Reply #11: Is it "dirty tricks" to require candidates to obey the law?

[davsand]

Sorry, I am NOT buying that argument. Seems to me that any candidate who can't follow the law probably isn't anyone I'd call "legitimate." I am not inclined to give the Greens a special dispensation due to lack of experience in elections. I doubt the GOP will either.

I ask you, AntiLempa, if the local Greens are so determined that the Dems run on their record, WHY are the Greens so unwilling to come and play in a Dem primary where they might stand a fighting chance? Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, they worship ideals more than an honest victory?

Before you return to the "victim of the system" litany, be sure and ask a couple of your Urbana city councilwomen who RAN and WON as Dems if they feel Greens get raped by the Dems here. I am not buying that argument because I was there and I saw the Dems turn out for those ladies.

I'll tell you right now--if the Greens want to climb out of the wailing corner and come play in a Dem primary, not a Dem will challenge them. Even the Dem Party Chair will have to stay neutral--because we don't smack around fellow Dems with challenges. If the Greens want a free pass out of the Dems then they better RUN as Dems--that is what elections are about.

Of course this is about holding onto power; if only because the alternative is ceding control of the county back to the Republicans. By way of illustration, here are the actual Green Party totals from 2002, when they ran a congressional candidate. The three county board districts broken out here are the same ones the Greens filed for this year:



The simple fact revealed by these numbers is this: had there been Green candidates in these same county board districts two years ago, and had they received approximately the same number of votes as the Green congressional candidate, the Republicans would have won in districts 7 and 9 and be in control of the Champaign County Board today. Does that really serve the Green agenda?

On the subject of Mackaman, I have not talked to anybody who even knows for sure what the challenge was based on, except for the fact that over one thousand of his signatures are in question.

I will say, that the State Rep District was drawn to favor a Dem, and I would guess that the challenge is most likely supported by the House Dems (or at least Mike Madigan's people.) I doubt they want to risk losing that district to the moderate GOP candidate simply because a fairly non-viable candidate siphoned off a few votes. That race is very high stakes, and I am not shocked that at that level it has been scrutinized.

We desperately need to find two candidates to run against the Dem Township supervisors in both Champaign and Urbana (Cunningham township.) A Green party person could win that Urbana race quite handily, if they run in a Dem primary. Here's a public invitation from one of the evil Dem party members. Come out and play...


Pax to you and yours.

Laura