The Best Candidate Series: Cynthia McKinney

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Too bad, DNC & RNC, you missed the boat. The Green Party has beat you to the punch with a trifecta of "First Woman", "First Black Person" and "First All Black Ticket" of any political party in America. The fact that Cynthia McKinney and her Running Mate Rosa Clemente will be on enough state ballots to concieveably win just adds to it. McKinney accepted the party nomination on Aug 18, so she beat Obama as the First Black Nominee by over a week. Cynthia McKinney is the nominee for the Green Party. She served two separate terms in the US House of Representatives, serving the people of the 4th and 11th Congressional Districts in Georgia as a Democrat. She has a BA in International Relations from the University of Southern California and a Master of Art in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She is currently working on PhD at UC-Berkley. She began her political career as a member of the Georgia State House in 1988 (Her father also served, making them the only Father and Daughter serving simultaneously) . Her first act was to challenge the rule requiring female members to wear dresses, she won the challenge. She also was an outspoken critic of the Gulf War in 1991. She was elected to the House of Reprentatives in 1992 for the people of the newly formed 11th Congressional District, being the first Black Woman Representative of the people of Georgia. She was also re-elected in 1994. In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled that the 11th District was Unconstitutionally gerrymandered because the lines were drawn based solely on the racial composition. The new 4th District re-elected her in 1996. She served until 2002 when she was defeated by Judge Denise Majette. She was re-elected to Congress in 2004, then defeated in her bid for re-election in 2006. In 2007 she officially left the Democrat Party. ~~~~~~~ Cynthia McKinney has a good background that would prepare her well for the responsibilities of the President of the United States. She has the motivation and backbone to take on unpopular issues without regard to what other people might think. I've often said that we need politicians who tell us who they are and what they are about, and Cynthia McKinney definitely fits the bill here. She can hold her own in any discussion, against anyone, anytime. ~~~~~~~ That's her bio, lets get to the issues... ABORTION: Basically, she never met an abortion she didn't support. ~~~~~~~ ECONOMY: Her position on the Economy is that the US government squanders its revenue on military and wasteful spending. She also supports the Congressional Black Caucus's on economic empowerment for minorities, and for policies that would encourage home ownership and participation in the global marketplace. Apparently she feels that the only real economic problems in the US is the Military and what she considers racial barriers. Her plans to fix the economy would all include racial quotas. I really doubt she'd have much interest in anything that didn't involve more money and incentives to minorities. ~~~~~~~ JUSTICE: She is against the death penalty, because it is based on race and economic class. She has supported life sentences, but has changed her position on that in favor of alternatives to prison, even for violent offenders. She has supported legislation to reduce federal funding for violent offender imprisonment by $61 billion. The same amount would be donated to the Boys and Girls Clubs and Drug Courts. Scored 80% by CURE (Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants). She sees police in minority neighborhoods as "occupiers". More funding and stricter sentencing for hate crimes. ~~~~~~~ Her idea of justice seems to be to help get convicted criminals back on the streets as soon as possible. I agree with her that the line between the death penalty and a long prison sentence is often a matter of race or who can afford the best lawyers, but I disagree with her on incarceration. It's better to keep a violent offender off the streets longer than to try to prevent them from victimizing more people after they get out. I also have to laugh at her for her hypocrisy. She wants lighter sentences for violent criminals, unless they happened to say something racial during the attack. Police are occupiers? ~~~~~~~ ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT: She is against domestic drilling, building new refineries and nuclear power. "Keep the oil in the soil". Would work to immediately implement Kyoto and CAFE standards. "I would make sure we had a program to encourage organic farming. I would also like to see some money set aside in the Farm Bill for damages to black farmers and other minority farmers for discrimination that USDA admitted to. The attorneys received millions of dollars. I would eliminate genetically-modified foods. I would also look at our land and water use policy--because some of what we are doing is absolutely not sustainable." We need an entirely new paradigm that encourages us to produce green, local, and fairly; most importantly we need true, representative government that serves the needs of the people over that of corporations so that these policies can become law. ~~~~~~~ Basically she would keep the price of energy down by government regulation. Energy must be produced using "green" altenatives. She doesn't seem to have any plan for the time between now and when her "green" alternatives are viable. She wants the government to regulate energy production and prices... but seems to think that energy is plentiful, even if you don't actually produce any. I guess she thinks only people in tropical areas should eat citrus fruits. ~~~~~~~ Cynthia McKinney isn't really running to win the White House. An interviewer asked her about her goals. Her answer was "5% of the vote makes the Green Party, not a minor party in the eyes of the federal government, but a major party". So her goal is 5% of the Electoral votes. I can't say I support much of McKinney's ideas here. Like too many race activists, she preaches about how race shouldn't matter, but then makes it the only thing that seems to matter at all. Almost every part of her political views are centered around race. She does make some decent points though in her acceptance speech though. The Republicans and Democrats as a whole haven't seemed too interested in fixing the problems of voter fraud, the national debt or deficit spending. While she goes way too far in accusing Prs. Bush and our government of orchestrating the attacks of 9/11, the 9/11 Commission was a waste of time and money, amounting little more than a CYA operation for officials in both parties. I can't say I support her, her party or their cause, but I do hope they can get the 5% they're looking for. If nothing else than to wake people up. Cynthia McKinney: http://votetruth08.com/ Green Party: http://www.gp.org/index.php