back

CT Greens Blame Media 'Black Out' For Mckinney Not Being On Fall Ballot

Green Party Of Connecticut

News release- August 14, 2008- for immediate release

CONTACT:
Tim McKee, CT McKinney for President chair, cell (860) 860-778-1304 (Best) or (860)-643-2282, timmckee@mail.com
Mike DeRosa, State Co-Chair (860)956-8170 or (860) 919-4042 (cell)
 
No News Coverage At All - Doomed Petition Drive
 
HARTFORD, CT -- Connecticut Green Party officials said they blame the news media's 'black out' or NO NEWS COVERAGE of Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney at all, even after she won the national party's nomination, for a big part of her not being on the official ballot in the fall. They conceded falling short in their drive for 15,000 total signatures for three main reasons.
 
Tim McKee, a Green Party spokesperson explained "First, it is next to impossible for to run a petition drive in the public WITH OUT even the slightest news coverage to let people know you are petitioning for a candidate. The former Democrat Congresswoman turned Green Party candidate for President IS news worthy, but shockingly, NOT ONE of the local media did even one story on her running for President.. We sent out press releases, she campaigned in the state, and past Green Party candidates for President, Ralph Nader, and David Cobb have received some news articles, but not this time .We have to ask why- because she and running mate Rosa Clement are women? Women of color? Staff cut backs at local media outlets?
 
McKee added "Even the most obscure Democrat and Republicans had some coverage in the primaries and news links on news websites .There were articles about Ralph Nader running as an Independent and Bob Barr running as a Libertarian, but none about McKinney and the third largest party in the US's candidate, and even thou Greens have been elected to local city and town councils in Connecticut.
 
"Second, 31 states have lower petition requirements than CT. and some states like Louisiana and Colorado have NO signatures requirements at all. (Ballot Access News.Org) When the petitions that were submitted early, were getting a very high 65% rejection rate for signatures by partisan Democrat and Republican voter registrars. The required 7,500 valid signatures mean submitting at least twice or three times that number and on 169 different forms -one each for each small town in CT. Even with 30 people working on this drive, we could not make the high number or challenge why so many signatures were deemed INVALID at each of the 169 town halls." McKee said.
 
McKee concluded "Third, because of the quirky CT ballot laws, Greens had to have "Stand In" candidates listed and that lead to more confusion with the public. Most people are NOT going to sign for candidates they never heard of and who were going to be replaced by OTHER candidates later. Who OUR candidate were and why other people were listed was something for political insiders, and political junkies, which made it hard to collect valid signatures in the public.
 
Greens are considering a "Registered Write in" campaign forcing local officials to count each write in vote for McKinney.

#end of release#