[One more short one. Then I’ll return you to your regularly scheduled Anybody But Bush Again programming.
The Green Party’s nominated candidates are laying it on the line for the values and principles that they advocate. John Edwards talks about “Two Americas” – Pat LaMarche lives it. Actually, I think John Edward’s “Two Americas” speech leaves out the “Third America” – people like the ones Pat encounters in this article, who aren’t just struggling, but are completely wiped out. I’m proud to have my party’s banner carried forward in 2004 by people like David Cobb and Pat LaMarche.
Oh yeah…
Pat on the Bush Administration:
“The bums need to go. Period. End of sentence. They’ve got to get fired. It’s
the worst administration in the history of the United States of America. And
it’s run by cowards.”
Pat on the Democrats:
“Well, you know, I think your toaster oven would be better. And you’d get
toast. An occasional Pop Tart. So, they can’t help but be better. Will they be
better enough? No. If they would be better enough, I’d be a Democrat.”
-Thomas]
Pat LaMarche feels left out
And not just because Dick Cheney and John Edwards wouldn’t let her debate
with them
David Cobb, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, resorted last Friday to
civil disobedience, getting himself arrested in St. Louis while ambushing the
second presidential debate of the campaign. That’s the kind of tactic you
need to get attention in the presidential campaign if you’re a third-party
candidate. It’s clear that getting ballot status in 28 states and representing a
party that collected 2,882,995 votes in the last presidential election isn’t
enough.
Cobb’s running mate, Maine’s Pat LaMarche, took a slightly different tack.
She decided to embark, on September 21, on her “Left Out” tour, during which
she would sleep either on the streets or in homeless shelters in 14 cities
across the US, “to raise awareness about America’s least-privileged citizens”
because “no vice-presidential candidate has ever been bold enough to walk in
their shoes.”
Sure, it was a bit of a public-relations gambit, but LaMarche hardly took the
easy way out. She traveled by herself, with fellow Greens picking her up at
airports and helping her with transportation but then dropping her off to fend
for herself in what were possibly dangerous situations. As LaMarche herself
notes in the following interview, women are raped after only an average of 11
days on the streets. LaMarche spent a total of 14, winding up in Cleveland on
the day when John Edwards and Dick Cheney debated there, while the rest of the vice-presidential candidates had their own debate across town.
[…]