[Marxism] Obrador! (and Whitney!)

[Alex Briscoe <obeynow20001@xxxxxxxxx>]

I love the idea of Obrador winning.

I live in a heavily Latin/Slavic immigrant
neighborhood and I"m campaigning for Obrador myself.
Every Mexican I run into, I'm like "you're voting for
Obrador, right, right?"

I know the subcommandante isn't Obrador's biggest fan,
etc. but Obrador winning would probably open up
tremendous space down there and maybe roll back up
here.

Wouldn't it be ironic if some Mexicans left the U.S.
to go back and caused labor supply problems for the
bastards here?  While providing the power of a bad
example next door and making the peasants here more
uppity?

Questions re the election:

If Obrador has huge support among the poor and polls
usually ignore the poor through telephone survey, what
is the extent of underpolling among the poor?

ie, what sort of edge does Obrador have that isn't
being reported?

What are the odds of a Cardenas steal?  ie, all the
power goes off in polling places in Mexico with
Obrador ahead and when they come back up, the
imperialist ass kisser is ahead?

I'm probably forgetting questions, but I'll stop
there.

In other news, the Illinois Green Party just submitted
39,200 signatures for our petition to get on the
ballot.  Yay for us!  25,000 valid sigs are required.
As you can see from the report below, we have a shot
to get on the ballot.  However, Michael Madigan, Dem
Chair of the IL Legl has been organizing a (Frei)korps
of hacks to challenge our sigs one by one.  The
challenge period will start in about two weeks or
less.

So, anyone living in a state adjoining or not too far
from Illinois: contact us through the Whitney For Gov
site below, come to IL, sit in a chair opposite a Dem,
and object to his objection.  More info to follow.
The important point here is that every sig that some
hack objects to, where we don't have a Green body
there to defend, we lose.  We need every sig we can
save.  The earth is burning up, can't you spare some
time?  We'll give you a place to sleep.

Also: Nader had about 38.000 sigs in 2000 and an army
of 300 in the defense stage and he was able to stay on
the ballot.  We can probably raise a group of 100
today, to defend, so we need volunteers.  Contact us
at the Whitney site below.

Finally, by way of comparison: in Missippi that land
of racial oppression and backwardness, they only need
1,000 sigs to get on the ballot for Governor.  That's
less than what we have to get for one State Rep race!
And, they get six months to do it!  But, I still love
those northern white liberals....

One more word: petition defense is a lot easier than
petitioning.  We're going to go over the lines ahead
of time, and we'll have a script for why you should
object to the hack's objection, for each line.  You
just sit back in a chair and relax.  Nothing like the
constant rejection of petitioning.  In fact, you
should be accepted at least 63.7% of the time....it's
like being on Oprah....


Alex

******

Hello Everybody,

It seems that everyone in Springfield is far too busy
to send out an email update to the main list, but I've
talked to Susan, and this is what I've found out.

4130 sheets have been turned in for the state slate.
After cross-outs and partial sheets this equates into
roughly 39,200 signatures for the state slate. This
represents an absolutely amazing effort by over a
hundred circulators statewide. We should all be
incredibly proud of ourselves for taking on such a
herculean task and rising to the challenge.

In order to survive a challenge we would only need a
63.7% validity rate, and I believe Phil's verification
up to this point indicates that we have a higher rate
than that already. I am personally optimistic about
getting on the ballot, but I'd like to make an
important point. Even if everything were to become a
worst-case scenario at this point, and we were kicked
off the ballot, we should NOT let that detract from
our accomplishments so far. This took a level of
organization, competency, and hard work from so many
people that is virtually unseen in politics,
especially in Illinois. I actually think the Dems or
Pubs would have struggled more with the same task if
they were given our budget and level of resources. It
has been, and will continue to be, an incredible
experience, and I know that I'll be celebrating
tonight.

Susan reported that there was plenty of media at
Rich's (and all the candidate's) press conference at
1pm today including large outfits, like the Chicago
Tribune. I already know of one positive article on our
efforts printed in the Daily Southtown:
http://www.dailysouthtown.com/southtown/columns/Acurrent/miller.htm
I think we're going to be receiving much more press
coverage than we're used to, and hopefully that will
give us leverage to get into the debates. Feel
encouraged to write letters to the editor of your
local paper!

We're all very excited about the state slate, but it's
not the only campaign that the Green Party can feel
proud of. Tom Abram's campaign for State
Representative, District 103 (Champaign/Urbana) has
collected 4,297 signatures for a requirement of 2,260.
Dorian Breuer's campaign for State Senate, District 1
(Chicago: Pilsen) has collected between 2700-2800
signatures for a requirement of 1,271. Kathy Cummings'
campaign for State Representative, District 4
(Chicago: Wicker Park) has collected at least 3,000
signatures for a requirement of 1,531. With such
incredible numbers all of these candidates should
easily survive a challenge and make it on the ballot.
Congratulations to all of them, and a huge thank you
to everyone who helped out on their campaigns.

This isn't even mentioning the other candidates that
are guaranteed to appear on the November ballot thanks
to hard work in establishing districts two years ago.
This includes Konstantinas Yfantis, Joe Futrelle, and
Nick Mann for Champaign County Board (Districts 7, 8,
and 9, respectively). It also includes Nathan
Helsabeck, Phil Huckelberry, and Charlie Howe for
State Representative (Districts 8, 88, and 115
respectively). This will be a great year to see how we
do with campaigns after we've already been
established, and the voters might be more familiar
with Green politics.

I don't think there's anything else to report, but I'd
like to reiterate how good everyone should be feeling
right now. The hard work is far from over and I know
the Whitney for Governor campaign is going to need
volunteers soon to defend signatures in a couple of
weeks. For now though, take a deep breath everyone,
and give yourself a pat on the back.

Dave S

***************************
***************************


http://www.whitneyforgov.org
http://www.schlorff.com
http://www.kathleenjcummings.com
http://www.votebreuer.com
http://www.ilgp.org
http://www.northsidegreenparty.org
http://www.greenallianceusa.org
http://www.labornotes.org
http://www.solidarity-us.org
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org

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