 It's at least partly in how you interpret it, of course. It's also partly the smallish sample sizes. But by gum, the Public Policy Polling national survey for August 2016 has Jill Stein rising from 2% in May, June and July to 4%.
The 4% figure complements this week's NBC News/SurveyMonkey results. Stein maintains a 5% standing on NBC/SM, which uses much larger sample sizes and thus attains a smaller margin of error. The two polls differ widely on Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, who earns 11% on NBC/SM and a mere 6% on PPP. I guess I got on Sen. Ted Cruz's email list after sending him messages of protest via one of the liberal and progressive clicktivism sites to which I subscribe. I seldom even look at Ted's messages before deleting them, but I've decided I should at least give them a glance in case there's blog material lurking in them.
The latest Cruz-o-gram has me rubbing my eyes and giving my head a quick shake, double- and triple-taking. The message and accompanying photos depict Cruz on August Congressional recess back in his home state. It looks like a typical boring legislative newsletter, and it doesn't begin with any vitriolic rhetoric about the Kenyan Usurper or the Stalinist Affordable Care Act. You have to look a little more deeply to see What's Really Wrong With This Picture. What's wrong with it is what isn't there.  Thanks to recent major media exposure, Jill Stein's "haven't heard enough" numbers are now all below 80%. On one level, celebrating that development is pretty laughable. On a different one, it's huge news.
The latest Quinnipiac University national poll shows Stein at 4%, about the same percentage she got from QU at the end of June. The latest figures bring Stein's Real Clear Politics average up again: Over the past week, she has upticked from 3.0% to 3.6% on RCP. As influential as the big 24-hour news networks may be, at any given time, generally about 1% of America's population is actually watching CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News. That includes all the people stuck in airport departure lounges. Even if every non-Green who watched Stein's CNN Town Hall appearance last Wednesday were instantly converted, it wouldn't make a huge difference in her polling numbers. But factor in everyone who linked to the video on their various social media outlets and blogs, and now at least a lot more American voters know who Jill Stein is. That was not the case in June: two months ago, 88% of respondents did not know enough about Stein to form an opinion of her. Other noteworthy findings from this sample population:
Do yourself a favor and read the whole result document—or at least read until your eyes glaze over (as mine began to about page 11). As part of an evolving Green social media strategy, and to promote Green Party candidates for positions other than President of the United States, Texas Green co-chair Laura Palmer has created the Twitter hashtag #DownticketGreens.
In his address to the Green Party's national convention on 6 August, Julian Assange predicted that Hillary Clinton's fans in the media would launch a ruthless, relentless stream of attacks against the Stein/Baraka campaign, the Green Party, and progressives in general. We are now waiting to see whether the attacks will heat up gradually or Blitzkrieg-style. Thus far, it has just been a manageable trickle of the usual myths and outright lies, such as "OMG Nader 2000!!!" A gradual crescendo of vitriol would leave progressives like the proverbial boiled frog, unaware or unsure whether anything is actually happening until it is too late to jump out of the pot. The Blitz would just overwhelm us, leaving us unable to resist on multiple fronts, similar to the way corporate puppet-masters use their seemingly endless supply of cash to push an agenda until the opposition runs out of resources. At last night's Harris County Green Party meeting, Ms. Palmer mentioned one of the noteworthy lies of Hillary's propaganda brigade. It goes something like: "The Green Party exists only to run a candidate for president every four years. Then it goes back into its closet to wait for the next presidential election. You never hear about them doing anything else." It's not just Dan Savage saying so any more. The trope has found its place in the liberal echo chamber. Well, the last sentence is certainly true: You don't hear about us between presidential elections, primarily because the major media refuse to cover Greens' activities as candidates or activists. If we didn't run a presidential candidate, press coverage of the Greens would range between bupkis and diddly-squat. However, we do have other candidates, even in non-presidential years. We also serve to raise public awareness of issues that receive scant media attention and policy positions outside the establishment consensus. It troubles me a bit that several Texas Greens who filed to run for office this year have had to back out for a variety of reasons. Laura Palmer was a candidate for State Board of Education, District 6, but she and her husband Don "Sketch" Palmer have purchased a house in District 4, so she has had to withdraw from the race. But Texas Greens still have candidates for five statewide judicial seats, plus several candidates for US House, Texas House, Texas Senate, and some county offices, not to mention Martina Salinas for Railroad Commission.  "You down with PPP?"
"Yeah, you know me." I'm trying to imagine an older, not-so-Internet-savvy Texan hearing "Deez Nuts" from the recorded voice of the pollster, and not being able to process those two syllables in any language. This isn't the only major revelation in the latest Public Policy Polling survey for Texas. First, there is also the question of whether ACORN will steal the election for Hillary Clinton. Fortunately or not, only 24% responded that it will; 39% said no, and 36% were not sure. In case you weren't sure yourself, ACORN was driven to extinction in 2010. Yesterday, I observed that the Green Party ticket has yet to experience any post-convention "bounce." The bounce phenomenon isn't usually associated with minor parties, but this is not a normal election year. Let's see if, after tonight, the poll numbers Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka show a bit more elasticity.
Tonight, Stein and Baraka get more than the standard five-minute interview on CNN. The fun begins at 8 pm Central Daylight Time, and lasts an hour minus commercial breaks (so probably 35 minutes). Harris County Greens & Green-leaners will gather at Midtown Bar & Grill, 415 West Gray Avenue, beginning at 7 pm for a watch party. What to Watch For: Wow, this item actually mentions Instant Runoff Voting as the cure for the "spoiler effect." Jill Anti-Science? Like the "spoiler" accusations, this trope refuses to die. It was cute when it was confined to clickbait sites and social media; it is far less cute when CNN and other major news sources decide to repeat it, even if to explore it from both sides. Saying "just because we can doesn't mean we should" about a scientific advance or practice is not opposition to science in general, but to unwise applications of science. Keyword searches on CNN for Jill+Stein and Ajamu+Baraka include the original announcement of the Town Hall broadcast. The numbers in the polls don't mean anything, especially in presidential preference polls. The real picture is likely well outside the margin of error, and the margin of error is already pretty significant when your candidate is polling in single digits.
The numbers in the polls mean everything, especially when the Presidential Debate Commission has set a bar of a 15% average in a specific set of polls in order to participate in televised debates. The latest NBC/SurveyMonkey poll shows Gary Johnson at 11%, up from 9% two weeks ago, and inching toward that 15% mark (probably not inching fast enough). The same poll shows Jill Stein treading water at 4%, even with millions of potential votes from disaffected Bernie Sanders fans since the Westminster Kennel Cl—er, Democratic Dog & Pony Show in Philadelphia. With Stein's NBC/SM numbers unchanged, her Real Clear Politics average remains at 3.0%; Johnson moves up to 8.5%. I had expected Stein to receive a bigger bounce from the Democratic Con at the end of July than from the following week's "The Revolution Might Be on C-SPAN" Green Convention. After all, the Sanders delegates' walkout made for a pretty big news story and comic fodder for Samantha Bee. Neither convention really provided Jill much of a boost. None of the polls that RCP tracks have Stein above the 5% threshold nationally, the minimum for locking in matching funds for the Greens' next nominee. Optimistic Greens and other #JillNotHill partisans might add the 1.2% margin of error to the NBC/SM figure to put her at 5.2%. It's not empty optimism when you look at the poll's methodology, including the demographic breakdown and the overabundance of land lines contacted. At least the Stein/Baraka campaign can point to more victories on the ballot access front: As of this week, Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka are fairly well assured of having their names on ballots in 30 states, with more than 70% of the population. There are still more states in play. Stay tuned, as the clické goes.
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  DBC chillin' with Maximo Cortez Thursday night at the reception/rally.
 Cornel West's hero with SKCM in front of the University Center at UH. |
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