Comments on: Are Green concerns in Cook County justified?

By: Ross Levin

Ross Levin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:06:26 +0000

He isn’t part of the party, but he got on the ballot for their primaries.

By: Dave Schwab

Dave Schwab — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:07:02 +0000

Mayers isn’t even a Green party member, from what I gather – he’s just trying to use the Green line to get some attention for his causes, which are completely abhorrent to the Green Party. But the Greens have limited legal options to prevent him from doing so.

By: Third Party Revolution

Third Party Revolution — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:58:07 +0000

Can’t the GP just expel the Nazi from the party?

By: Brock Merck

Brock Merck — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:12:11 +0000

If the signatures are not ‘legit’, knock him off the ballot. Good government requires honest representation.

Brock Merck-Green Party Candidate for Cook County
Board 9th District

By: Mike Indiana

Mike Indiana — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:42:14 +0000

The Illinois Greens are absolutely justified in seeking the removal of Sean Burke and the Nazi running against Rich Whitney in the gubernatorial race (who’s name I don’t mention so as to not give him any publicity, even negative). Third parties unfortunately are unable to field candidates in a great many race simply because the parties are not big enough in terms of members and financing. So long as this remains the case parties have to remain vigilant about who represents them on the ballot because in many cases one candidate can at least on a local level determine how a voter views the party as a whole, due to the lower level of voter familiarity with third parties.

Some groups such as the non-green
Independent Greens of Virginia (who sometimes pose as part of then green party when they are actually party of the Independent Party of America) believe that “running is winning” and that more candidates is always a good thing. This is hardly a mature and productive view, and may be part of the reason why the party has never had a candidate win a race (the party comes across as schizophrenic).

Libertarians would most likely not have a candidate then have a Communist (advocate of big government) on there ballot line. Much like the Illinois Greens here are trying to prevent people who don’t share there views from using there ballot line.

By: me

me — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:37:14 +0000

Thank you, Tom, I am glad the Cook County Greens are aware and conscientious enough to see an opportunist, getting ballot access is just too damned hard to just give it to people who do not care about organizing and growing the GP.

By: Ross Levin

Ross Levin — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:45:05 +0000

Thanks, Tom. Your input is appreciated.

By: Tom Tresser

Tom Tresser — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:17:13 +0000

Hi, Tom Tresser here. I spent the day at the Cook County Clerk’s office going over Mr. Burke’s signatures one by one with him present. He came very casually dressed and with no documentation or apparent preparation. I was with Alberto Bocanegra, the chair of the Cook County Green Party. The process of examining signatures is mind-numbingly slow. I must say that the Cook County referee has been bending over backwards in the favor of the challenged Mr. Burke. That is probably as it should be. Even so, we are only through page 26 of 108 pages of 10 signatures each (some pages were not fully completed). So far the referee has sustained 68 objections out of 151 or 45%. We objected to 660 signatures out of the 1,042 submitted. And this doesn’t include many illegible and questionable signatures that were accepted which we will still challenge. So, if the sustain rate continues along these lines, Mr. Burke will be removed from the ballot.

Now – is this all worthwhile? I spoke to Mr. Burke in the middle of last week and explained the reason for the challenge and urged him to return calls to the leadership – especially to call Mr. Bocanegra and to join the Green Party and come to a meeting to present himself – as I did. I said that if he wanted to get active in civic life as a change agent then he would surely be welcomed but if we wants to run as a Green candidate he has to come to a meeting, join the party and give the members a chance to see if he is genuine or some sort of a spoiler. He has done none of these things.

Bottom line – I have just come off a tremendous victory as a lead organizer of No Games Chicago and I have risked my livelihood and safety in challenging the Mayor of Chicago and the entire political and business community here. Now I’m placing my future in civic life in the hands and hearts of the Green Party. After what I (and the other No Games organizers) have gone through, I am very wary of false actors in the political arena. I think we have a right to defend the party against bogus candidates do not hold to the values of the party and resist all attempts to connect with local party members and leadership.

By: PFK

PFK — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:01:57 +0000

It should be noted that comments left on the NBC site or anywhere else belong to the individuals who left the comments and NOT the Illinois Green Party.

By: me

me — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:44:15 +0000

This is a HUGE problem, during time to out people on the ballot, every screwball and flunky will come out of the woodwork and try to exploit the GP for their ballot line, they do not care about ideology, usually they are to the RIGHT of the GP or they are apolitical and just want the public attention of being on a ballot line for psychological reasons. My state Party is so stupid, they give these people huge chunks of their time and will have nomination conventions for these people who obviously care nothing about the Green Party. These people should not even get a hearing. It looks like the state runs GP primaries, is there any way to purge him from the primary?

By: Don Lake, A Modest Proposal ...........

Don Lake, A Modest Proposal ........... — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:39:25 +0000

AND ON THE MOOSE BREAD MOM FRONT:

[Why have a TPW or IPR ?????? Well look at how the Democans and Republicrats at toward the rest of us:]

“on the heels of a controversy sparked last week when footage from a conservative rally held over the summer was played on “Hannity” during a segment on a more recent rally. During the clip, host Sean Hannity marveled over the large turnout for a Washington, DC protest. The Daily Show later pointed out that there seemed to be some inconsistencies with the video shown on Hannity’s show, namely that the atmospheric conditions seemed to vary from shot to shot. Hannity later apologized on the air for what he called “an inadvertent mistake.”

Barely a week into Palin’s blitz to promote “Going Rogue,” media coverage is becoming its own story. Fox News rival MSNBC caught heat last week for using altered images of Sarah Palin”