Ask Green Party Presidential Candidate David Cobb 919
Today you have the opportunity to ask questions of the
Green Party's candidate for President of the United States,
David Cobb. Standard interview rules apply: we'll select a dozen or so of the best questions and Mr. Cobb will give us his answers next week.
Re:Your vote is Dubya's Vote? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: wow... That was wierd. (Score:5, Informative)
The Florida Supreme Court tried to apply alternate vote-counting rules not allowed under Florida law to ballots in specific counties. This was overturned on a 7-2 decision of the US Supreme Court. The FSC also tried to extend the date of certification when the certification date also was clearly stated under Florida law. This is the vote that was overturned on a 5-4 decision. The USSC basically said that the election results as then-currently counted under Florida law had to stay put, because the FSC was trying to rewrite election law on its own, which is not its role in the system.
And to correct your other point, the limit is ten years in office, which usually translates to two elected terms as president with some overlap in case the VP is moved up a notch. So no, even if you were right, he wouldn't be able to run twice more.
Re: wow... That was wierd. (Score:3, Informative)
Recount analysis by NYT [nytimes.com] (no reg required)
I don't like Bush either, but you don't see me resorting to FUD to try to sway people's opinions.
-Jem
What the hell... ? (Score:2, Informative)
What?
He can't be elected for two more terms. Only one. Despite the "appointed" crack, he was in fact elected by THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTE, which is the vote that really counts in presidential elections. The Supreme Court merely ruled that the endless vote counting should stop in Florida. And, as others have repeatedly pointed out here before, every single credible attempt to count those so-called lost votes STILL ended up with Bush winning. Every-Single-Time.
So, rest your paranoid little head. Dubya can only win this upcoming election.
Then you get to look forward to Rudy Guliani beating the piss out of Hillary Clinton in 2008
Re:Your vote is Dubya's Vote? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Constitution & The Green Party (Score:3, Informative)
In fact, its my view of freedom.
Re:Your vote is Dubya's Vote? (Score:3, Informative)
Re: wow... That was wierd. (Score:2, Informative)
No. The Florida Supreme Court followed Florida law that the "clear intent of the voter" must be followed. SCOTUS said the Florida Supreme Court should have adopted "statewide standards for determining what is a legal vote" - they claimed that they wanted the Florida court to create law. [iknowwhaty...ection.com]
And an impossible law at that, given the different (and biased) balloting systems in use in different counties. (Biased in that rich counties used systems less likely to fail to register a ballot - fewer Republicans had to deal with the chance of "hanging chad" blocking their vote.)
This of course not considering the illegal disenfranchisement of thousands of voters, or the illegal "butterfly" ballots, or the failure of Scalia to recuse himself, or Cheney claiming to be a Wyoming resident depite living in Texas (electors can't vote for both a president and a vice president from their own state).
Re:Your vote is Dubya's Vote? (Score:5, Informative)
He supports instant runoff voting [votecobb.org]. I prefer approval voting [wikipedia.org] myself, since it's a bit simpler, but almost anything would be better than plurality voting [sciencenews.org].
-jim
Re:Your vote is Dubya's Vote? (Score:3, Informative)
Third parties due make a difference... if major party A gets 45% of the vote, major party B gets 42% of the vote, and minor party C - which is most like B - gets 5% of the vote, there's going to be a shift.
Nader caused the shakeup for the Dems in 2000, but Perot did it for the Reps in 1992. It cuts both ways.
Re:What the hell... ? (Score:2, Informative)
Florida never sent a legitimate set of electors - that is, a set of electors selected according to Florida law - to the Electoral College.
Statewide recounts show that Gore got more votes than Bush in Florida. [bushwatch.com]
Gore played bad politics by not demanding such a recount (in keeping with the Democratic party's generally poor play over the past few decades), and SCOTUS's decision wouldn't have allowed one (because, you know, it's not like the will of the people is supposed to count for anything), but that doesn't change the fact that more people in Florida cast ballots for Gore than Bush. (Not even counting the illegal disenfrachisment of thousands, or the tampering with absentee ballots, or the illegal "butterly" ballots).
Your campaign and Nader's (Score:3, Informative)
For those who haven't followed this: The Green party is divided into two factions, the "realos" (also called the Demogreens) and the "fundis". The realos are who nominated Cobb. You can read about it in several places including the Counterpunch article "Rigged Convention; Divided Party - How David Cobb Became the Green Nominee Even Though He Only Got 12 Percent of the Votes" [counterpunch.org]. The fundis want to build our party and win elections, the realo/Demogreens are more concerned about the Democrats winning than the Greens. Cobb is a realo/Demogreen.
The article makes the very good point that the states where there is a large green base and where voters actually voted in the primaries (California, Massachusetts, Washington DC), Camejo (who is a Green "fundi", and is now running as Nader's VP) got 72.7% of the vote. Cobb only got 12.2% of the vote. Nonetheless, in the Green version of the electoral college, Cobb managed to win due to delegates from states like Iowa voting for him. Iowa has 90 registered Greens and had 9 delegates to the Green convention - 1 delegate for every 10 Greens! California had 132 delegates for the over 150,000 registered Greens in California. So in the case of California, 1 delegate represented over 1,000 Greens. This sort of thing is how someone who got 12.2% of the vote (from Demogreens) versus 72.7% of the vote (fundis) nevertheless won the election.
Cobb's candidacy has probably destroyed the Green party which is probably what the Demogreens wanted anyway. Anyhow, in some ways I am not sad to see it go because the Greens are a little too hippy-dippy granola and Birkenstocks anyhow. Nader attracted me to the Greens (even though he was never a Green party member) because he talked about things I care about like repealing Taft-Hartley and so forth which the DLC Democrats never talk about any more. 70% of white men in the US voted Republican in 2000, which tells you how far these DLC Democrats have drifted from the working class roots it had on some level in the early 20th century. Now they are all for NAFTA, screwing workers and so forth just like the Republicans, they're just for gay marriage, abortion and things conservative Christians in rural areas are against.
The only solution for change I see is to do what happened in England a century ago - for militant rank-and-file run unions to be formed, and, if they find it strategically wise to do so, to form a Labor party like they did in England. It might not even be strategically wise to do so, but it would beat backing the Democrats if they were going to get into the electoral game.
So my question goes back to what I was saying earlier: do you feel you are a legitimate Green candidate if most of the Greens in the country prefer Nader and Camejo to yourself? In many ways your election was like Bush's, except the majority vote went way against you instead of by a few percent.
Social justice (Score:2, Informative)
"All persons should have the rights and opportunity to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment. We must consciously confront in ourselves, our organizations, and society at large, barriers such as racism and class oppression, sexism and homophobia, ageism and disability, which act to deny fair treatment and equal justice under the law."
First, does the claim that all persons should have the right to benefit equally from resources imply that no person should have the right to benefit more than another from these resources? What, exactly, are these resources, and how are they afforded by society and the environment? What exactly do you mean by "benefit", and how do you propose to measure it, that you may ensure that nobody receives more than anybody else?
Second, I'm a little concerned about the claim that we should confront all of these "isms" in society. Can racism, for example, even exist in society, or only in a person? While we can confront racism in anybody and everybody, can we really do anything about the racism that resides in another person? Is it perhaps possible to remove only the racism that is inside oneself? How does one reconcile the right of the citizens to equal protection under the law with the right of a person to his beliefs? Is government's proper business with action or with belief?
Re:All politics is local (Score:3, Informative)
So your point is well taken however a bit off.
Re:Proportional Representation (Score:4, Informative)
Were every state government to do a parliamentary-esque division of their electors to each party by % of popular vote, the electoral college system could remain in place, and you'd ahve viable third party candidates. In fact, they'd have the power to give their votes to one major party or the other if there was no clear majority. Which would put the selection of president even farther away from the popular vote, and even more contingent on the decisions of select party leadership, but eh, whatcha gonna do?
What the electoral college does do is allow for the possibility of a president who didn't win the popular vote, weigh the election in favor of the eastern seaboard's tiny states, and gaurantee that candidates have to campaign in every state, rather than focusing (as much) on the major population centers.
Badnarik, the libertarian candidate, supports the electoral college system (look up his recent
Re:Since Socialism Is a Proven Failure... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:maximum wage? (Score:1, Informative)
One the G/GPUSA [greenparty.org] is not the "traditional" Green Party that we know and love. They have never ran a national candidate for office AFAIK.
The other is the ASGP [gp.org] (the REAL Greens), which endorsed Ralph Nader in 2000 and is endorsing Cobb in 2004.
The G/GPUSA tends to have more unreasonable views (such as the one you quoted above), which is what reminded me of the difference.
In short, make sure you are using the ASGP platform when using its text to aid in your questions.
Re:Taxes (Score:3, Informative)
A median home (in mid 2003) is over $550K in the Bay Area and $430K in Los Angeles. Incomes are required to be over $120K/yr in SF and over 80K/yr in LA just to buy a house nowadays.
The paper Locked Out [cbp.org] (PDF File) explains it in detail.
I'm concerned, because local housing prices are climbing way faster than my income. Common sense tells me that 20%+ year over year appreciation cannot be sustained forever, but the market keeps telling me otherwise.
Re:Your vote is Dubya's Vote? (Score:2, Informative)
Read Kerry's site [johnkerry.com] and look for the portion on election reform where he tells America how he will push for instant runoff voting, public funding of elections, open debates, campaign finance reform. There is none. Kerry and Edwards are U.S. senators! If they wanted Nader not to be a spoiler, they could sponsor bills for any number of reforms, but they DON'T WANT THIRD PARTIES to compete. If they wanted to reform campaign finance, they could at least use their positions to try.
This election, sworn statements were given in court by the Maine Democratic chairwoman [mainetoday.com] and others saying that their national party PAID both volunteers and lawyers for the official duty of removing Ralph Nader from the state ballots. She admitted in court that volunteers called Nader petition signatories and begged them to remove their names during the grace period on signatures asking them if they were certain they wanted to do so and hurt Kerry.
Re:Your vote is Dubya's Vote? (Score:2, Informative)
FWIW, many of the current laws that seem to restrict third parties have their origins in the election of 1912. It was pretty obvious that Roosevelt (Bull Moose) and Taft (Republican) had the clear majority (~51%) of the vote between them, and their positions differed relatively little. But, as we know, they split the "conservative" vote and the Democrat, who differed more substantially from both, won (with only 42%).
But, as anyone here should be able to recognize, the problem isn't third parties. Everybody has a right to stand up for what they believe and try to convince people to follow them. We should have more diversity of opinion involved in the political process! The problem is that the voting system doesn't support more than two parties. It creates a false dichotomy, because a single vote can only express a preference between two options. After all, Taft supporters would have been more happy with Roosevelt than Wilson, and likewise Roosevelt's backers would be more happy with Taft than Wilson. Even though the largest single block got their first choice, the average voter satisfaction would have been higher with either Roosevelt or Taft.
We need Condorcet voting.
Re:Proportional Representation (Score:2, Informative)
Sorry buddy, you are flat out WRONG. The electoral college is not to blame for winner take all states. That is up to the states.
You see, under the US Constitution, it is up the state legislature to determine how electors for the college will be chosen. 48 states have decided, ON THEIR OWN, to allow direct election for those electors in a winner take all system.
Frankly, each state could take away it's citizens "right" to vote for President, and simply chose their electors.
None of the problems you mention have ANYTHING to do with the Electoral College, but rather the fact that the states have abused the right to given to them in the constitution to decide how electors are chosen. Therein lies the problem. Blame the states, not the Electoral College.
And how about actually READING the Constitution before yapping about the Electoral College being the problem?
you get ONE vote... (Score:2, Informative)
Been hearing apologetic statist dumbasses like you for close to half a century. Half a freeking century. WAKE UP! Stop repeating lies! People have been so brainwashed into "not wasting their votes" that they have WASTED THEIR VOTES voting in Ds and Rs over and over and over and over again, and GUESS WHAT? It's the same old crap! Vote for D&R crap, get D&R crap! How simple does it need to be, how many clues you need?
Every election if enough people voted for non-crap, the NEXT election gets MORE non-crap votes, and less crap votes. See how that works? It builds from there. Tedious, but how it works, and it takes every single person who's aware of it to do it to make it effective. It has to be consistent. A vote for a third party is THAT, you are not voting for anything but that. You will NEVER get anything but a D or R if you keep voting for a D or R. NEVER. Not one time will a D or R vote get you any political action except what Ds and Rs always do, which is screw you, screw me, screw the other guy, stuff their pockets and lie to you every chance they get. Get it yet? El comprehende?
There will never be any magical time where all at once everyone will switch, NOPE, it needs to build momentum, a tiny amount at a time, and that momentum comes from one-single-vote. You only get one chance every election to add to that momentum, so make it count!
We also need a miniuum number so that third parties can be GUARANTEED TO BE ON THE BALLOT every cycle, so they don't have to waste their resources time and money just to get on the ballot. Ds and Rs are automatic! We need to break that! They don't own government, but they have seized control. It's not theirs to own! It's a freeking shared junta, a criminal cartel for profit. They need to be on the ballot in all 50 every election so we can DEMAND they be included in debates and SHAME the news media into more coverage than just Ds or Rs.
Here's an analogy, it's exactly like "stop using linux, you are "wasting your desktop and time", because next week everyone WON'T be using linux! See how retarded that sounds? Same exact deal with politics. You have to be consistent and relentless. Re-lent-less and not be dissuaded from your goal, not be pressured into this "lesser of evils" crapola. Evil is evil, there is no "lesser" and if you had been watching long enough you'd realise that.
You have to build critical mass, and it's ONE VOTE AT A TIME, EVERY TIME, going for a third party or an independent. It WON'T MATTER that much if skull and bones millionaire globalist lying scheming goon A or skull and bones globalist lying scheming goon B "gets in power" this cycle, not near as much as if the numbers of non D or R votes keep steadily rising every election, from local dogcatcher all the way to prez. BOTH those dunderheads are A-liars, first and foremost, and B globalists who care not a whit about you, and C-actors and script readers, they get told what to say and when to say it, and D, most importantly D-they are puppets. Marionettes. They are figureheads of the real powers that are behind the seat of power, and you got to not vote for that sorta action, for any reason, its anathema to what this nation was designed for.
The only "wasted" vote is one THAT IS NOT CAST.