Either Jill Stein's presidential campaign or the Green Party of the United States has raked in more than $80,000 in contributions since Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton yesterday. At least, that's what US Uncut is saying. Since Tuesday morning, the Green Party has received over $80,000 in contributions, over half of which comes from first-time donors, and half of which comes in the form of contributions under $50. Tellingly, about 615 of those contributions totalled $27, the exact number commonly trumpeted and solicited by the Sanders campaign during his revolutionary grassroots funding movement. I may faint. Green Party US is not accustomed to such mass largesse. It's almost as if all the work we have done since 1999 is about to bear fruit.
US Uncut doesn't cite any actual sources for this information, and I would like to see some confirmation. But the article does cite Alexa for information about the enormous increase in hits that jill2016.com has received just since yesterday. My imagination is getting a workout.
Senator Bernie Sanders has a reputation as a person of integrity: When he said months ago that he would support the Democratic nominee, I took him at his word. Today he went and did it. Imagine if Sanders endorsed former Senator Hillary Clinton today with the ulterior motive of showing the Democratic Party and world how many of his supporters would vote Green rather than stay in the Democratic fold? I use that word "fold" because, since Sanders entered the race, progressive analysts and cranks have bandied about the term "sheepdogging" to describe Bernie's purpose to the Democratic Party: attract a huge herd of Progressive sheep, then drive those sheep toward the inevitably less-progressive nominee, playing on fears of the Republican wolves. See also Kucinich, Dennis; Dean, Howard; Brown, Jerry; and Jackson, Jesse. 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. All the staff at dbcgreentx.net hope that your Flag Day has not sucked too awfully, considering the horrible news from Orlando that keeps revealing new wrinkles and the related revival of gun debates on Facebook.
Here are NBC/SurveyMonkey poll results released today. They are showing Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson polling at 9%, Green candidate Jill Stein at 5%, That 5% is a magical number for third-party campaigns, since 5% nationwide in the presidential race qualifies a party for federal funds in the next cycle. The Libertarians have been drooling loudly over the prospect of reaching 15%, as Rachel Maddow has reported. That level in five reputable polls (whichever those are) gets your candidate past the gate-keepers at the Commission on Presidential Debates. There is only the one question about preferences in a four-way race. But given only Clinton and Trump as voting choices, 20% choose "somebody else." The figure for Stein represents an increase from the 4% showing last week. All the percentages are rounded, or course, so it may be a matter of jumping from 4.4% to 4.6%, with the usual margins of error thrown in. Here's the goods. This time, in Pennsylvania, Gary Johnson gets 6% and Jill Stein 3%.
I don't expect a huge amount of consistency among polls in different states, even neighboring states like Pennsylvania and New Jersey. But the polls we have seen thus far show a great degree of consistency on several questions:
Stein's 3% is reduced to 1% in a four-way race with Sanders, Trump, and Johnson. Here is the question on which all the media coverage should focus, however: |
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