Georgia Green Party gives McKinney the nod
by Nigel Roberts
Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney won seven out of eight delegates May 3 at the Georgia Green Party nominating convention. McKinney now has a total of 167 delegates, 148 more than her closest party rival.
Harry Rezzemini, secretary of the Georgia Green Party, said McKinney won overwhelming support because of name recognition among Greens in Georgia. “She also has an excellent track record in advocating our values,” he added.
Party administrators used the single transferable voting method, sometimes called the instant runoff method. It allows voters to rank the list of candidates in their order of preference. After all the votes were tallied, McKinney earned enough first place votes to win seven of the eight delegates. Kat Swift, a party candidate from Texas, placed second and won one delegate.
Rezzemini said that many in the state party were pleased that McKinney, a former Democrat and six-term member of Congress, representing Georgia’s 4th Congressional district, joined the party and entered the presidential race. “We were pleased to have a candidate of high caliber,” he said. “We hope that McKinney’s leadership would help us to educate a broader range of voters about the Green Party.”
While McKinney’s path to the party’s nomination seems clear, many of her backers hope to avoid contention at the national party’s convention. “Advocates for Ralph Nader might try to derail McKinney’s nomination,” Rezzemini stated. A former Green Party presidential candidate, Nader announced in February that he would seek the presidency as an independent—not as a Green. But his announcement came after 61 percent of California Green Party members nominated Nader at its state convention, winning 102 delegates. In subsequent state races, some party members have voted for Nader as a write-in candidate.
But McKinney holds the overall lead. Combined with delegates from Hawaii, Michigan, Virginia and Wisconsin, Nader now has 113 total pledged Green Party delegates. McKinney has 167.
“Nader has some headstrong supporters who say he needs our support,” Rezzemini said. At the 2004 national convention Nader supporters tried to get an official Green Party endorsement of his independent bid for the presidency. Some in the McKinney camp are concerned that Nader supporters may try again to obtain the party’s endorsement at this year’s national convention, to be held July 10-13 in Chicago. |
