From the Bangor Daily News: Horror novelist and Bangor radio station owner Stephen King announced on Tuesday a new talk radio show featuring a former vice presidential candidate and a former Maine secretary of state’s communications director.“We wanted to shake things up a little bit in the market,” King said… Former journalist, Bangor Daily News [...]

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From the Portland Daily Sun: Portland this year embarks on an elected-mayor campaign that replaces a council-appointed mayor with one elected to an at-large seat. Through a city charter change, voters also will choose their next mayor through rank choice voting, where if any candidate falls short of a majority, then the “second choice” votes [...]

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Ben Chipman represents Portland in the Maine legislature’s lower house.  He has been a Green Party activist for years and was elected as an independent.  On his facebook, he said, “On Earth Day I am proud to release a bill to fund commuter rail service! Whatever your position is on the casino, if it is [...]

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From the Kennebec Journal: AUGUSTA — Republicans, Democrats and the only independent in the Maine House are backing a renewed effort to reject a federal identification program that some consider too invasive. Independent Rep. Ben Chipman of Portland is sponsoring L.D. 1068, which would prohibit the Secretary of State’s Office from using retinal scans, facial [...]

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Skyler McKinley, a staff member of Mike Gravel’s presidential campaign, has alerted me to the fact that he will now be publishing former Green Party vice presidential candidate Pat LaMarche’s weekly columns on the website Elexn.com.  An excerpt from the first is below: The minute I saw the magnitude of the Japanese quake last week [...]

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Emailed to IPR: CONTACT: Bruce Gagnon (207) 443-9502 Lisa Savage (207) 399-7623 Mark Roman (207) 643-2356 Augusta, March 9 – Governor LePage and legislative leaders were invited to meet with representatives of Maine’s Bring Our War $$ Home campaign via letters sent by certified mail in February. As no responses have been received, a second [...]

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An interesting article from DownEast.com: Neils has been making a name for himself all over Maine for going on two decades now. An early member (and eventual co-chair) of the nascent Green Party in the mid-90s, he soon tired of the glacial pace of conventional politics, turning instead to direct activism via Earth First!, which [...]

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In 2010, Fred Horch ran for the Maine State House of Representatives and garnered well over 30 percent of the vote, losing to the Democrat by less than 200 votes.  He has since founded a civic organization called the League of Brunswick Voters, whose website can be found here.  The Times Record has more, from [...]

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Ronald Hardy at Green Party Watch: Local and State Green Party groups meet throughout the year. Is there a local in your area? Do you want to start one? See this nice Organizing Kit put together by GPUS. Monday Feb 7, the Triangle Greens (NC) met at the Durham County Library. This Saturday the Green [...]

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Ballot Access News: Connecticut Senator Andrew Maynard (D-Stonington) has introduced Proposed Bill 778, which cuts the number of signatures for statewide and U.S. House candidates, in the general election, down to 1,000 signatures. Current law requires 7,500 signatures for statewide candidates, and signatures equal to 1% for U.S. House candidates, which is always close to [...]

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George Phillies at Gold America Group: Our usual sources provide us with information that we believe to be correct about LNC acts this past month. The LNC added LP Maryland State Chair Bob Johnston to their part-time as their Candidate and Affiliate Support Specialist. The LNC has finally noticed that it had inactive affiliates, that [...]

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Ben Chipman is a Green Party activist in Maine and was elected to the state legislature this year as an independent.  I, Ross Levin, along with Daniel Surman, will be interviewing him tonight on blogtalk radio.  Chipman has been a Green Party activist for a long time, including being an aide to Maine’s only former [...]

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I, Ross Levin will be interviewing Ben Chipman, who was elected to the Maine state house of representatives in the 2010 election. Chipman has been a Green Party activist for a long time, including being an aide to Maine’s only former Green state legislator and a member of the Portland Charter Commission. He was the [...]

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Via Ronald Hardy at Green Party Watch: This list was put together by Brent McMillan, consisting of Green Party campaigns for State House (or Assembly) seats. It includes all of the races that finished with over 15% of the vote in 2010: Mark Miller for State Representative 3rd Berkshire District, MA 4,459 votes 45.0% Jeremy [...]

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TPID: From Gordon Weil at Maine’s Morning Sentinel: Since 1974, when Maine began to see credible independent candidates for governor, there have been 10 gubernatorial elections in Maine. Independents ran in nine of them. Only two were won by candidates who captured a majority of the vote. In other words, eight of the last 10 [...]

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Ballot Access News: The Green Party national office has released a list of party members who were elected or re-elected last week. As noted at this site earlier, Ben Chipman was elected to the Maine legislature [p: as an independent], and the party won three important elections in California: in Richmond; Mendocino County; and Hollister. [...]

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Ballot Access News reports: Thanks very much to Morgan Daybell for helping me find instances at which independent legislators were elected or re-elected last week. It appears that independents were elected to state legislators in 2010 in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Vermont. We are still waiting to [...]

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By way of Green Party Watch: MAINE GREENS CONGRATULATE CANDIDATES FOR RUNNING STRONG CAMPAIGNS, STRENGTHEN THE CALL FOR ELECTORAL REFORM Maine Green Independent Party Candidates who ran for the office of state house and state senate ran strong campaigns, often finishing a close second in the race Tuesday night. Fred Horch, of Brunswick, ran a [...]

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The 2010 Green candidate for governor, who then dropped out to run for State Senate, sent the following email to the supporters of her Senate race (Williams received about 12 percent of the vote, which was actually less than the margin between the Democrat and the Republican): While I am disappointed in the results of [...]

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Compiled by Brent McMillan and posted at Green Party Watch by Ronald Hardy: Wins (including ballot access) on Nov. 2, 2010 – Unofficial Results ARKANSAS Joy Ballard won her race for Saline County Collector, AR. She finished first of seven candidates for one seat with 19,131 votes, 69.28%. Partisan. CALIFORNIA Bruce Delgado won his re-election [...]

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