Roger,
You underestimate the difficulty and expense of getting on the ballot by
petition signatures for example in California do you need it 10% of the number
of people who voted in the last election for governor.
As an aside are there any other socalists in West Virginia?
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 23, 2015, at 1:23 PM, Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender
"rogerbailey81" for DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Well, it was pointed out here that Gloria La Riva has appeared on the
California ballot numerous times when she was running for various posts. Not
being a Californian I am not sure of this, but I think she is prone to appear
on the ballot on the Green Party ballot line. I am not sure that is the
correct thing to do. She is a member of the Party for Socialism and
Liberation. In that capacity she is running to facilitate the PSL's efforts
at agitation and propaganda. The PSL also advocates independent political
action by the working class. Now, if you look at a ballot and see a name
under the Green Party line then just what party do you assume the candidate
is a part of? Which party do you assume that the candidate is promoting? Yes,
I know that getting on the ballot under the line of your own party is
difficult, but I see that as an opportunity for propaganda too. I have
circulated such petitions for ballot status myself and I know that to a lot
of petitioners it is a chore and the activity is all around getting as many
signatures as possible in the allotted time. Personally, I remember that is
we get on the ballot we are not going to be elected anyway and if the whole
purpose of getting on the ballot is for propaganda purposes then it makes
sense to take advantage of any opportunities to disseminate propaganda even
if it slows down signature collection. That is why when petitioning if
someone wanted to talk I would stop and talk instead of just getting rid of
the person so that I could go on to the next signature. There is often a lot
of room to explain what the candidate is all about. Here in West Virginia
there is the Mountain Party. That was founded in the 1990s when Denise
Giardina ran for governor. She actually ran as an independent and her main
platform plank - in fact, nearly the whole platform - was to oppose
mountaintop removal. The trouble is that when filing if she had filed as an
independent her ballot line would have existed for that election alone and if
she wanted to run again it would mean petitioning all over again so she
founded the Mountain Party. It consisted of her and her supporters, but state
law stated that if a candidate for governor got at least, I think, two
percent of the vote then the ballot line would remain until a candidate on
that ballot line failed to get that percentage. Denise quit running for
governor, but she specifically said that anyone could have the ballot line so
that anyone who wanted to offer an alternative to the Republicrats could file
under that party and get on the ballot. In practice the Green Party took it
over such that now the Green Party in West Virginia is the Mountain Party.
The PSL is not active in West Virginia, but I suppose that if they were they
would run Gloria as a Mountain Party candidate. But how would people identify
Gloria La Riva? She would be identified with the Mountain party and, of
course, the Green Party people would be upset at her. Anyway, when I asked
you if you would consider Gloria La Riva I did so only because she is the
only best candidate that I see right now. It is still early, though, and I
expect that others will be announcing and I will prefer someone else. As for
learning more about her, you can google her for one thing. But let me say
something about how I choose the articles I post here. I read the radical
left press on line and when I am doing so if an article strikes me whether I
agree with it or not I go ahead and post it here. As you have probably
noticed I usually read the entire issue of The Militant, not always, but when
one of the articles appears here that means that I just read it. I don't
always have the time to read the whole thing. I read others of the radical
press too, so that means that as time passes I am likely to post more
articles about Gloria's candidacy and others too as they come along.
On 9/22/2015 11:59 PM, Bob Hachey wrote:
Hi Roger,
Gloria La Riva was indeed not on the Massachusetts ballot. I will endeavor
to learn more about her and do know that I could write her in.
However, I do feel very closely aligned with the Green Party.
Bob
