Tag Archives: 2008 elections

It’s the wars, silly

Tonight at our weekly sidewalk peace vigil (ongoing weekly since 2001), a bus driver stopped in front of us, opened the door, and said "Obama won, so why are you still out here?".  I answered:  "Because there are still wars going on."  He nodded his head in agreement and then stated, "I’m afraid it’s going to get worse before it gets better."

Although people are really happy that Obama has won the presidential race in an historic presidential election, and that the Bush cronies will no longer be in office, I do feel that there is cautious optimism….

Election Hangover of Hope

Over on Green Party Watch, Ron Hardy has posted an piece on his views on "winning".

….over 150,000 Americans, of those who even had the opportunity, voted for Cynthia McKinney, despite the lack of coverage, despite the ballot access, and despite the politics of fear.

Read more for the comments and weigh in yourself!

I Will Never Concede Defeat

I’m absorbing the events of this week before I post my own piece on the elections. I have been thinking a lot about "defeat", "loss", and "win" in the past 24 hours.    Meantime, I’ll be posting others’ articles on  the 2008 elections.

Cindy Sheehan organized and ran a really good race against Nancy Pelosi for Pelosi’s House seat.  Cindy received about 30,000 votes, which was roughly 20% of the vote in this San Francisco race.  To me, that is highly significant for an Independent Candidate.  Again, I ponder what "defeat" and "win" really are.

The article below is Cindy’s response to her race and the election. (You can make comments over on Facebook.)



I Will Never Concede Defeat
by Cindy Sheehan

"I have fought the good fight, I have run the good race, I have kept the faith." St. Paul in 2Timothy

This past month, I kept on saying to my supporters, staff, interns, volunteers and myself, that no matter what happened on November 4th that we could hold our heads up high and be very proud of our campaign. Until yesterday, I wasn’t sure that what I said would be true, but I feel an incredibly sense of peace and pride in our accomplishments. There were so many victories over the last year that the American paradigm of "winner-take all" just doesn’t fit.

We moved into San Francisco a little over a year ago with less than nothing. We used savings and credit cards to open our office and sometimes to keep it open. We transformed a former "sex shop" to a fully functioning and vibrant campaign office. Our "natural base" never materialized, so we had to build a foundation in less than a few months.

In August, we historically gained ballot access as only the 6th independent campaign in California history to do so. Our platform based on humane economics was in place long before the recent collapses and resultant bailouts. Our labor platform was hailed all over the world, while unions here in SF supported the corporate "rescuer" Nancy Pelosi.

Cindy for Congress never once sold out our solid principles based campaign and would never sell out the voters of San Francisco like Nancy Pelosi has. Nancy Pelosi ran from my campaign and our demands to debate me and we persevered and did so amazingly well after a near total media black out and several attempts at political intimidation. Continue reading

Green Elections

I can’t post to my LJ blog during the day (it’s blocked at my work!), so I continue to urge readers to check the sites below for Green Party ’08 Election News:

Green Party Watch

Green Change

On the Wilder Side

California’s Proposition 8

So far, according to KNX Election Results Coverage

Proposition – 8-Same Sex Marriage Ban – Ballot Issue

22608 of 25429 Precincts Reporting – 89%
  Name Votes Vote %
  Yes 4,846,706 52%
  No 4,522,259 48%

Over on Green Change there is a thread on what we have all learned this election cycle.  Here is my response:

I learned that it’s still hard in Utah to get out the word, although am pleased that McKinney got nearly 1,000 votes with the minimal amount of volunteers we had.

I also learned that people are still sore about 2,000 and blame it on Nader and I am still finding myself having to educate people on the facts – years later. (Sadly, Nader didn’t fare well this cycle either.)

I also confirmed my love for this party and desire to keep pushing forward in my pursuit to do my part in preserving all life.

Additionally:

I learned about two amazing women in our country, Rosa Clemente and Cynthia McKinney who are working for the people in so many ways.  My desire is that they will continue to work in building the movement of creating a nation, a world, where all life is respected and people are created equally with everything they need to exist.

Green in San Francisco elected to Board of Supervisors

Ross Mirkarimi (CA) easily wins re-election to the San Francisco Board  of Supervisors, District 5. He finished first of three candidates with  15,150 votes or 77.68%. This is with 55 out of 66 precincts reporting.

http://www.sfgov.org/site/elections_index.asp?id=70720

Green in Arkansa elected to House!

Congratulations to our new Green State Representative in Arkansas,  Richard Carroll!

He received 4,222 votes for 83.14% with 100% of precincts reporting in.

http://www.votepulaski.net/results/2008/2008GeneralElection/SUMMARY.HTM

Got my hopes up too soon….Utah’s District 10

Butt-arse defeated his opponent, currently with about a 1500 vote margin leard. My condolences to folksin District 10.

STATE SENATOR DISTRICT #10    
    Total
Number of Precincts   95  
Precincts Reporting   95 100.0 %
Times Counted   38049/56744 67.1 %
Total Votes   36679  

JOHN RENDELL DEM 16596 45.25%
D. CHRIS BUTTARS REP 18089 49.32%
STEVE MAXFIELD CON 1971 5.37%
Write-in Votes   23 0.06%

McKinney results

Still considered "early results" as of this morning:

For Utah (
http://electionresults.utah.gov/xmlData/30001.html)

0.1% 908

(Nader:  0.87% 7,644)

Natonally (http://news.aol.com/elections/2008/president#presResults)

0% 138,330

(Nader:  1% 637,582)