Some of us have always regarded with some suspicion the way in which the Greens seem to have a habit of choosing to run candidates in narrowly Labour-held council wards.
In the US, the links between the Greens and the Republicans are blatant, as this news today shows:
"SANTORUM-FUNDED GREEN PARTY CANDIDATE FOR U.S. SENATE THROWN OFF BALLOT
Commonwealth Court Judge James R. Kelley has ordered the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate to be removed from the ballot because the party did not have enough valid signatures in its nominating petitions.
Carl Romanelli's bid was backed by Rick Santorum [extremely right wing senator for Pennsylvania], who hoped that Romanelli could siphon votes from Bob Casey. Recent polling has shown Romanelli receiving between 3-5% favorability.
Romanelli admitted that Republican donors, including many of Santorum's donors, provided most of the $100,000 he spent collecting the signatures required to be on the ballot. Judge Kelley has ruled that he ended up 8,931 signatures shy of 67,070 he needed to qualify as a minor-party candidate.
The Pennsylvania Democratic Party filed the lawsuit that spawned a six-week review of about 3/4 of the 94,000 signatures gathered, saying they included fake names, unregistered voters and illegible signatures.
Pennsylvania law requires minor-party and independent candidates to collect a number of signatures equal to 2 percent of the ballots cast for the largest vote-getter in the last statewide election. This year's threshold, because it is based on Casey's record vote count in winning the treasurer's office in 2004, was set at an unusually high number.
Romanelli has released a statement saying that he will challenge the ruling in the Supreme Court."
Makes one wonder whether Nader's 2000 Green presidential bid, the net result of which was Al Gore losing to George W, was as straightforward as it looked.
you really now have fallen off your rocker if you genuinely believe that Ralph Nader was/is in cahoots with Bush.
ReplyDeleteNice try. Why don't you talk about how you and hackney labour are addressing crime and ASB in Hackney.
Talk to us about what we really want to hear about.
It is alleged that in Stroud a leading Tory advisor helped to finance the Green Party's 2005 campaign. David Drew only squeaked home over the Tory by 350 votes and lost not a few votes to the Greens.
ReplyDeleteMake one wonder does it not?
"Some of us have always regarded with some suspicion the way in which the Greens seem to have a habit of choosing to run candidates in narrowly Labour-held council wards."
ReplyDeleteConsidering they're a separate party, I think it's ok for them to field candidates even in Lab marginals. Then it's up to the voters to decide if they want to vote the Greens and let the tories in or stick with Labour to keep the tories out.
And I think in Lab/LD seats, a Green candidate presence tends to damage the LD more than Labour in some places.
Kris
ReplyDeletewithout taking away from the tragedy of the murder in Holly Street and the need to stop it happening again, crime in Hackney as a whole is going down sharply. The figures are here:
http://www.met.police.uk/crimefigures/boroughs/gd_month%20-%20mps.htm
A Republican friend of mine from Texas used to help the Greens on the basis that if they ever qualified for matching funding, it would destroy the Dems.
ReplyDelete