find a link to the video.) I was serving as an usher, limiting access to the second-floor entrance to the theater, which the convention planners had designated the media entrance. What little I saw of it via livestream seemed a little dry and not at all compelling. But Assange took on the mantle of a prophet in his warning that the Clinton campaign's attacks on Jill Stein and the Greens would soon go "through the roof" on all media fronts, because the DNC is scared shitless of the Greens turning into a viable progressive force. The DNC is also scared shitless of progressives within the Democratic Party, as they have demonstrated repeatedly.

To be continued if I think of anything else worth posting.

The Vote Tally

9/8/2016

The information below is adapted from a Facebook post by Sean Friend, co-chair of the Arapahoe County (CO) Green Party. I can't find the vote tally on any of the GP websites yet.

Not all states had delegations to the convention, and not all states have active state Green Party organizations. One of the five caucuses, the Black Caucus, did not vote in the nomination proceedings.

Note that No Candidate, aka None of the Above, received half a vote from one of the Michigan delegates. No Candidate is always an option when voting within the Green Party. David Cobb defeated No Candidate on the second ballot in 2004, when many Greens preferred to support Ralph Nader's independent candidacy.

*****

After a thorough review of the convention record, we have certified the following official results of the 2016 GPUS Presidential Nominating Convention:

Dr. Jill Stein has won the presidential nomination after receiving a majority of votes in the first round of voting. She received 239.5 out of 293 total votes (81.7%).

All candidates:
239.50 (81.7%) Dr. Jill Stein
18.25 (06.2%) Dr. Bill Kreml
14.50 (04.9%) Sedinam Kinamo Christin Moyowasifza-Curry
09.50 (03.2%) Darryl Cherney
07.50 (02.6%) Kent Mesplay
03.25 (01.1%) Elijah Manley
00.50 (00.2%) No Candidate

State-by-state voting:
Alabama: JS-4
Arizona: JS-5, KM-1
California: JS-34, BK-2, KM-2, DC-5, SKCM-3
Colorado: JS-5
Connecticut: JS-2
District of Columbia: JS-1.5, BK-0.25, EM-0.25
Delaware: JS-4
Florida: JS-4, EM-3
Georgia: JS-4
Hawai'i: JS-3, BK-1
Illinois: JS-22, BK-1
Iowa: JS-3, KM-1
Kentucky: pass
Louisiana: JS-3, BK-1
Maine: JS-5, SKCM-1
Maryland: JS-6
Massachusetts: JS-8, SKCM-2
Michigan: JS-11.5, BK-0.5, KM-0.5, DC-0.5, SKCM-0.5, NC-0.5
Minnesota: JS-4, SKCM-3
Mississippi: JS-4
Missouri: pass
Nebraska: JS-2
Nevada: JS-4
NewJersey: JS-5
New Mexico: JS-3, BK-1
New York: JS-16, BK-1, DC-1
North Carolina: JS-4
Ohio: JS-6, BK-2, SKCM-1
Oklahoma: JS-2
Oregon: JS-6, DC-1, SKCM-1
Pennsylvania: JS-8, BK-1
Rhode Island: JS-4
South Carolina: JS-3, BK-5
Tennessee: JS-3.5, BK-05
Texas: JS-15, BK-1, KM-2, DC-2, SKCM-3
Virginia: JS-3, KM-1
Washington: JS-5
Wisconsin: JS-7, BK-1
Wyoming: JS-2
Women's Caucus: JS-2
Youth Caucus: JS-2
Lavender Caucus: JS-2
LatinX Caucus: JS-2
Kentucky: pass (second time)
Missouri: pass (second time)

Election judges: Andrea Mérida Cuéllar and Rich Zitola

Stuff That Happened at GP PNC

9/8/2016

DBC chillin' with Maximo Cortez Thursday night at the reception/rally.

Former HAUSmate Mo Cortez (pictured above, to my left) was one of at least three of my couple dozen invitees to show up at Thursday night's opening reception. The reception was open to the public, and Green-curious Sanders supporters were especially welcome. Bernie or Bust organizer YahNé Ndgo was one of the featured speakers.
As I mentioned in yesterday's entry, I missed most of the opening reception because I was driving eventual presidential nominee Dr. Jill Stein to and from KUHF on our rented, six-person, gas-powered golf cart.
The six people on the cart to KUHF also included two of Jill's campaign team, Kayleen, and another volunteer, a recent graduate of Deer Park High School who is about to start attending UH's Moores School of Music. The young woman was thrilled to talk to and get a selfie with Jill.
I also had the privilege of driving delegates and others to or from the airports, including amazing women like Ursula Rozum, Robin Laverne (Dragonfly) Wilson, Dr. Margaret Flowers, and Sedinam Kinamo Christin Moyowasifza-Curry. Ursula, from Syracuse, ran for Congress in 2012. Dragonfly and Margaret are running for US Senate this year in New York and Maryland, respectively. SKCM Curry was one of the five presidential candidates in attendance.
SKCM had appeared on RT's Watching the Hawks earlier in the week, announcing that she would contest Jill's all-but-assured nomination. While Jill did receive the majority of delegates in state primaries and caucuses, SKCM had filed several procedural complaints. The Green National Committee apparently does not have the apparatus in place to address or redress those complaints, and I agree with her that this situation needs to be rectified with all due haste.
Early Saturday morning, two of our delegates got "profiled." It's a long story, but essentially, they had crossed Wheeler Avenue to have a smoke in the parking lot, as UH is a smoke-free campus, and someone alerted UH Police about "two suspicious black men" roaming the lot. Gary Frazier of New Jersey was cuffed and stuffed in the back of a squad car, sans AC, for a half-hour. Kayleen, who was driving the golf cart that morning, rescued them, corroborating their story that they were Green Party convention delegates, and invoking the name of her foster daughter who works as an officer in HPD's UH patrol. In the video, there's a cameo from Dr. Cornel West, who gave the keynote address that afternoon. Brother Cornel gave Kayleen a hug and called her a hero.
In addition to Tabetha Wallace from Watching the Hawks, there were plenty of media folks on hand for this event, mostly progressive/left sources, but also some of the local TV news crews. C-SPAN covered the actual nominating convention on Saturday. The Real News Network captured and posted quite a bit of video.
After 16 years as a Green activist, I learned about FPVA, after picking up the representative from El Partido Verde de México at IAH. I also got to meet a visitor from El Partido Verde de la Republica Dominicana. Mexico has more elected Greens than any other country in the world, including at the federal level: six senators and more than 30 representatives in Congress. The current state government of Chiapas has a Green majority. Please be advised that the Mexican Green Party is considered much friendlier to big business, and more willing to form coalitions with the major parties (PRI in particular), than the US and Canadian Greens. That doesn't mean there aren't sincere ecology activists working within the party there.

This is just a portion of the stuff worth reporting. I will post more in the next few days.

Cornel West's hero with SKCM in front of the University Center at UH.

GPUS Convention 2016, DBC Blog 0

8/8/2016

This past Saturday afternoon, in case you haven't heard, the world changed.

The Green Party of the United States officially nominated Dr. Jill Stein and human rights advocate Ajamu Baraka as its presidential ticket.

About 500 people packed into the theater at the University of Houston's student center, with a few dozen more watching the livestream in the overflow room.

Dr. Cornel West delivered the keynote address for the convention.

Julian Assange of WikiLeaks appeared by video conference from his refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

The many disaffected Sanders supporters who registered as observers got some sincere love from Jill and other speakers.

And not a single fucking balloon fell from the rafters.

Green PNC: Saving the Best for Last

1/8/2016

Today is 1 August 2016.

Thursday, 4 August 2016, the Green Party US's Presidential Nominating Convention and Annual National Meeting commences.

The convention, entitled Houston, We Have a Solution—Vote Green 2016, will occur about three miles from my dwelling, at the University of Houston's main campus.

This year, unlike 2012, and 2004, I am not a delegate to the convention. However, I will be staffing the registration desk.

While typing this entry, I am filled with a very positive mixture of excitement and anxiety. This could be the convention that launches the Green Party into the national consciousness to stay. On the other hand...nope, not gonna say it.

It's Official: Greens to Appear on Illinois Ballot

6/7/2016

They did it! And we helped.

The Illinois Green Party has received official notification that its candidates will appear on the general election ballot this November. Last Monday, the party submitted petition sheets with more than 50,000 signatures to the Secretary of State's office in Springfield, enough to survive a challenge from either of the two established parties. Assuming that Jill Stein wins the nomination, her name will appear on the ballot in her native state.

By "we," I mean my beloved partner Kayleen and I. She went to Chicago for the final week of the petition drive. I planted the idea in her mind in the first place and bought her a round-trip ticket on Amtrak. It was not a difficult decision: She was not working at the time, and she loves Chicago.

Stein: Not Yet Official Nominee, but Who Will Catch Her?

15/6/2016

Dr. Jill Stein's campaign website announced today that Stein has secured enough delegate votes to win the Green Party's presidential nomination.

The article reminds us that the Green nomination will not be official until and unless the delegates confirm it in Houston on 6 August.

While your humble blogmeister is an un-shut-up-able supporter and promoter of Stein's candidacy, the introvert in him wishes that the campaign had waited longer to make the announcement. This is mainly because there are four other recognized candidates vying for the nomination, all of whom are good folks, and one of whom is not shy about her displeasure at how Stein has operated as the presumptive nominee all along.

Despite any grumbling that might come from other Green candidates and their supporters, none can deny that Stein has run a well organized race thus far. She has also greatly improved not only her overall message since 2012 (and even since 2015), as well as how she delivers that message. She has taken that message on numerous media appearances in various platforms just since January, including today's life Facebook interview with Huffington Post (not yet posted on the site).

Also, in a sense, the timing of the announcement is excellent, given Stein's recent 5% showing in national polls.