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Why I turned Green
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Candidate
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| Contributor | Craverguy |
| Last Edited | Craverguy Apr 21, 2009 08:23pm |
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| Category | Op-Ed by Candidate |
| News Date | Wednesday, November 15, 2000 06:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | SO HERE'S HOW it happened. I went to a rally held in front of KRON, channel 4, with my friends Adam Raney and Larry Roberts to protest Green Party candidate Medea Benjamin's exclusion from the televised senatorial debates (which included Republican Tom Campbell and Democrat Dianne Feinstein). Other than being sure of seeing some good agitprop (of Feinstein probably) and plenty of police, I wasn't anticipating anything. I certainly wasn't expecting any kind of political or moral epiphany.
But as the event wore on, what was at stake became disturbingly obvious to me: a thoughtful, intelligent, and honest progressive candidate for senator was being excluded from the opportunity to reach voters and win electoral support.
I couldn't help thinking of how most of my support in last year's district attorney's race came as a result of being allowed into televised debates with my better-known opponents and how that support has eventually led to my being the front-runner in the District Five supervisorial race.
The more I thought about it, the more I knew I wasn't OK with it. I didn't want to be a member of a party that was urging the exclusion of a candidate solely on the grounds that the candidate didn't have enough support, when it's precisely television coverage that could win that candidate public acceptance.
So if the Democratic Party is working so hard to squelch valuable debate, why should I remain a Democrat? I was already discouraged by Al Gore's pronouncements, during the presidential debates, in favor of the death penalty and his equivocation on gay marriage. As I reflected on this, I realized I had less in common with Feinstein's party than with Medea Benjamin's. |
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