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It was a red dawn in the New York State Senate and across America, but voters here were also seeing plenty of green. Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for governor, won 5 percent of the vote last night… a historically high number for a third-party candidate and enough to move the Green Party up the ballot, to Row D, for the next four years. In a conference call with reporters today, Hawkins promised to help build the party in a way to run competitive elections across the state in the coming years, saying, “I think it’s safe to say we’re the third-party in New York politics. Only the three of us, Democrats, Republicans, and Greens, got that ballot by running our own candidate. The election was one event and the politics is a process that continues”.
Hawkins was taking a dig at the numerous third parties in New York who cross-endorse candidates, like the left-wing Working Families Party or hard right Conservative Party. Hawkins won more votes on his Green Party line than Governor Andrew Cuomo did on the WFP line, allowing the Green Party to leapfrog the WFP on the ballot… a relevant accomplishment on a ballot jam-packed with many minor parties. Hawkins said that he’d go back to the donors who funded his gubernatorial bid to tell them to contribute to the Green Party so they can build the field organisation needed to compete against Democrats and Republicans. After running a more bare-bones symbolic campaign four years ago, Hawkins was able to pay for staffers and operatives this time around to vastly improve his vote total. Pointing to liberal New York City as a place where the Greens can grow, he said, “We want to organise county organisations in every county. I was talking with our supporters in Bronx County. Turnout there is so low and the perception of party insiders in the Bronx is they feel they can run good candidates”.
Hawkins, a Syracuse resident, wouldn’t rule out another run for governor, but insisted that the party has a deep bench of candidates. He also said that he’d continue to advocate on several core issues… more funding for public schools, a higher minimum wage, and a ban on hydraulic fracturing… in the next legislative session. He said that he was still open to an alliance with the WFP, which is also trying to strengthen the political left in New York State and resents Cuomo. However, his campaign manager, Ursula Rozum, cut in to point out that he’d offered himself as a candidate on their party line this year and was rebuffed. Hawkins said, “What we’ll have to do is get more Green voters”.
5 November 2014
New York Observer
http://observer.com/2014/11/howie-hawkins-looks-toward-a-green-future-after-historic-night/
Editor:
What’s amazing is how little coverage the Hawkins achievement is getting in the corporate media. Of course, Fox is ignoring it… so did Rush… nothing on CNN… nothing on MSNBC… I just googled “Howie Hawkins”. Remember, the most effective form of censorship is simply not to mention something… “It wasn’t reported… it didn’t happen”. This knackers all the commentary in the mainstream media… as does the decisive defeat of Prop 67 in Colorado. The Republicans did NOT gain a decisive victory. The Dems gave up early and conceded the election. It’s almost as though they WANTED a GOP-controlled Congress… to stymie the GOP in 2016. I don’t think that’s what happened (it has the redolence of “conspiracy theory” thinking about it)… I think simply that they were buffaloed. However, there’s time for the Prez and his team to formulate a strategy. After all, no bill becomes law without the Prez’s signature.
The Hawkins achievement and the Prop 67 defeat are a beacon for 2016… the Right did NOT steamroller the Left. The Repugs are chortling now… what’ll they do when the Prez vetoes their initiatives? The USA isn’t a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy, after all…
BMD
Voices from Russia 
27 July 2016. Priests are NOT Politicians… They Shouldn’t Involve Themselves in Partisan Politics
Tags: Christian, Christianity, church-state relations, church-state separation, Eastern Orthodox Church, elections, Orthodox, Orthodoxy, political commentary, politics, Religion, Religion and Spirituality, Voting
The priest’s role is to point the way to the Kingdom of Heaven for ALL people… not to prefer this-or-that political faction and promote it in his preaching and social media posts. I seem to notice that the Church agrees with me on that…
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Our clergy must have a care. The canons forbid priests to interfere in “Roman” (political) affairs. To preach on the sanctity of life is one thing… no state regulation prohibits that. To preach that one should vote for rightwing candidates because they claim to represent pro-life principles is another. The first is kosher… the second isn’t… the Church does tell its priests and clergy to keep that in mind in their preaching and social media posts. To preach on moral issues… yes. To preach on voting for ANY candidate, right or left… NO, emphatically, NO.
BMD