"Aaron Dixon, a black community activist and icon of Seattle's political left for nearly 40 years, is running for the U.S. Senate, posing what could be a potent threat to Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell's chances for re-election.
Dixon, 57, a co-founder of the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1968, is announcing at a news conference Thursday his candidacy for the Green Party nomination. In a close general election, he conceivably could peel enough liberal votes from Cantwell to help hand the election to Republican businessman Mike McGavick.
In other words, Dixon could do for McGavick what another third-party candidate, Libertarian Jeff Jared, arguably did for Cantwell when she unseated Republican Sen. Slade Gorton in 2000. Cantwell won by 2,229 votes, and many Republicans think the 64,734 votes for Jared cost Gorton the election.
"This has got to be great news for McGavick and bad news for Cantwell," University of Washington political scientist David Olson said of Dixon's candidacy. That's particularly so, he said, because Dixon could pull votes from two reliably Democratic constituencies, environmentalists and African Americans."-from the story in today's Seattle P-I.
Update: Goldy on Horsesass.org makes the "green" case for Maria:
"I’d like to ask my Green readers (assuming I still have any)… um… so exactly how “green” does a Democrat have to be before you decide there’s no difference between them and the Republican? I mean… take a look at Sen. Cantwell’s ratings from some very green organizations:
100% from NARAL (2005)
100% from the ACLU (2004-05)
100% from the Leadership Conference On Civil Rights (2001-05)
100% from American Association Of University Women (2001-04)
100% From Brady Campaign (2001-03)
100% from Children’s Defense Fund (03-04)
100% from Sierra Club (03)
98% from US Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG) (2004-05)
95% from NAACP (2005), 100% (2003-2004)
95% “liberal quotient” from Americans For Democratic Action (2005)
93% from Human Rights Campaign (2001-04)
90% from the League of Conservation Voters (2005)
“Wildlife Hero” from Wildlife Action Fund."
2 comments:
You can have the highest average in the class but, if you scored really low on your math test, you probably have a problem in math. My point is, voting to stop drilling in Alaska does not offset voting to authorize George W. Bush (or any other president) sole authority to send Americans to war. You are welcome to believe differently but you cannot negate my feelings. By the same token, you can stand (with the total state delegation) against more tankers in Puget Sound, but that does not offset being the ONLY DEMOCRAT in the state to vote to re-authorize the stripping of our civil liberties via the Patriot Act.
I realize that I will get the same bad votes from McGavick with none of the good ones and that is why I am supporting Mark Wilson in the primary. Perhaps, if Mark wins the nomination, it might be enough to cause the Greens to reconsider their support for the Democratic candidate.
Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue
ijiMaria definitely has a problem, for me, with the Iraq war. But I think I will get A LOT more "good" votes from her than from McGavick. Plus, since she is a Democrat, if they achieve majority status, control in the Senate passes to them. That will impact the committee leadership and structure and change the agenda in that body.
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