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Green Party nominee makes stop in Racine
By Stephanie Brien
Journal Times
RACINE — If everyone votes with their values, Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney believes she has a chance in the upcoming election, she told an audience Friday afternoon in Racine.
“If you don’t vote for your values, that is a wasted vote,” McKinney told a student at Walden III Middle and High School who asked if a third-party vote was a wasted vote.
She believes in complete withdrawal of overseas troops and using that money to fully fund the educational No Child Left Behind Act, she said. She also believes in having a single health care provider to fund all medical expenses. Most importantly, she believes in the Green Party values: ecological wisdom, peace, social justice and grassroots democracy.
She was in Racine all day Friday. She is next scheduled for appearances in Madison, and then she is off to California.
She was the first member of Congress to introduce an article to impeach President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, she said.
“I had the opportunity to serve with Barack Obama,” McKinney said as the crowd of students burst into cheers.
“At that point I was a member of the Democratic Party. But then something happened,” McKinney said. “I woke up.
“I looked around and saw the Democrats were funding the (Iraq) war just like the Republicans were,” McKinney said. “I don’t want my son going to war.”
Because she is not a Democrat or Republican, a student asked her where she would draw her Cabinet from if elected. “You draw them from everywhere,” McKinney answered.
She said she would have to look “high and low” for people with her views in the Republican Party. But she believes there are people in the Democratic Party who hold her views, she said; they just haven’t walked away from the party yet.
In an interview after her speech, and in a brief question-and-answer period, she named a few ways she has tried to reform government to give third parties a better chance in government.
She authored the Voters Choice Act, which would change the legal landscape candidates face, she said. For instance, it would repeal the single-member congressional district requirement and would allow preference voting.
“In that way you could have more points of view able to be represented in a single area,” McKinney said.
She has co-sponsored legislation that would publicly finance campaigns in order to take out the influence of special-interest money, she said. She also has supported legislation that would provide equal public airwave access to all candidates.
“Everyone would have the opportunity to utilize the public’s airwaves, and that wouldn’t be dependent on raising millions of dollars,” McKinney said.
She also blamed corporate media as the reason the Green Party is ignored and told students and teachers that they could learn more about the party by going online.
After McKinney’s speech, 16-year-old Zach Jeske waited a few minutes for his chance to get an autograph. “It’s really cool that a presidential candidate showed up at this school,” Jeske said.
“My brother’s got his John McCain poster, and I’ve got my McKinney poster,” Jeske said. The difference, he said, is that his is signed.
The Green Agenda
National security: War is wrong. All troops abroad in all countries should completely withdraw.
Education: The country should stop spending money on war and fully fund and reform No Child Left Behind. All higher education should be subsidized.
Health care: The entire country should have a single health care provider to fund all medical expenses similar to Medicare. An annual fee could help fund it.
Social Security: It should not be privatized.
No. 1 issue: Green Party values of ecological wisdom, peace, social justice and grassroots democracy.
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