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| Affiliation | Green |
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| Name | Phil Huckelberry |
| Address |
Normal, Illinois , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | http://www.votephil.org/ |
| Born |
00, 1976
(48 years)
|
| Contributor | Some say... |
| Last Modifed | Imperator
Oct 28, 2006 10:18am |
| Tags |
Caucasian -
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| Info | I was born in 1976 in Rockford, Illinois and grew up there, "At The Top In Illinois!" as the city sometimes liked to boast. In junior high school I moved out to Winnebago, a small town west of Rockford, and graduated from Winnebago High School in 1994. I went to Illinois Wesleyan University where I earned a B.A. in 1998 in History and Political Science, and then on to The Ohio State University where I earned an M.A. in History (20th Century America) in 2001. For a day job, I'm a Project Manager for Balancing Precision, Inc., a union HVAC firm in Bloomington.
I've always been interested in politics. When I was 5, visiting Poles stayed with us for a while. They were members of SOLIDARNOSC (Solidarity), the Polish labor movement opposing Communist control in Poland. I was too young to fully understand it at the time, but learning about Solidarnosc was very formative in my identifying with social movements against powerful government institutions.
In 1992, my grandmother, who had always voted Republican, was fed up. She voted for Ross Perot. So did my father, and so did 19% of the American electorate. Right at the point in time where I really began to really develop my own political viewpoints, here was solid evidence that there was something wrong with both the Republican and Democratic Parties.
My four years in college were the middle of the Clinton years. During this period, Clinton's continuing sanctions against Iraq were largely responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi children, and at home, Clinton was selling the country out to corporate interests, first by ramming NAFTA down the throats of working Americans, then with the despicable Telecommunications Act of 1996. And of course, the Republicans led by Newt Gingrich were even worse. So I've never identified as a Republican and I've never identified as a Democrat. How could I, when the leaders of those parties were men like that?
In 2000, Ralph Nader's campaign for President was very attractive, but even more attractive was learning that there was a legitimate party supporting that campaign. I was two years into graduate school, having read book after book about the Radical Republicans, the Populists, and the Progressives, about American heroes like Jane Addams and Robert La Follette, about the successes and failures of the New Deal and the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-War Movement. The Green Party embodied all of the best aspects of all of those things.
In early 2001 I was elected to the Coordinating Committee of the Green Party of Ohio. I moved back to Illinois in mid-2001 and got to work on organizing the fledgling local in Bloomington-Normal. I ran for McLean County Board in 2002 only to get thrown off the ballot when local Democrats went after me. I learned a great deal about the Illinois Election Code from going through that process. Later in 2002 I was elected to the Illinois Green Party's 5-person Executive Committee. In 2003 I became a delegate to the Green National Committee. Currently I am Chair of the McLean County Green Party, Co-Chair of the Illinois Green Party, Green National Committee delegate, and chair of multiple committees at the state and national levels. Thanks largely to the experience I gained from being thrown off the ballot in 2002, I led the petition drive that got Rich Whitney and the rest of the Green Party's state slate on the ballot in Illinois in 2006. Now we're poised to elect Greens to partisan office in Illinois for the first time!
I'm running for State Representative because I believe that real political and social change must begin with state government. Washington is so overrun with corporate influence and people who are desperate to maintain power at whatever costs that it's next to impossible to get anything done there. Springfield has its fair share of lobbyists and power-brokers, but it's also a lot closer to the electorate, and Illinois is in dire need of fresh leadership. The people of Illinois want a better government. I want to be part of that. I ask for your vote on November 7.
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